Every Sunday we repeat in our Creeds our faith in the Catholicity of the Church. It is one of the four so-called “notes” of the Church, without which the Church cannot be the Church. Somehow, we all believe it, of course, but we are not quite sure what we mean by it, or if we mean anything different from the Methodists or Roman Catholics when they say the same thing. We all know that words mean what peoples and cultures have made them mean by certain use throughout the centuries. The word “Catholic” has been subjected to many pressures, and means different things to different peoples, each claiming truth for their interpretation. We must be clear in our own minds what we mean and why we mean it. A simple example will suffice. Recently, I had occasion to preach on the life of St. Patrick, whose missionary labors established the Church in Ireland in the 5th century of the Christian era. An honest comment afterwards was made to me as to how we could esteem him as a saint of the Church when he had been a Roman Catholic. I had to point out that categories of thought of today do not apply to situations fifteen centuries ago, that he was indeed a Catholic Christian, but that his Catholicity was far removed from that now defined by the Church of Rome. The Anglican Communion draws her ideals and definition of Catholicity from the ancient and undivided Church, when Catholicity was a living reality, when it was a word freshly applied to the new and vigorous Church of Christ, untrammeled and uncorrupted by centuries of conflict and dispute. Quite apart from the claims of our Church, there certainly is merit in discerning the original meaning of a word to know if one is using it correctly centuries later. 

We go back, then, not to Holy Scripture, but to Greek culture to find the origin of the word “Catholic.” It may disappoint you to find that the word Catholic nowhere appears in all of Holy Scripture, with the possible exception of the title or inscription of the So-called Catholic Epistles (i.e. to no particular Church, but to the Church as a whole), and even there it is omitted in \Westcott and Hort’s edition of the Greek Testament. This may disturb those who firmly believe with the VIth Article of Religion that “Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.” The Catholicity of the Church is most certainly an article of the Faith required to be believed for salvation at Baptism with profession of all the articles of Christian faith as contained in the Apostles' Creed. However, we are quite safe in the clause, “nor may be proved thereby;” for the universal mission of the Church is so well attested in every page of the New Testament that I will not even stop to prove it with citation of texts. If anyone would quote against such a sweeping statement the clear word of our Lord to the Syro-phoenician woman that He was not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, we must answer that we are using the adjective “Catholic” not of Jesus of Nazareth in his earthly ministry, but of His mystical Body the Church which, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, is explicitly sent to fulfill a universal mission which He began in Israel. “Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” Everything in the Book of Acts and in the Epistles shows the Apostolic Church struggling to obey that command, and break the bounds of Judaism. The New Testament closes with the Johannine writings, which unfold a vision for the salvation of all mankind and the creation of a new heaven and a new earth. 

Thus, when the infant Church searched around for one word to express its universal mission for formal statement in its articles of baptismal faith in the second century A. D. in the sub-Apostolic age it settled on a word of Greek rather than Hebraic origin, perhaps to make absolutely clear that the Gospel was for the whole world, and not for the Jews alone. Katholikos meant “general or universal, for all, the entire” in the Greek language, deriving from Kata (concerning) and holos (the whole). Thus, translated into English it is rightly defined by our Catechism in the Book of Common Prayer when applied to the Church as meaning “Universal, holding earnestly the Faith for all time, in all countries, and for all people, and is sent to preach the Gospel to the whole world.” When not applied to the Church the word “catholic” is still occasionally used in its pristine sense in such a statement as that a man has catholic tastes, i.e. broad and comprehensive, sharing interests of all mankind, not a part. 

We find the word first applied to the Church in the Epistle to Smyrna of St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch and martyr, in the beginning of the second century when the structure of the visible Church was first beginning to emerge under the government of bishops, the successors to the Apostles in jurisdiction and authority in the local churches. The passage is so important that I quote it in full: “But avoid all divisions (or schisms) as the beginning of all evils. See that ye follow the bishop even as Jesus Christ does the Father; and the presbytery (or priests) as ye would the apostles; and reverence the deacons as ye would the command of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist which is administered either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude (or the people) also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate a love-feast; but whatsoever he shall approve of, that is also pleasing to God, so that everything that is done may be secure and valid.” To me this is an immensely telling passage. I want to assure you that in the translation of the Apostolic Fathers made by Jesuits and receiving Cardinal Spellman's Imprimatur the words are substantially the same, the meaning of the words exactly the same. 

The Ignatian Epistles were very important for the whole ancient Church. Ignatius himself undoubtedly was a disciple of St. John, and certainly was contemporary with other Apostles. Everywhere throughout his seven Epistles (considered genuine) there is constant reference to the local bishop as the center of unity in the Church, and the necessity of submission to the bishop to maintain that unity. Certainly if the center of unity and Catholicity were the bishop of Rome rather than the local bishop, somewhere Ignatius would have taken pains to say so. It is the local bishop with whom he associates the Catholicity of the Church. In his Epistle to the Romans he makes no reference whatsoever to the bishop of Rome, nor does he attach any importance to that see or mention it as the see of St. Peter; although in the opening address he does esteem the Church in the city of Rome very highly both in honor, as located in the imperial city and in love, as reflecting the charity of Jesus Christ. That the Church in Rome held that position in the ancient world, none is prepared to deny. But, that that is equivalent to the present claims of the Bishop of Rome cannot possibly be maintained with reason and honesty. I labor this point because Ignatius was the first of the Fathers to use the term “Catholic,” and everything about his Epistles, both in tone and explicit utterance establish the Anglican concept of Catholicity as gathered around the bishops of the Church, rather than the Roman concept as gathered around the see of Rome, to which all other bishops are subject. The inner life of the Catholic Church is Jesus Christ; the outward expression of His authority is the bishop. If Ignatius had held to present Roman doctrine, he most certainly would have said “The bishop of Rome,” all the more because he readily admitted the preeminence of the Church in Rome. His silence on a matter which is the keystone of Roman doctrine is eloquent for Anglican and Orthodox rejection of Roman claims. 

In the “Martyrdom of Polycarp,” who was the bishop of Smyrna, and died for his faith in his home city at about 150 A.D. we find frequent references to “The Holy and Catholic Church” in the sense in which we understand it, and use it in the Creed as being simply the universal fellowship of all Christians. Polycarp prayed for the “whole Catholic Church throughout all the world,” which sounds much like the English liturgy asking our prayers for the “Whole state of Christ's Church, militant here on earth.” He is spoken of himself as having been an apostle and prophetic teacher, and bishop of the Catholic Church which is in Smyrna.” The head of the Church, as our catechism says is Jesus Christ, for Polycarp now “blesses our Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of our souls, the Governor of our bodies, and the Shepherd of the Catholic Church throughout the world.” 

When we come to Irenaeus writing around 180 A.D. against gnostic heresies we find witness that all Divine Truth is entrusted to the Apostolic Churches (plural) from which no man may differ on matters of faith without falling into heresy. “It is within the power of all, therefore, in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world, and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and to demonstrate the succession of these men to our own times.” (Book III, Against Heresies ch. 3, 1—) (Note how Apostolicity is attached to Catholicity and Catholicity to Orthodoxy.) “For they (the apostles) were desirous that these men should be very perfect and blameless in all things, whom also they were leaving behind as their successors, delivering up their own place of government to these men.” He goes on to say that as he cannot for lack of time reckon the succession of all Churches, he selects the Church of Rome (the imperial city) which has the advantage of double Apostolic foundation in Peter and Paul as well as being the great church of the west to which all travelers came, and therefore a sort of clearing house for apostolic teaching. Irenaeus lists off the bishops of the Church in Rome showing continuity in that Church with the Apostles. “In this order, and by this succession, the ecclesiastical tradition from the apostles, the preaching of the truth, have come down to us. And this is most abundant proof that there is one and the same vivifying faith, which has been preserved in the Church from the apostles until now, and handed down in truth.” This is, of course, the universal or Catholic and Apostolic Faith. 

Here for the first time in the fathers do we find any inkling that agreement with Rome is any standard of Christian faith and truth. But even as he is saying this, Irenaeus makes clear in the very next sentence that he means this in a sense utterly different from that now claimed by the Bishop of Rome. For he goes on to say, “But Polycarp also was not only instructed by the apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of Smyrna, whom I saw in my youth,—having always taught the things which he had learned from the Apostles, and which the Church has handed down, and which alone are true. To these things all the Asiatic Churches testify, as do also those men who have succeeded Polycarp down to the present time.—For how stands the case? Suppose there arise a dispute relative to some important question among us, should we not have recourse to the most ancient Churches with which the apostles held constant intercourse (and most were in the East, only Rome in the west), and learn from them what is certain and clear in regard to the present question?” Now it is clear that the Universal Church is the home of Divine Truth revealed by our Lord to His Apostles, and that Apostolic Churches have a special line of communication with that Revealed Truth, especially in the person of their bishops, the Apostles' successors. As the Church struggled against heresy in the ante-Nicene (325) period the word “Catholic” began to gather overtones of orthodoxy to it; because that was orthodox, as against heretical, which had everywhere been received in the Church. Christian truth was Catholic truth, and both were closely associated with Apostolicity. 

The shadow of the Church of Rome begins to color the word Catholic only insofar as it was the great Church of the West, known for its Apostolic foundation, its greatness, its charity, and its orthodoxy. While the lighter shadow of the Bishop of Rome colors the word Catholic only insofar as he is the natural spokesman for that Church, the highest authority in it, and the successor of Peter and Paul who founded it. It is a far cry to 1870 when the whole process is reversed, and it is made out by Pius IX that the Catholicity of the whole Church rests in his person and utterances, the Church resting on the infallibility of the Pope rather than on the sure foundation of Apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone. I mention this because the whole massive edifice of papal claims in the ancient, medieval and modern world has so colored our language and the meaning of the word “Catholic” that even in Webster's dictionary it is said to mean since the Reformation, “pertaining to or designating that body of Christians, or that Church, of which the Pope, the bishop of Rome, is spiritual head” as the first meaning and only secondly “pertaining to or designating a body of Christians belonging to any of various churches, which claim apostolic succession in their historic episcopate.” Following its first definition, thus Catholic Church is defined in Webster's as “that body of Christians of which the Pope, the bishop of Rome, is the head.” No such definition appears in the Apostolic or sub-Apostolic Fathers I have quoted, where the word Catholic is first applied to the Church; and since they first used it they ought to know in what sense they meant it. I take it that theirs was the correct sense, and the present Roman Catholic the false sense. 

The history of the growth of the claims of the Bishop of Rome from this slight shadow. reflected in one paragraph of Irenaeus to those claims made by Innocent III in the Middle Ages cannot be traced now. It is enough to say that the shadow grew darker and larger in the ancient Church in the West although it never was allowed to overcast the Church in the East. Catholicity in the West gradually was defined by referring less and less to what the whole Church was believing and doing, and more and more to what Rome was believing and doing, and more specifically its bishop. This was a very slow process, and through the whole ancient world up through the first four general councils and to the collapse of the Empire in the 5th century Catholic meant universal, and not papal. It was only as the institution of the Church replaced the Empire as the source of order in human life in the West, and the Papacy replaced the Emperor as the fount of that order and authority that the Papacy made imperial claims to jurisdiction over the whole Church, government over other bishops, as well as being arbiter of Catholic truth. Even then the claims were nothing like what were made in the medieval and modern period. It is the actual history of the Western Church and the increase of papal claims that have corrupted the word “Catholic” from its pristine purity in the fathers with its meaning of “universal” to its present connotations of “papal.” They are in my opinion as opposite as black is to white. 

Although it is impossible to discuss all the ancient fathers who set forth the true concept of Catholicity, I want to mention just one whose teaching has had a great influence in the English Church. He is Vincent of Lérins, a Gallic Churchman of the 5th century, who wrote a treatise against heresies shortly after the Council of Ephesus (431). In this famous period of theological controversy over the person of Christ, Vincent discusses the “notes” which distinguish Catholic truth from heresy. It is not what the Bishop of Rome lays down, but rather that which is believed “quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus”—“everywhere, always, and by all.” That is a threefold test carefully reflected in our own definition of Catholic which we find in our catechism—everywhere—in all countries; always—for all time ; and by all—for all people. Consensus fidelium, universal consent, is still our standard of orthodoxy. We must skip the medieval period, not because the Church ceased to be the Church in the Dark Ages so-called, but because nothing new is added to the concept of Catholicity except a hardening of the papal institution and claims in the West with the growth of the Holy Roman Empire, and a complete rejection of this development in the East in the 11th century with the break between Constantinople and Rome. Skipping to England in the 16th century, we find the wonderful awakening of Renaissance learning in the Church turning men like Erasmus, Colet, and Thomas More back to Scripture and the ancient Church to find the errors of medieval accretions. With the contemporary rise of nationalism in the secular order we find Henry VIII overthrowing the papal institution in England in the name of true Catholicity and the principle of local jurisdiction in ecclesiastical affairs. As we have seen from the Apostolic Fathers this was the principle by which the Church lived in its most vigorous period. Not for one instant did any of the Tudor or Stuart kings, nor the theologians of the English Church in this period of Reformation in the Church, imagine that their protests against Roman domination were a protest against Catholicity. It was clearly and by statement a protest for true Catholicity against papalism and late medieval developments in religion. The fathers of the English Church in the 16th and 17th centuries always harked back to the ancient and undivided Church against the Church and Bishop of Rome, which had obscured and obstructed this Catholicity by its arrogance and pretensions. For them the opposite of Catholic was heretical, and the opposite of Protestant was papal. Their view is clearly set forth in Article XIX “Of the Church.” “As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred: so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matter of faith.” The Church in England under local jurisdiction of Crown and Parliament (of which Bishops were powerful and ruling members in the House of Lords at that time. and laity in the Commons were all members of the Church as well as of the nation), was willing to extend friendly hands towards any Church in any nation pure in faith and morals, and maintains this open friendliness to this day. Its local government does not prevent comradely relations with other Christian Churches of other lands now any more than it did in ancient days between Antioch and Smyrna for instance, so long as that principle is universally recognized as true Catholicity. The barrier to such relations is set up by Rome which requires absolute submission to the Roman see as a sine qua non of Christian fellowship, a concept entirely foreign to primitive Catholicity and the greatest single barrier to complete fellowship among all Christian people to the present day. 

After the turmoil of the reigns of Edward VI and Mary Tudor following Henry VIII, the Church in England settled down under Elizabeth I, acknowledging her as Supreme Governor. That this was not a transfer of papal powers to the English throne will be seen by later developments. The State may seem to have taken over jurisdiction in ecclesiastical affairs under the Tudors and Stuarts. We cannot deny this tendency under the extreme impetus of the vibrant new nationalism, and the great assertion of the royal power as a symbol of that spirit, welding a people together, and carrying them forward under that dominion. Yet the Church emerges in later centuries as mistress of her own affairs; and the governorship of the Crown, and later the State (in its representative body, Parliament) will be limited to the temporalities of the Church. Under Elizabeth I the ideal of comprehending all Christians in one state and Church was pressed as a great goal for a struggling and growing nation. Comprehensiveness was a political policy, and a wise one for the circumstances of that time, but is not to be confused with Catholicity, which is a doctrine of the Church for all time. Comprehensiveness foundered on the rocks of papal absolutism and Puritan rebellion. When Elizabeth was excommunicated in 1570 by the Bishop of Rome and her subjects absolved from civil allegiance to her. Romanists were of necessity a danger to the State as well as to the Church, and beyond the pale of both the civil and spiritual commonweal. Under the Stuarts first the Independents and then the Presbyterians took themselves out of regular Church jurisdiction by denying Episcopacy, which we have seen the ancient Fathers related so closely to Apostolicity and Catholicity. However, by a slow and painful process beginning with the Great Rebellion and Civil War in 1641 and going through the Restoration in 1661 and the Glorious Revolution in 1689, Dissenters were slowly restored to the English civil commonweal and, we trust and hope, will in God's good time be restored to her spiritual body. English Roman Catholics after 250 years of estrangement finally proved their civil loyalty enough in the 19th century to be admitted again to civil office. It was a matter of working their way back, and the same will apply to the more serious and basic offences against the spiritual commonweal, the Catholic community of Christians in England. Comprehensiveness as a state policy never was understood by Anglican fathers as a violation or corruption of the Catholicity of the Church. That is an essential, being enshrined as an article of the faith in the Catholic Creeds found in the Prayer Book. We do not compromise essentials. The English Church has a maxim that well describes its position, “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.” Insofar as the state policy of Elizabeth of comprehensiveness has influenced and characterized the English Church since her reign, it is in regard to the second category of non-essentials in faith and morals. Incense, crossings, surplices, vestments, ornaments do not make Catholicity (although they may help in setting forth before the eye and ear), and the lack of them do not make heresy. The simplest service or parish of the Church is just as Catholic as that richest in ornament if it is of the Church at all. It must be of the Catholic Church, as we all profess in our Creed, for there is no other. Comprehensiveness as a spiritual policy in the Church, adopted from a political policy in the English state, is allowable only when it is consonant with Catholicity to which it must always be subservient. (See Article XX, “The Church hath power to decree rites or Ceremonies.”) Being things in their own nature indifferent, ceremonies can and have been changed and will be in the future. In this area the Church may be comprehensive, trusting the Spirit of Wisdom which fills the whole Body to guide her as to how much variety in usage is good and salutary for her children. The Preface to the American Prayer Book states, “It is a most invaluable part of that blessed liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free” that in His worship different usages may without offence be allowed, provided the substance of the Faith be kept entire—and that the particular forms of Divine worship, and the rites and ceremonies appointed to be used therein, being things in their own nature indifferent, and alterable, and so acknowledged “on certain times and occasions alteration may be made therein.” In this area we are on firm ground in advocating comprehension, not in the rule of Faith, as explicitly stated. We can be Catholic and Protestant at the same time only insofar as Protestant means evangelical in spirit and inclined to simplicity of worship, not when it means opposed to the Catholic faith. 

Under the period of English national influence in the 16th to 19th centuries there is no doubt that Erastianism, i.e. State control and influence on the Church, colored, but did not destroy the Catholicity of the Church. The bishops were often too much state officers, and not enough fathers in God to the Christian people, and the Church was too often but the spiritual arm of the State. But in 1787 she asserted her true Catholicity and essential freedom from the State by consecrating White and Provost of the U. S. bishops for jurisdiction outside the dominion of the English king, and thus demonstrated her concern “for all peoples, in all countries.” If this had not been done that which was naturally English and particular in the Church might have overcome that which was supernaturally Catholic and universal in the mission of the Church. Her assertion of her true nature has been amply justified and proved in the last 150 years as the Church has established herself in America, India, Africa, Brazil, Porto Rico, Japan, the Philippines, etc. among peoples with no connection whatsoever with English language, culture or sovereignty; and has made her Catholic faith indigenous to these people, as to her own in the British Isles. 

Despite this clear assertion of her Catholicity the Erastian infection was not so dead that it did not gravely disturb the Church in England in the 19th century. Keble’s sermon in Oxford in 1833 on “National Apostasy” evoked the specter of a Church unable to preserve her bishoprics, as Parliament acted to abolish Irish bishoprics that no longer served a useful spiritual purpose. It was an unreal specter. Nevertheless, a dangerous principle contrary to Catholic order was being invoked, even though in a reasonable and just cause. “This is the greatest treason, to do the right thing for the wrong reason!” The Oxford Movement set the Church to recovering her full dignity and status with control over her own affairs, which most would agree has been accomplished to all intents and purposes in England, although the legal fiction of State control remains as long as establishment continues. No one, however, now regards it as a serious threat to the Catholicity of the Church, and in countries other than England, it does not even exist. 

The unfortunate particularity of the English State relation to the Church did have its price in defection to Roman obedience of some English Churchmen, as the truth of Catholicity was partially obscured by Erastianism. It led Newman to compare the English Church to the semi-Arians and to invoke St. Augustine's famous phrase (in his controversy against the Donatists) against his Mother Church—“Securus indicat orbis terrarum”—the secure world (the universal church) judges the partial (the particular or schismatic). Rome appeared to him as the world; the English Church, virtually limited to the English state, to be the particular and partial, and therefore not Catholic. It was a grave error. Rome is particular, as all authority and tradition stems from one see. The Church in England, though insular, at least had the wisdom of many sees in one land, and in essence and principle already had asserted her independence of that land, and extended her fellowship to non-English sees across the ocean. Only a few extra-English sees had then been established, but the principle had been asserted; and more and more sees have been and will be established, and with them the actual worldwideness of the Church, and dispersion of authority—as against the particularity and localization of authority in Rome. Then it will be more clearly apparent that Augustine's judgment tells against the see of Rome and its claim. 

As geographical insularity has been overcome in the last 150 years, so must lingual and cultural insularity, for both impair the Catholicity of the Church. Fellowship with those who worship in different tongues, and with different cultural heritages will deepen and enrich the Catholicity of the Church. Already the Churches of the East and of Africa and S. America are making contributions to the wholeness and health of the whole Body that is required to give full and free reign to the Holy Spirit to guide us unto all Truth. So long as the dispensation of the Spirit was in a certain way limited to English peoples by the actual communion of English Catholic Christians only with other English Catholic Christians there was something lacking in our grasp of the whole truth which is in Jesus. Actual communication with Spirit filled Christians and whole bodies of Christians, i.e. Churches, members of the whole Church, enriches our actual grasp o Catholicity. Such real contacts as the Lambeth and Anglican Congresses provide have and will enrich our understanding of Catholicity. The extension of arms of fellowship to the Orthodox Churches of the East and the non-Episcopal Churches of the West will, with care, enrich, and not endanger, our grasp of the fullness of Divine revelation. This is the purpose of our participation in the ecumenical movement. Finally, our confrontation with the Roman imperium will bear fruit, for the Spirit will not be frustrated in His will to make us all one. The true function and setting of the see of Rome in the Divine order, so long obscured by human arrogance and pretension, will be revealed so that the universal Church may acclaim it rather than abhor it. Then all our “knowledge in part” shall be greatly enlarged, and we shall know more perfectly, as the knowledge of the whole informs every member. It was necessary in the purposes of God that the parts in different nations and peoples be estranged for a season that the peculiar contribution of each might be fully and freely developed, unhindered by the imperium of the Latin Church and Roman see. But as that is overthrown, and the kernel of Divine truth is disclosed beneath the impediment of erroneous accretion, the Roman see may yet serve as a focus for the universal Church, as a glass gathers the multitudinous rays of the sun together to shed a brighter light. If so, and only history can tell, the witness of the Roman Church through its long history will not be lost, but will inhere in the whole in the proportion God has ordained for it, as we do and shall inhere in the whole in the proportion God has appointed for us.