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Roman Church

With estimates of over a billion followers - open to all peoples and all cultures - and demonstrates its commitment to the successor of St. Peter as Bishop of Rome , the Pope .

Summary

Definition

The Roman Catholic Church is first defined as a " church "is to say the community of all those, dead or alive, who are faithful to their baptism , then, as the Creed , it looks like being "one, holy, catholic and apostolic." "A", that is to say that it considers itself the only institution founded by Christ in order to gather the people of God , " holy "because of the sanctity of his relationship with God as the bride of Christ, "Catholic", a Greek word meaning "universal" in that it aims to bring the message of the New Covenant to all peoples and the entire Earth , and "apostolic" as it was founded by the apostles to continue their mission apostolate. It optionally adds "Roman" to distinguish it from other churches that use the title of Catholic, Anglican Church primarily considered himself to his foundation as the Catholic Church in England.

A feature that characterizes the Catholic Church is the special authority of the bishop of Rome , called the pope , the faithful recognition for the successor of Peter , the apostle to whom Jesus Christ entrusted the mission to build his church with these words: "Peter, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church. The gates of hell shall not prevail against it. "

According to the Apologetics Catholic Church that this would have been entrusted with the transmission and interpretation of Scriptures , the prophecies , and especially the Revelation . This Church relies both on scripture and the apostolic tradition , "and the other one must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of love and respect. " . She claims to have a special grace enabling him to know the truth in religious matters. These truths are summarized in the Creed (or Apostles' Creed ) and it defined the dogma over the centuries. On those two points, the Catholic Church differs from the doctrine of free inquiry and the principle of sola scriptura ("Scripture only"), which states that the truth is in the biblical texts, and only there.

The Church teaches that Jesus is both "true God and true man, he is the Messiah (or "Christ") announced by the prophets, that as the Son of God, he served in the incarnation, human nature with the Father and the Holy Spirit are one God ( Trinity ) . This design, as the other monotheistic religions reject, accuse Christianity has developed a doctrine based on three polytheistic deities.

Whole mission of the Catholic Church is accomplished through the Eucharist which is the "memorial of the Passover of Christ, updating and the sacramental offering of his unique sacrifice (...)" , sacrifice was to save all men . Participation in this sacrifice is the source and summit of Christian life . The Catholic Church proclaims that by the sacrifice of Jesus, all men were rescued and are free to choose the path shown by Christ in that it is opposed to designs that say the men have a destiny plotted in advance - philosophies of predestination supported by the Calvinist or Jansenist - or that some men would have more chance of being saved than others (see the article on the doctrine of salvation ).

The Catholic Church dedicates a devotion peculiar to Mary , the mother of Jesus. This devotion is widely shared with the Orthodox Churches , is a point of contention with the churches of the Reformation.

Details of vocabulary

  • It is important to distinguish the church (with a lowercase) which is the building used for worship and the church which is a set (of believers), and may designate a diocese , or a group of dioceses, or even a combination combinations. For example, the Maronite Church is all believers (grouped into dioceses) of this tradition. The Catholic Church understands itself the Latin Church (or western) , and the Eastern Catholic Churches (as, for example, the Maronite Church).
  • The epithet "Roman" is used to distinguish the Catholic Church (the Christians in union with the pope) from other forms of Catholicism emerged in the course of history. But usually the members of this church do not use the adjective "Roman", simply calling themselves "Catholic." Thus the Church has published the " Catechism of the Catholic Church "without specifying" Roman "it is the same in other official documents, such compositions .
  • The Eastern Catholic Churches are an integral part of the Roman Catholic Church ("Oriental" is not opposed to "Roman", but "Latin").
  • Etymologically, the word "catholic" means universal. Originally, the term applied to that effect with the Church Universal Church. By extension, this word has been extended to refer to "the faithful of the universal Church." But this would be a contradiction to believe that, under the pretext that this word means "universal," every believer should consider himself personally "universal."

History of the Catholic Church

Ecclesiology

The Catholic Church believes that the apostolic succession , it is the continuation of the Apostles (Apostolic Church). Indeed, the Apostles appointed bishops , their successors, who have appointed themselves to other successors, the whole constituting an unbroken succession of bishops until today. For the Catholic Church, every bishop is the successor of the Apostles : it supports a local church (the diocese ) on which he will watch. The Catholic Church is thus marked by a strong culture Church.

In fact, she considers that the Church founded by Christ is perpetuated in the Catholic Church , or rather it is a permanent institution which remains forever through the ages without any discontinuity of apostolic succession in preserving full faith and unity of believers.

The pope is the bishop of Rome, successor of Peter. As such it is the first of the bishops, and must ensure the unity of the Church. The Roman Catholic Church consists of all the local churches where the bishop is in communion with the Pope.

Universal management, or international, the church is assumed by the Pope and all bishops, meeting in council convened by the ecumenical pope. The councils are rare, called for exceptional moments. Most of the government of the Church is the Holy See, which lies mainly in the City of the Vatican (see Government of the Roman Catholic Church ), which the pope is also the head of state.

The Roman Catholic Church recognizes as "the only livelihood of the early church founded by Jesus Christ "(Dominus Jesus) by" apostolic succession continues "of early Christianity (see early Christianity ). She considers ownership, alone, "the fullness of the deposit of faith" whose doctrine was set during the first seven ecumenical councils. It also considers to be alone "fully mediator of salvation." Any jurisdiction where it is installed is entirely its canonical territory. She claims to have authority over all other Christian churches and claims that they recognize the primacy him in dignity (Pastor Aeternus, 1870 , Title III). This is one reason why she declined for the moment any accession to the World Council of Churches that since Vatican II it had adhered to the principle of ' ecumenism.

Ordination and Priesthood

All Catholics have received the anointing of baptism , supplemented by chrismation or confirmation , the priesthood baptismal makes them "priests, prophets and kings." In addition to the Sacrament of Orders gives some of its members a priestly ministry. These two priesthoods are different and complementary.

"While the common priesthood of the faithful is exercised by the unfolding of baptismal grace, a life of faith, hope and charity, a life according to the Spirit , the priest serves the ministerial priesthood common, it is relative to the deployment the baptismal grace of all Christians. "

- Instruction on Certain Questions Regarding the Collaboration of faithful lay people in the Department of priests , Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican City, 1997

In addition, under certain vows, baptized undertake some special way to serve God, the Church and the world by vows of poverty , chastity and obedience , especially in religious orders.

We can distinguish:

  • ordained ministers;
  • the baptized laity;
  • consecrated.

see clergy and laity of the Roman Catholic Church

Faith of the Roman Catholic Church

The dual source of faith

The Catholic Church teaches that God has definitively revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. As recalled in Dei Verbum, access to this revelation is a double source, Scripture and Tradition.

The Scriptures

For the Catholic Church, the Bible is divinely inspired human speech and therefore it is really the Word of God. Scripture (the Bible) is comprised of the first and the new Alliance. First Alliance is composed of religious texts Jews prior to Jesus Christ. It is the Jewish Bible plus the Deuterocanonical books ( Apocrypha for the Reformed Churches ). The texts of the New Testament ( Gospels , Epistles , Apocalypse ) are after Jesus. Its content is the same as that of other Christian churches.

The Catholic Church remains particularly attached to the Latin translation of the Bible by St. Jerome called Vulgate , which was further updated in 1979 by John Paul II. Meanwhile, Catholic translations of the Bible in local languages have multiplied.

Specialized Course: Scriptures

Tradition

Benedict XVI , pope since April 19, 2005.

Being expressed in the language of cultural communities at the time of writing, and reserved for themselves only by the Old Covenant , institutions, rituals, laws and promises of the Bible have been intended also to all other peoples of the Earth by the New Covenant.

One of the principles on which Jesus is the most clashed with the Pharisees was that criticized some of the ancient Jews have continued the tradition of a purely formal, betraying its true purpose and having lost all his content that was in the works of justice and redemption. In doing so, Jesus criticizes the form of idolatry that is the formalism, and demonstrates that the law of Moses has a spirit that can be independent of his letter and uses in which it is embodied. But instead, like the Essenes or much later pietistic , to conclude that the Act must be seen in a kind of abstraction purely contemplative, seeking a spirituality free of any form, Jesus shows that It attaches great importance to the incarnation or representation in rituals, parables or symbols , which his life and his sacrifice will be the model. And it takes two things that will give Christianity its revolutionary character and universal: the first is that within the letter of the law without keeping in mind the Pharisees have betrayed the covenant that God made with their fathers, and a second alliance must be made with them, and the second is that, if the spirit of the laws was independent of the shape of institutions, the Alliance could also be sealed with other peoples, and the Holy Spirit take shape in other languages or other institutions as well as in those of the Hebrews. Thus the New Testament is there the Old Law cleared of heredity of Abraham, language and ethnic traditions in order to be extended to all other nations without adopting them as language, habits and customs of the Ancient Hebrews.

In order to make this new plan and allow the religion of the ancient Jews to take form and embodied in language, institutions, techniques, schedules and customs of all other nations, that Jesus founded his Church as a temporal institution responsible to bring to all people a religion which shall not thereby be transformed into so many different religions, but remain unique, since different ways of expressing the same truth. The evangelization of the Gentiles should not be done by violence, destruction to replace, but with gentleness and charity conserving and Christianizing their manners, their customs, their sanctuaries, their language, their laws, their arts, and renewing their long tradition. The first and easiest transposition was the translation of Holy Scripture, or their content in languages other than Hebrew or Aramaic, Greek and Latin. But then, these are all pagan religions, all their parties and all their places of worship that were Christianized, that is to say, profoundly transformed, and then stored as Christian institutions.

What was the particular way the Gentiles to translate and express faith from their own traditions, are also contained in what the Church preserves and passes from generation to generation. The Second Vatican Council reaffirms that Tradition explains the Scriptures, does not constitute another source of his doctrine, but he remains intimately linked:

"Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture make up a single sacred deposit of the Word of God entrusted to the Church Confessions, or professions of faith
Main article: Occupation of faith.

In the Gospel now, many contemporaries of Jesus say their faith in him. At Caesarea Philippi, Peter professes: "You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God" (Matthew, 8, 16). After the resurrection of Jesus and Pentecost , he announced: "This same Jesus whom you crucified, God has made Lord and Christ." (Acts 2, 36).

From these embryos, and faced with questions, the Church has developed various syntheses of faith. Today, two remained:

  • the Apostles' Creed , the baptismal formula of some communities that generalizes the Roman tradition around the year 170. A pious legend traces back to the apostles;
  • the Nicene-Constantinople , developed by the first three councils after the great Trinitarian and Christological debates of the Third and Fourth Centuries , this text puts an end to debate and formulates conclusions. The Council of Constantinople developing the profession of faith in the Holy Spirit and the Church. It contains in particular the article: "I believe in one holy, catholic and apostolic." The interpretation of "Catholic" in this text is the subject of debate among Christians as churches and times. She goes "universal" proper "Roman."

Professions of faith have a role not only doctrinal but also mystical and liturgical. For them, the Church reiterated his confidence (faith) in God and reaffirms the great mysteries of Christian faith:

  • the Trinity (one God in three distinct persons);
  • the Incarnation (Jesus, true God and true man, born of Mary);
  • the redemption (Jesus saves us by His death on the cross and resurrection).

That is why adherence to these texts and what they say is a necessary condition for being part of the Roman Catholic Church. So not only are they studied (see the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992)), but they are also taken by the Catholics at their baptism and confirmation and repeated each Sunday mass.

Prior to the Great Schism of 1054, these texts are used by many other Christian churches.

Faith and Doctrines

From the Council of Chalcedon , the Church has not added any items to the professions of faith. But the Catholic Church later defined a number of issues of faith that are considered essential to assertive member of the Church. In this sense, the Catholic Church is a church dogma.

Dogmas are accurate and their articulation is legally codified. Among the specific dogmas Roman Catholic Church enacted since 1054 are:

Specialty

Liturgy

The Catholic liturgy is the set of acts, symbols and words by which the Church helps men to publicly worship to God and transmit the knowledge of God to men. For Christians, liturgy puts man in direct relationship with God. See detailed article on the Catholic liturgy.

The Catholic Church, although the strict rules of worship, including collective worship which is the main church , a liturgy filled with history which is divided differently in different traditions. There are primarily a tradition called " Latin "tradition and" Eastern ". The Latin rite is primarily the Roman rite , but it also comes in Ambrosian rite , the Mozarabic rite , romano-Lyon, Carthusian , Dominican , etc.. The Eastern rites are essentially: Maronite, Melkite, Syriac, Coptic (see Eastern Catholic Churches ).

Theology

View specialty items

Currents within the Roman Catholic Church

Apart from the various churches claiming to Catholicism, is home to several streams, which can be both secular and regular:

Regular Orders

The main regular orders are:

See also: List of regular orders Catholics

Other communities

  • Catholic Action movements: associations of Christians in social settings (ACI, ACO, etc.).
  • New Communities: Movements and communities composed of religious and / or laity. They were born in the course of the twentieth century in the momentum of Vatican II.
  • Liberal, whose emblem in Europe is NSAE ("We are also the Church"). This movement was born in speaking countries ("Wir sind Kirche"), fighting for a greater role of the faithful laity within the Church and for reforms on the issue of remarried people, homosexuals, the celibacy of the clergy and the admission of women as priests, the Association Lgaut Marcel , a current Liberal / Progressive within Catholicism. See article Catholic reformers.
  • The movement called Liberation Theology : Catholic progressive move away from a conservative Catholicism in favor of a way in which political action is seen as a requirement of religious commitment in the fight against poverty. Theorized from 1972 by Gustavo Gutierrez , the current theological advocates the liberation of peoples and thus intends to revive the tradition of Christian solidarity. This current Latin American, mainly composed of Dominicans and Jesuits is accused by his detractors of being inspirations Marxists and theologians are often at odds with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, like Jon Sobrino.
  • Doctrinal
  • margins of the Church
    • Society of St. Pius X , fundamentalist current created by the Archbishop Mgr Lefebvre who opposed the ideas of the Church and consecrated Bishops to perpetuate his vision of tradition at odds with Vatican II. It was thus excommunicated by Pope John Paul II in 1988 for schismatic act (separately) by not following the new church. Fraternity celebrates Mass before the Council ( Tridentine Mass ) and denies the religious liberty, ecumenism and dialogue with other religions.

Situation of the Catholic Church in the world

Politics

Because of the political ambition of the popes and character noble dignities and ecclesiastical degrees, the temporal history of the Roman Catholic Church is interwoven closely with the history of the West , until the spring of peoples.

Long temporal power, the Roman Catholic Church is increasingly concentrated on his spiritual mission. Since Pastor Aeternus , 1870 , the ambition of the symbolic substitute for the exercise of temporal power, progressing according to its relations with governments as with other religions. Show: Fight the priesthood and the Empire.

In 1929 , Pope Pius XI signed the Lateran Treaty with the Italian State that grants the existence of the State of Vatican. Since Paul VI , the Popes have left the tiara , crown representing the papal temporal power, spiritual power and authority over the princes. It still appears on the arms of the Vatican State.

The Catholic Church is always present in international political institutions ( UN , Europe). She sometimes plays a mediating role in some conflicts.

The Catholic Church and the social question in Europe in the nineteenth century

Finally, the Catholic Church is also involved in social matters, especially since the formulation of its social doctrine in the nineteenth. See detailed article.

By country or continent

Europe

The main structure is the Conference of Bishops of France , or EFC
  • In Europe, there are:
    • The Council of European Bishops 'Conferences (CCEE), which serves the collegiality of bishops' conferences in Europe,
    • The Commission of Episcopal Conferences of the European Community ( COMECE ), which aims to create links with the European authorities for the information of European Bishops' Conferences. She has an office in Brussels.
    • The Catholic Information Office and European Initiative (OCIPE), which was founded in 1956 at the instigation of Archbishop Weber, bishop of Strasbourg, told the Society of Jesus.

Africa

Asia

Oceania

Middle East

Number of Catholics worldwide

The number of Catholics in the world is estimated by the Vatican to 1,098,366,000, up 45% since 1978 , which broadly corresponds to the rate of evolution of the global population .

Chart: estimates by continent , expressed in millions of Catholics.

Evolution by continent millions of Catholics

Contemporary Debates

Relations with other religions

For other Christian churches:

Specifically concerning relations with Judaism , the Catholic Church has recognized that some of his followers had sinned:

"We deeply regret the errors and failures of those son and daughters of the Church. We adopt the words of the Declaration Nostra Aetate of the Second Vatican Council, which states unequivocally: "The Church can not forget

See for more details: Christian anti-Judaism in history

The Church realizes that the stance of the early Christian centuries of certain personalities (see supercessionism ) are no longer appropriate. She is aware that a renewal of theology is necessary in this area, and it has been ongoing since the postwar period and the Second Vatican Council (Declaration Nostra Aetate on relations with other religions, 1965 ).

Other contemporary debates

References

  1. According to the 2009 World Fact Book, CIA , Catholics account for 16.99% of 6.79 billion human beings inhabiting the earth.
  2. What is the definition of the word 'Catholic'
  3. Frankly, the title of this page is a Roman Catholic Church anglicism. In his signature to official documents the Pope simply adds bishop of the Catholic Church See also

    Bibliography

    Related articles

    External Links

    Doctrine
    Religious History
    • Yves Congar , The Church, From St. Augustine to the modern era, ed. Cerf, 1997, full text online
    • Paul Poupard , president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, Art Peter and Paul to the origins of the Church of Rome, in Clio.fr, April 2002 [3] by Paul Poupard, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture.
    Apologetic


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