Talk:One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church

Four Marks

In the Roman Catholic Church, these are the "four marks of the Church". They do NOT exclusively apply to the western (Roman) in my understanding; all Christians are part of the one universal church! (This is an important point, I think. Why make this article emphasize contention? Our differences in practice, or organization, seem insignificant when held against our unity of creed.)

p.s., Perhaps the statement that these are the "four marks.." would read better if moved within the article?

(a few google hits at "faithfully R.C." sites I recognise, for your consideration:

• http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15179a.htm
• http://www.ewtn.com/faith/Teachings/churb2.htm
• http://catholic.com/library/pillar.asp )

PEACE & BLESSINGS! ~citizenDAK 16-Jun-2006

I used the Template:Bibleverse (see http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Talk:Roman_Catholic_Church#Referencing ) to specify the Catholic "NAB" translation for the page's bible verse references. Did I do it right? CARITAS! ~citizenDAK 22-Jun-2006

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Deletion Discussion

I deleted this article and someone reinstated it again. Okay, it's discussion time.

1. This topic does not need it's own article. Whatever information is finally chosen to appear in Wikipedia would duplicate what is already said, with broader context, in Christianity, Catholicism and Nicene Creed.

2. The title words should not be capitalized. This may be the source of the confusion. The word catholic simply means 'universal', meaning the worldwide Christian church that all Christian sects regard themselves as members. If you have heard the Eastern Orthodox church holds an exclusive right to use the term, I am not aware of it. I believe the Roman Catholic church and the Eastern Rite of the Catholic church use a lower case 'c' in catholic in the Nicene/Apostle's Creed, but I'll check on that.GUllman

Redirecting this topic to Catholicism seems to suggest that the term applies only the Roman Catholic Church, which seems to be strictly the Roman Catholic point of view. The Eastern Orthodox Church does believe that it is the visible manifestation of the one holy catholic and apostolic church. See http://www.oca.org/pages/orth_chri/Q-and-A_OLD/Original-Christian-Church.html and http://www.oca.org/pages/orth_chri/Q-and-A_OLD/branchtheory.html for a couple of representative Orthodox perspectives.

I agree with you about the capitalization, and I'm not sure that it's the "title" per se that is at issue. Wesley 20:03 May 5, 2003 (UTC)

1. From the contents which I have just read, I can see no problem with having this article.
   
   
2. It is regularly capitalised, particularly when used in this context, to highlight the key features in the phrase, that it is One, Holy Catholic (an old word for universal), is a Church, and is based on the concept of the Apostolic Succession. The whole point of capitalisation is to highlight key nouns, key terms, etc. Five words in this phrase have key definitionary relevance to understanding what it phrase means, which is why when used in this context it is regularly capitalised. ÉÍREman 20:27 May 5, 2003 (UTC)

Titles should capitlized to reflect the words as they are originally used. According to the World Book Encyclopedia and the Catholic Almanac, all the words are in lower case, except the word 'catholic' is capitalized in the Catholic version of the Apostle's Creed. It is lower case in the Catholic printing of the Nicene Creed, as well as other Christian denominations printing of both creeds. GUllman

Most words in the Creed have "key definitionary relevance", as the Creed was very carefully worded. But the English language doesn't normally highlight key nouns, only proper nouns. It would be a proper noun if it were a name of a denomination, but as far as I know it's not. Eh. I could go either way on the capitalization; that's not the main point. Wesley 20:58 May 5, 2003 (UTC)

The World Book is a legend for its unreliability (I grew up reading it!). From its right wing political agenda in the Cold War to its current notorious factual inaccuracies (on its CD-ROM version it plays the wrong Irish national anthem!!!). As to the Catholic Almanac it depends on which version, and whether it follows US style capitalisation (which generally does not use capitals much, to the rest of the world which does and dislikes American English's refusal to do so) or British English/Hiberno English etc capitalisation rules. On this page, we are dealing with a definition of a term. In standard english, capitalisation is normal and in other definitions of this topic, it is capitalised to highlight the key words that the reader needs to spot in the title. Not using capitals to highlight the importance facts in a definition, as opposed to usage, is seen by many english-speakers as amateurish, and in following America's styles on the issue, yet more wiki americocentrism.

To be honest, I am not pushed on this article's existence either way, but I haven't seen anything in it that is unnecessary and it may develop into something useful. I think Wesley's rewrite is typically competent. It might be worth mentioning the Anglo-Catholic atitude; it certainly insists that the phrase here applies to it as part of the Catholic as opposed to the Roman Catholic Church. ÉÍREman 21:10 May 5, 2003 (UTC)

Jtdirl, Please add the Anglo-Catholic attitude, as you seem to be more familiar with it.

I looked at our wikipedia version of the Apostles' Creed, and it seems to say only "..., the holy catholic church, ..." rather than the full "one holy catholic and apostolic church". The shortened form is also how I (vaguely) remember that creed from my long ago Lutheran days. Should we remove mention of the Apostles Creed since it doesn't contain the phrase this article is about, or keep it but say that it has a shortened form of the phrase? Wesley 21:04 May 6, 2003 (UTC)

There are a number of creeds. I know the 'one, holy catholic and apostolic church' is used in one of them though I cannot for the life of me remember which creed uses that particular phrase. Re the Apostles Creed. I'm not sure if it is correct to say it has a shorted version of the phrase, or whether later creeds may have expanded it. I'll check the text and add in a mention if necessary to the Anglo-Catholic attitude. ÉÍREman 21:59 May 6, 2003 (UTC)

I have re-written the opening paragraph to be clearer and included mention of the 'Anglo-Catholic' beliefs. Any observations? ÉÍREman 22:30 May 6, 2003 (UTC)

Overall it's a good rewrite. The Apostles Creed also omits the word "one"; it might be less confusing to just quote the Apostles Creed version instead of explaining which bits are left out. I'll do that, plus a couple minor edits. Thanks for your work. Wesley

Catholic vs. Roman Catholic

Here's a thought. This whole article might be better off under the title "Catholic". Mind you, the number of pages that link there when the mean "Catholicism" is kind of scary. However, I think we could also do with seperate articles on Catholicism and Roman Catholicism. Bagpuss 17:06 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

I don't think that is the best solution, because this phrase is used also by the various protestant churches, but is interpreted differently. They might not appreciate being linked in to a Catholic page in the event of a merger. ÉÍREman 20:16 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

But isn't catholic the word under discussion? Bagpuss

speaking only for myself, of course, this Protestant has no problem with this topic being merged into Catholic, or parcelled out to Apostolic and Church as may be fitting. Mkmcconn 20:35 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

Mkmconn, I was meaning to ask what you thought of this article. ;-) All six words are under discussion, otherwise it would have been put in Catholic to begin with. ;-) If it needs to be a subtopic in another article, I think I would suggest Church, since that's the noun in this phrase. But I don't really care that much. Wesley 20:53 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

My position is relatively simple. There ought to be a single article that is entirely about the ecclesiastical organisation headed by the Pope. There also ought to be a general article about "Catholicism" that discusses Protestant, Anglo-Catholic, Orthodox, and Roman opinions on what the word means. The article on the Pope's denomination needs to identify itself as Roman, even if it discusses groups that do not follow a Roman Rite but who still claim the Pope as their head, since the Pope's claims to pre-eminence stem from his being the bishop of Rome, plus hte notion that Rome is entitled to rulership over the whole world. Any attempt to obscure the Roman-ness of the Papacy or of the Papacy's claim to universal authority is inherently NPOV; since it assumes the universal dominion of Rome qua Rome. --- Smerdis of Tlön 08:05, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)

This makes sense to me. Wesley 16:02, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• I revised the first paragraph to include a statement relating to the marks of the church. With respect to the previous discussions on catholicity I would like to comment on how oxymoronic the phrase "Roman Catholic" sounds. In deference to its true Greek meaning, the term "catholic" as used in the Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed and the Apostle's Creed should be in lower-case. Aloysius Patacsil 06:20, Aug 4, 2004 (UTC)

I just reverted the anonymous deletion of this sentence from the paragraph discussing "catholic":

The majority of other Protestants interpret "catholic" in the sense of "for all people", possibly adding "according to the whole", to some extent. In their interpretation, Catholic is not a reference to anything that could be construed as institutional unity.

The sentence seems to be at least mostly accurate, as well as highly relevant. Any reason why it should be removed? Wesley 15:59, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

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The Greek version given doesn't seem to have any equivalent of "One" as far as I can tell. Is it missing, or is this interpolated in the English translation? If so, is it correct to identify "oneness" as one of the qualities stressed in the creed? Reuben 06:47, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Anglicans

I can't see that many, save some on the fringe, would seriously contend with the definition that apostolicity includes both the Church's descent from the apostles and the apostolic succession of bishops. The failure of other denominations to take this definition in its fulness has scuppered reunion dialogues in the past - see Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral. Fishhead64 02:39, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Protestants

I attempted to adjust a one sided POV concerning Catholicity and Protestants. To be sure there are many Protestants that deny the visible, organizational, and historical unity of what they call the Church, but there are other Protestants that do not deny these things. The article did not express this and was fairly one sided when describing the Protestants and Catholicity. I welcome comments and rewrites.

New Graphic - Survey

I have set up a survey on the new graphic at the Schism talk page; I didn't then realize it was being used on other pages. It is probably sensible to centalize discussion - the Survey is here Johnbod 03:55, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 16:21, 9 November 2007 (UTC)