Catholicity
That Catholicity is a prominent note of the Church is evident from the Apostles' Creed, which declares: “I believe in the Holy Catholic Church.”
The word Catholic, meaning universal, signifies that the true Church is not circumscribed in its extent like human empires, nor confined to one race of people as was the Jewish Church, but that she is diffused throughout every nation of the globe, and numbers among her children all tribes, peoples, and tongues of the earth.
This glorious Church is foreshadowed by the Psalmist when he sings:
“All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him. For dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations.” [56]
The Prophet Malachi also beheld this world-encompassing Church in the distant future when he wrote:
“For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering; for my name is great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.” [57]
When our Saviour gave His commission to the Apostles, He assigned to them the whole world as the theatre of their labours, and the entire human race—without regard to language, colour, or [030] nationality—as the audience to whom they were to preach.
Unlike the religion of the Jewish people, which was national, or that of the Mohammedans, which is local, the Catholic religion was to be cosmopolitan—embracing all nations and all countries.
This universality is evident from the following passages:
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” [58]
“Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.” [59]
“You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” [60]
These prophecies, declaring that the Church was to be worldwide and inclusive even of Gentile nations, may not strike us today as particularly extraordinary—accustomed as we are to encountering Christian civilisation across the globe and to witnessing the nations of the world so closely interwoven by social and commercial ties.
But we must bear in mind that, when these words were first spoken, the true God was known and worshipped only in an obscure and almost isolated corner of the earth, while triumphant idolatry was the dominant religion across the rest of the world.
And yet, the prophecies were fulfilled.
The Apostles dispersed themselves across the surface of the earth, preaching the Gospel of Christ. As St Paul affirms:
“Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.” [61]
Indeed, within thirty years of our Saviour’s crucifixion, the Apostle to the Gentiles could already write to the Romans:
“First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed throughout the world” [62]—spoken of, assuredly, by those in sympathy and communion with the faith of the Roman Church.
[031] St Justin Martyr, writing approximately one hundred years after Christ, was able to declare that there was no race of men—whether Barbarian, Greek, or of any other name—among whom the name of Jesus Christ was not invoked.
St Irenaeus, writing at the end of the second century, affirms that the religion so marvellously propagated throughout the whole world was not some vague, ever-changing form of Christianity. He writes:
“This faith and doctrine and tradition preached throughout the globe is as uniform as if the Church consisted of one family, possessing one soul, one heart, and as if she had but one mouth. For, though the languages of the world are dissimilar, her doctrine is the same. The churches founded in Germany, in the Celtic nations, in the East, in Egypt, in Libya, and in the centres of civilisation, do not differ from each other; but as the sun gives the same light throughout the world, so does the light of faith shine everywhere the same and enlighten all men who wish to come to the knowledge of the truth.” [63]
Tertullian, with a blend of boldness and conviction, declares:
“We are but of yesterday, and already have we filled your cities, towns, islands, your council halls and camps… the palace, senate, forum; we have left you only the temples.” [64]
Clement of Alexandria, also writing toward the close of the second century, states:
“The word of our Master did not remain in Judea, as philosophy remained in Greece, but has been poured out over the whole world, persuading Greeks and Barbarians alike, race by race, village by village, every city, whole houses and hearers one by one—nay, not a few of the philosophers themselves.”
And Origen, writing in the early part of the following century, observes:
“In all Greece, and in all barbarous races within our world, there are [032] tens of thousands who have left their national law and customary gods for the law of Moses and the Word of Jesus Christ; though to adhere to that law is to incur the hatred of idolaters and the risk of death, yet they have embraced that Word.” And considering how, in so few years—despite the attacks made upon us, even to the loss of life and property, and with no great store of teachers—the preaching of that Word has found its way into every part of the world, so that Greek and Barbarian, wise and unwise, adhere to the religion of Jesus, it is doubtless a work greater than any work of man.
This Catholicity, or universality, is not to be found in any, nor in all, of the combined communions separated from the Roman Catholic Church.
The schismatic churches of the East have no claim to this title, for they are confined within the Turkish and Russian dominions and number no more than sixty million souls.
The Protestant churches—even taken collectively (as separate communions they are but a mere handful)—are too insignificant in number and too limited in territorial extent to entertain any pretension to the title of Catholic. All Protestant denominations are estimated at sixty-five million—less than one-fifth of those who bear the Christian name.
Moreover, they repudiate and protest against the name Catholic, though they continue to say in the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in the Holy Catholic Church.”
That the Roman Catholic Church alone deserves the name Catholic is so evident that it borders on the absurd to deny it. Ours is the only Church that adopts this name as her official title.
We hold possession, which—as the legal axiom goes—is nine-tenths of the law. We have exclusively borne this glorious appellation in troubled [033] times, when the very act of calling ourselves Catholic exposed us to insult, persecution, and death.
To attempt to deprive us of that name now, at this late hour, would be as fruitless as the efforts of the French Revolutionaries, who sought to erase all traces of the old civilisation by assigning new names to the days and seasons of the year.
Passion, prejudice, and bad manners may affix to us such epithets as Romish, Papist, or Ultramontane—but the calm, dispassionate mind, of whatever faith, across the whole world, knows us only by the name Catholic.
There is a power in this name, and an enthusiasm aroused by it, akin to the patriotism awakened by the flag of one’s country.
So great is the charm attached to the name Catholic that even a portion of the Episcopal body sometimes usurp the title, though in their official books they are designated Protestant Episcopalians. If they believe they have any just claim to the name Catholic, why not come forth openly and inscribe it on the title-pages of their Bibles and Prayer Books?
Afraid to go so far, they satisfy their vanity by privately referring to themselves as Catholic. But the delusion is so transparent that the attempt must surely provoke a smile, even among themselves.
Should a stranger ask them for directions to the Catholic Church, they would instinctively point him to the Roman Catholic Church.
The sectarians of the fourth and fifth centuries, as St Augustine tells us, attempted the same pious fraud, but failed utterly.
We possess not only the name, but also the reality.“We must hold fast to the Christian religion and to the communion of that Church which is Catholic, and which is called Catholic not only by those who belong to her, but also by all her enemies. Whether they will it or not, even the very heretics and schismatics, when conversing not with their own, but with outsiders, call that only Catholic which is really Catholic. For they cannot be understood unless they distinguish her by that name by which she is known throughout the whole earth.” [65]
A single illustration will suffice to exhibit, in a striking manner, the widespread dominion of the Catholic Church and her just claim to the title Catholic.
Consider the Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, convened in 1869 and presided over by Pope Pius IX.
Of the thousand bishops and more who then composed the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, nearly eight hundred attended the opening session, the rest being unavoidably absent.
All parts of the habitable globe were represented at the Council.
The Bishops assembled from Great Britain, Ireland, France, Germany, Switzerland, and from almost every nation and principality in Europe. They came from Canada, the United States, Mexico, and South America, and from the islands of the Atlantic and the Pacific. They gathered from various regions of Africa and Oceania. They journeyed from the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates—the cradle of the human race—and from the banks of the Jordan, the cradle of Christianity.
They travelled to Rome from Mosul, built near ancient Nineveh, and from Baghdad, founded on the ruins of Babylon. They flocked from Damascus, from Mount Lebanon, and from the Holy Land, sanctified by the footsteps of our blessed Redeemer.
These Bishops belonged to every form of government, from [035] the republic to the most absolute monarchy.[66] Their faces bore nearly every shade and colour that distinguishes the human family. They spoke every civilised language under the sun.
Kneeling together in the same great Council Hall, those Prelates could truly exclaim in the words of the Apocalypse:
“You were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation.” [67]
What the Catholic Church lost through the religious revolution of the sixteenth century in the Old World, she has more than regained by immense accessions to her ranks in the East and West Indies, and in North and South America.
Never, in her long and storied history, has she been so numerically strong as she is at this very moment—when her children number approximately three hundred million, or double the number of those who bear the Christian name outside her communion.
In her alone is literally fulfilled the magnificent prophecy of Malachi; for in every clime, and in every nation under the sun, thousands of Catholic altars are erected upon which the “clean oblation” [68] is daily offered up to the Most High.
It is often said, and truthfully so, that the sun never sets upon the British dominions. It may also be affirmed, with equal confidence, that wherever the British drumbeat sounds—aye, and wherever the English language is spoken—there you will find the English-speaking Catholic missionary planting the Cross, the symbol of salvation, side by side with the banner of St George.
Quite recently, a number of European emigrants arrived in Richmond. They were strangers to our country, unfamiliar with our customs and our language. Every object that met their eye reminded them painfully that they were far from their own sunny Italy.
But when they saw the Cross surmounting our Cathedral, they hastened towards it with joyful steps. I myself witnessed a group of them giving heartfelt expression to their deep emotions.
Entering this sacred temple, they felt that they had found an oasis in the desert. Once more, they were at home. They had discovered one familiar place in a foreign land. They stood within the church of their fathers—within the spiritual home of their childhood. And they seemed to say in their hearts, as a tear trickled down their sun-browned cheeks:
“How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, indeed it faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.” [69]
They saw around them the paintings of familiar Saints, whom they had been taught to reverence since youth. They beheld the baptismal font and the confessionals. They saw the altar and the altar-rails where they had once received their Maker. They observed the Priest at the altar in his sacred vestments.
They saw a multitude of worshippers kneeling around them, and they felt in their heart of hearts that they were once more among brothers and sisters, with whom they shared “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.”
Everywhere a Catholic is at home.
Secret societies, by whatever name they go, form but a weak and counterfeit bond of union compared with the genuine fellowship created by Catholic faith, [037] hope, and charity.
The Roman Catholic Church, then, exclusively merits the title of Catholic, because her children abound in every part of the globe and comprise the vast majority of the Christian family.
God forbid that I should write these lines—or that my Catholic readers should read them—in a spirit of boasting or vainglory. God estimates men not by their numbers, but by their intrinsic worth.
It is no credit to us merely to belong to the body of the Catholic Church if we are not united to the soul of the Church by a life of faith, hope, and charity. It will avail us nothing to be citizens of the visible Kingdom of Christ, which encircles the globe, unless the Kingdom of God is within us—by the reign of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.
One righteous soul, who reflects the beauty and perfections of the Lord, is more precious in His sight than a mass of humanity that has no spiritual life and is dead to the inspirations of grace.
The Patriarch Abraham was dearer to Jehovah than all the inhabitants of the corrupt city of Sodom.
Elijah was of greater worth before the Almighty than the four hundred prophets of Baal who dined at the table of Jezebel.
The Apostles, with the small band of disciples assembled in Jerusalem after our Lord’s ascension, were more esteemed by Him than the vast Roman Empire, which sat in darkness and the shadow of death.
While we rejoice, then, in the inestimable blessing of being incorporated into the visible body of the Catholic Church—whose spiritual treasures are inexhaustible—let us rejoice even more that we have not received that blessing in vain.
56 Ps. xii.
57 Mal. i. 11.
58 Matt. xxviii. 19.
59 Mark xvi. 15.
60 Acts i. 8.
61 Rom. x. 18.
62 Rom. i. 18.
63 Adv. Hær., i. 1.
64 Apologet. c. 37.
65 St. Aug. de Ver. Rel., c. 7. n. 12.
66 Does not this fact conclusively demonstrate the truth that the Catholic Church can subsist under every form of government? And is it not an eloquent refutation of the oft repeated calumny that a republic is not a favorable soil for her development?
67 Apoc. v. 9.
68 Malachy i. 11.
69 Ps. lxxxiii.