Catholic Church

THE HOLY FATHER The Roman Pontiff, as the successor of Peter, is the perpetual and visible principle and foundation of unity of both the bishops and of the faithful. LUMEN GENTIUM, 23

THE ROMAN CURIA In exercising supreme, full, and immediate power in the universal Church, the Roman pontiff makes use of the departments of the Roman Curia which, therefore, perform their duties in his name and with his authority for the good of the churches and in the service of the sacred pastors. CHRISTUS DOMINUS, 9

Doctrine of the Faith

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o Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei" o Pontifical Biblical Commission o International Theological Commission o Interdicasterial Commission for the Catechism of the Catholic Church Oriental Churches Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments

 Causes of Saints  Evangelization of Peoples •

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Pontifical Mission Societies (International Secretariats)

Clergy Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life Catholic Education Bishops • Commission for Latin America

http://www.vatican.va http://www.catholic.org Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole.[1] [2]Although for many the term usually refers to Christians and churches belonging to the Catholic Church in communion with the Bishop of Rome, for others it refers to continuity "back to the earliest churches",[3] as claimed even by churches in dispute with one another over doctrine and practice such as the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Assyrian Church of the East, the Old Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion.[3] The claim of continuity may be based on Apostolic Succession, especially in conjunction with adherence to the Nicene Creed.[4] In this sense of indicating historical continuity, the term "catholicism" is at times employed to mark a contrast to Protestantism, which tends to look instead to the Bible as interpreted by the 16th-century Protestant Reformation as its ultimate standard.[5] It was thus used by the Oxford Movement.[6] According to Richard McBrien, Catholicism is distinguished from other forms of Christianity in its particular understanding and commitment to tradition, the sacraments, the mediation between God, and communion.[1] Catholicism can include a monastic life, religious orders, a religious appreciation of the arts, a communal understanding of sin and redemption, missionary activity, and always "communion the Bishop of Rome" and the degree or form of primacy that what he calls the Communion of Catholic Churches attribute to his chair or office.[7] McBrien maintains that Eastern Catholic Churches should not come under the heading "Roman Catholic Church" :"The Catholic Church itself is a communion of local churches, known as dioceses and patriarchates, of Roman and non-Roman Churches." Thus "to be Catholic --whether Roman/Latin or nonRoman/Latin -- is to be in full communion with the Bishop of Rome and as such an integral part of the Communion of Catholic Churches." Ibid.356. However, the Popes and the Holy See use the term "Roman Catholic Church" only to mean the whole Church in communion with Rome and never to mean the Latin or Western Church alone. In a speech by John Paul II to President Hillery of Ireland, the Pope referred to the church he headed both as the "Roman Catholic Church" and as the "Catholic Church". The same usage, whereby both terms are used of the Church as a whole is found in papal documents such as the encyclical Humani Generis. In popular usage also, "Catholic" usually means "Roman Catholic",[8] a usage decried by some, including certain Protestants.[9] "Catholic" usually refers to members of all the 23 constituent Churches, the one Western and the 22 Eastern. Newspapers reflect popular usage.

A sacrament, as defined in Hexam's Concise Dictionary of Religion is what Roman Catholics believe to be "a rite in which God is uniquely active." Augustine of Hippo defined a Christian sacrament as "a visible sign of an invisible reality." The Anglican Book of Common Prayer speaks of them as "an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible Grace." Examples of sacraments would be Baptism and the Mass."[1] Therefore a sacrament is a religious symbol or often a rite which conveys divine grace,

blessing, or sanctity upon the believer who participates in it, or a tangible symbol which represents an intangible reality. As defined above, an example would be baptism in water, representing (and conveying) the grace of the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Forgiveness of Sins, and membership into the Church. Anointing with holy anointing oil is another example which is often synonymous with receiving the Holy Spirit and salvation as explicitly described in Mark 1:14-15. Another way of looking at Sacraments is that they are an external and physical sign of the conferral of Sanctifying Grace.[2] Throughout the Christian faith views concerning which rites are sacramental, that is conferring sanctifying grace, and what it means for an external act to be sacramental vary widely. Other religious traditions also have what might be called "sacraments" in a sense, though not necessarily according to the Christian meaning of the term.

Monasticism (from Greek μοναχός, monachos, derived from Greek monos, alone) is the religious practice in which one renounces worldly pursuits in order to fully devote one's life to spiritual work. The origin of the word is from Ancient Greek, and the idea was originally related to Christian monks. In the Christian tradition, those pursuing a monastic life are usually called monks or brethren (brothers) if male, and nuns or sisters if female. Both monks and nuns may also be called monastics. Some other religions also include what could be described as "monastic" elements, most notably Buddhism, but also Taoism, Hinduism, and Jainism, though the expressions differ considerably.

Theological significance Unlike "families" or "federations" of Churches formed through the grant of mutual recognition by distinct ecclesial bodies,[6] the Catholic Church considers itself a single Church ("one Body") composed of a multitude of particular Churches, each of which, as stated, is an embodiment of the fullness of the one Catholic Church. For the particular Churches within the Catholic Church, whether autonomous ritual churches (e.g., Coptic Catholic Church, Melkite Catholic Church, Armenian Catholic Church, etc.) or dioceses (e.g., Diocese of Birmingham, Archdiocese of Chicago, etc.), are seen as not simply branches, divisions or sections of a larger body. Theologically, each is considered to be the embodiment in a particular place or for a particular community of the one, whole Catholic Church. "It is in these and formed out of them that the one and unique Catholic Church exists.

Autonomous particular Churches or Rites There are 23 such autonomous Churches, one "Western" and 22 "Eastern", a distinction by now more historical than geographical. The term sui iuris means, literally, "of their own law", or self-governing. Although all of the particular Churches espouse the same beliefs and faith, their distinction lies in their varied expression of that faith through their traditions, disciplines, and Canon law. All 23 are in communion with the Pope in Rome. For this kind of "particular Church" the 1983 Code of Canon Law uses the unambiguous phrase "autonomous ritual Church" (in Latin Ecclesia ritualis sui iuris). The 1990 Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, which is instead concerned principally with what the Second Vatican Council called "particular Churches or rites", has shortened this phrase to "autonomous Church" (in Latin, Ecclesia sui iuris), as in its canon 27: "A group of Christ’s faithful hierarchically linked in accordance with law and given express or tacit recognition by the supreme authority of the Church is in this Code called an autonomous Church." Communion between particular Churches has existed since the Apostles: "Among these manifold particular expressions of the saving presence of the one Church of Christ, there are to be found, from the times of the Apostles on, those entities which are in themselves Churches (32: Cf. Ac 8:1, Ac 11:22, 1 Cor 1:2, 1 Cor 16:19, Gal 1:22, Rev 2, Rev 1:8, etc.), because, although they are particular, the universal Church becomes present in them with all its essential elements (33: Cf. PONTIFICAL BIBLICAL COMMISSION, Unité et diversité dans l'Eglise, Lib. Ed. Vaticana 1989, especially, pp. 14-28.)" (Communionis Notio, 7).

Local particular Churches In Catholic teaching, each diocese (Latin Rite term) or eparchy (Eastern Rite term) is also a local or particular Church, though it lacks the autonomy of the particular Churches described above: "A diocese is a section of the People of God entrusted to a bishop to be guided by him with the assistance of his clergy so that, loyal to its pastor and formed by him into one community in the Holy Spirit through the Gospel and the Eucharist, it constitutes one particular church in which the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ is truly present and active."[3] The 1983 Code of Canon Law, which is concerned with the Latin-Rite Church alone and so with only one autonomous particular Church, uses the term "particular Church" only in the sense of "local Church", as in its canon 373: "It is within the competence of the supreme authority alone to establish particular Churches; once they are lawfully established, the law itself gives them juridical personality."[4]

The standard form of these local or particular Churches, each of which is headed by a bishop, is called a diocese in the Latin Church and an eparchy in the Eastern Churches. At the end of 2007, the total number of all these jurisdictional areas (or "sees") was 2,789.

The local particular Church of Rome The Holy See of Rome is seen as the central local Church. Its bishop, the Pope, is considered to be the (sole) successor of Saint Peter, the chief (or "prince") of the Apostles. Quoting the Second Vatican Council’s document Lumen Gentium, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: "The Pope, Bishop of Rome and Peter's successor, 'is the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful.'"[9] All the particular Catholic Churches — eastern or western, autonomous (rites) or local (dioceses or eparchies) — are by definition in full communion with the see or local particular Church of Rome. The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome, commonly known as the Pope, and is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and speaks for the whole Catholic Church. It is also recognized by other subjects of international law as a sovereign entity, headed by the Pope, with which diplomatic relations can be maintained.[1] The Holy See is not the same as the Vatican City State, which came into existence only in 1929, while the Holy See dates back to early Christian times. Ambassadors are officially accredited not to the Vatican City State but to "the Holy See", and papal representatives to states and international organizations are recognized as representing the Holy See, not the Vatican City State. While all episcopal sees are "holy", the expression "the Holy See" (without further specification) is normally used in international relations, as a metonym, (as well as in the canon law of the Catholic Church)[2] to refer to the See of Rome viewed as the central government of the Catholic Church. In Catholic theology and canon law, a particular Church is an ecclesial community headed by a bishop or someone recognised as the equivalent of a bishop. There are two kinds of particular Churches: 1. Local particular Churches. A diocese is the most familiar form of such local particular Churches, but there are other forms, including that of a territorial abbacy, an apostolic vicariate and an apostolic prefecture: "Particular Churches, in which and from which the one and only Catholic Church exists, are principally dioceses. Unless the contrary is clear, the following are equivalent to a diocese: a territorial prelature, a territorial abbacy, a vicariate apostolic, a prefecture apostolic and a permanently established apostolic administration."[1]

2. Autonomous ("sui iuris") particular Churches. These are aggregations of local particular Churches that share a specific liturgical, theological and canonical tradition. They have also been called "particular Churches or rites".[2] The largest such autonomous particular Church is the Latin Rite. The others are referred to collectively as the Eastern Catholic Churches. The larger Eastern Catholic Churches are headed by a bishop who has the title and rank of patriarch or major archbishop.

One Western Church The Latin Church or Rite is the majority Rite or particular church within the Catholic Church, comprising roughly 80% of its membership. The Latin Rite is one of the 23 sui iuris particular Churches within the Catholic Church. This particular Church developed in western Europe and north Africa, where, from antiquity to the Renaissance, Latin was the principal language of education and culture, and so also of the liturgy.[1]

Twenty Two Eastern Churches The Eastern Catholic Churches are autonomous (in Latin, sui iuris) particular Churches in full communion with the Bishop of Rome — the Pope. They preserve the centuries-old liturgical and devotional traditions of the various Eastern Christian Churches with which they are associated historically. While doctrinal differences divide these other Eastern Christian Churches, the Eastern Catholic Churches are united in doctrine with each other and with the Latin or Western Church, although they vary in theological emphasis, forms of liturgical worship and popular piety, canonical discipline and terminology. In particular, they recognize the central role of the Bishop of Rome within the College of Bishops. Most Eastern Catholic Churches have counterparts in other Eastern Churches, whether Assyrian or Oriental Orthodox, from whom they are separated by a number of theological concerns, or the Eastern Orthodox Churches, from whom they are separated primarily by differences in understanding the role of the Bishop of Rome within the College of Bishops. The Eastern Catholic Churches were located historically in Eastern Europe, the Asian Middle East, Northern Africa and India, but are now, because of migration, found also in Western Europe, the Americas and Oceania to the extent of forming full-scale ecclesiastical structures such as eparchies, alongside the Latin dioceses. One country, Eritrea, has only an Eastern Catholic hierarchy, with no Latin structure. The terms Byzantine Catholics and Greek Catholic are used of those who belong to Churches that use the Byzantine liturgical rite. The terms Oriental Catholic and Eastern Catholic include these, but are broader, since they also cover Catholics who follow the Alexandrian, Antiochian, Armenian and Chaldean liturgical traditions.

External links

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References 1. ^ Code of Canon Law, canon 638 2. ^ Orientalium Ecclesiarum, 2

3. ^ Second Vatican Council, Decree on the Pastoral Office of Bishops in the Church Christus Dominus,11 4. ^ Code of Canon Law, canon 373 5. ^ Central Statistics Office (February 2008). Annuario Pontificio (Pontifical Yearbook). Libreria Editrice Vaticana. pp. 1172. ISBN 978-88-209-8021-4. 6. ^ Also unlike the situation of those countries within the Commonwealth that consider the British monarch to be their head of state, but are nonetheless fully independent and quite distinct states, not just one state. 7. ^ Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Decree on the Church Lumen Gentium, 23 8. ^ "The particular Churches, insofar as they are 'part of the one Church of Christ' (Second Vatican Council: Decree Christus Dominus, 6/c), have a special relationship of mutual interiority with the whole, that is, with the universal Church, because in every particular Church 'the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ is truly present and active' (Second Vatican Council: Decree Christus Dominus, 11/a). For this reason, the universal Church cannot be conceived as the sum of the particular Churches, or as a federation of particular Churches. It is not the result of the communion of the Churches, but, in its essential mystery, it is a reality ontologically and temporally prior to every individual particular Church" (Communionis Notio, 9). 9. ^ Catechism of the Catholic Church, 882