Communications
COMMUNICATIONS "ROMAN CATHOLIC" New York, N. Y. TO the Editor:—For the past month I have been following with interest the discussion in your columns over the term "Roman Catholic." From the...
...In that case, however, it is the explanation of the anomaly which proves the rule...
...Yet who would say that these two words bear preeminently that connotation today...
...First, it seems that si number of my coreligionists are really offended at being called "Roman Catholic...
...In the second place, many Anglicans, Armenians, Russians and Greeks claimed to belong to the Holy Catholic Church...
...Marshall will find no "due authority" for the latter name...
...We are also indebted to the Church of Rome, for the preservation in the monasteries of the learning of ancient Greece and Rome, when the barbarians invaded Rome to destroy it...
...Rev...
...Does not ordinary politeness demand that people should be called what they call themselves, and is there a single religious body, other than the Catholic Church, to which this rule is not applied ? As pointed out in my previous letter, giving to a Church the name it has itself adopted commits no one to an admission of the full theological significance of that name...
...Boston, Mass...
...How much better is the term "Christian" —to live up to—and mean it...
...TO the Editor:—Mr...
...A brief resume of the discussion will be found in the Life of Bishop Ullathorne and in Butler's History of the Vatican Council...
...But to pretend that Holy Mother Church does not adapt herself to the vicissitudes of temporal polity is to my mind the merest insincerity...
...Marshall read my original letter, in The Commonweal of May 7, he would have observed that I stated that the descriptive designation of the Church adopted, after full discussion, by the Vatican Council, was "Sancta Catholica Apostolica Romana Ecclesia," as in the creed of Pope Pius IV, to which he and others of your correspondents have referred, and that "Sancta Romana Catholica Ecclesia," though at first proposed, was ultimately rejected with practical unanimity...
...From the various observations of several of my coreligionists and separated brethren, I gather that at least two points have been substantiated...
...Whether such a meaning can be given in this case to "probat" is doubtful, but that such a sense was not intended is clear from another expression of the same maxim, which reads, "Exceptio firmat regulam" (Exemption strengthens the regulation...
...Hence I for one confess to being not a little embarrassed when certain of my Protestant friends assure me glibly that they are "Catholics...
...So were "Jesuit" and "Methodist...
...Marshall says that "No fairminded controversialist would use a term which his opponents considered meaningless or opprobrious, once they could be assured in that respect by due authority...
...Some have tried to justify such application by the meaning, "The exception tests the rule...
...That ¦*¦ is a phrase which is the desperate refuge of a man confronted with a case where his general statement is found not to work...
...The exception proves the rule" is not a very good translation of the Latin axiom, "Exceptio probat regulam...
...Ergo, are we not rightly termed "Roman Catholics" ? That "Roman Catholic" was formerly an epithet of opprobrium is wholly beside the issue...
...There are, it is true, certain particular instances that do not conform to a generalization of science or art but can be explained so clearly that the rule is vindicated...
...It is little wonder that many of us objected to the term...
...Philadelphia, Pa...
...John R. Cody...
...Ottawa, Can...
...as no other part of the early Christian Church was more horribly and brutally persecuted than the ancient Church of Rome, during the first three centuries of the Christian era when the streets of Rome were bathed with the blood of martyrs and saints...
...In the centuries when there was but one Church in western Europe, it was undoubtedly accurate to refer to that communion as the Holy Catholic Church...
...In the first place, it was necessary to distinguish carefully those Christians who remained loyal to Rome from those Christians who bowed to the authority of national churches...
...Their Anglican brothers, however, never ceased to rub the description in...
...that nothing was further from my mind than to cause him or her a feeling of "odium" in using the term "Roman...
...But this term now signified some vague unity irrevocably cut off from the stream of historic Christian continuity, according to a bewildering variety of private interpretations...
...Marshall makes the mistake of assuming that the occurrence of the word "Roman" in the descriptive designation of the Church justifies his calling it the "Roman Catholic Church...
...Its use depends upon what anyone means by the word "Catholic...
...Similarly, is there a single Christian denominations that does not hold that its faith is orthodox ? Yet who "for conscience sake" refuses that name to the Orthodox Eastern Church...
...If we call ourselves "Roman Catholics," as we do sometimes, we mean that we are "Roman and Catholic" or "Catholic because Roman" or again "Roman and therefore Catholic...
...And may I add that a dominating factor in bringing about the decision was the representations of the English bishops that the latter form, if adopted, would be taken as giving support to the efforts of English Protestants to force on the Church the name "Roman Catholic...
...W. L. Scott...
...During the late war, the British Catholic chaplains were officially designated as "Roman Catholic...
...Accordingly, in modern times it seems desirable to stress our universality and likewise our recognition of Rome as the true centre of unity...
...TO the Editor:—I dislike to inflict your readers with another letter on the title of the Church...
...David A. Elms...
...But the name that the Church applies and has always applied to itself is "The Catholic Church," never "The Roman Catholic Church...
...With the disruption of Christendom in the sixteenth century, however, the term became inadequate and somewhat misleading...
...Cody makes this plain when he calls the Monophysite Armenians, Armenian Catholics...
...THE EXCEPTION PROVES THE RULE New York, N. Y. 'T1O the Editor:—"The exception proves the rule...
...But they did not intend thereby to acknowledge that there were other Catholics who were not Roman...
...The decision of the Vatican Council is surely sufficient "due authority" to satisfy Mr...
...It is a contradiction of the Faith that he holds...
...Marshall is quite right in his surmise that "the word 'Roman' is not meaningless or opprobrious if it follows the word 'Catholic' " The reason must be obvious...
...but may I have a bit of your valuable space to assure A.R.K...
...Francis P. Donnelly, S.J...
...Edward Hawks...
...To accept the implication meant that we were tacitly denying the Faith...
...On the contrary, there is everything to be proud of...
...Secondly, it appears unmistable that on several occasions the term "Roman Catholic" has been applied even by the Sovereign Pontiff to the members of his own flock...
...It is reasonable to suppose that when a law explicitly exempts certain classes, the lawmaker has had all classes in mind and so wishes the law to hold all the more cogently for those not exempt...
...Had Mr...
...When they call us "Roman Catholics" they mean that we belong to only one of several historic Churches...
...But the case of the Church of England is really no different in that respect from that of any other Christian Church...
...I have preferred to rest the case against the use of "Roman Catholic" on the ground of politeness, and I have purposely abstained from any discussion of what I conceive to be the absolute right of the Catholic Church to the exclusive and unqualified use of the term "Catholic" or universal and the contradiction in terms that is, as I think, involved in the claims of any local or territorial Church to so style itself...
...Be that as it may, Mr...
...It is hard to see where there is anything "odious" in the term or anything to be ashamed of...
...The word "Roman" is objectionable only when it qualifies or limits "Catholic...
...So there is much to be proud of in the term "Roman...
...Mr...
...They consistently corrected anyone who called us Catholics...
...Weak, indeed, would be the literature of today had not the good monks preserved these ancient manuscripts...
...To some of them the term was indifferent, or even useful as a distinguishing description...
...Dooley, when asked whether he was a Roman Catholic, replied "No, thank God, I am a Chicago Catholic...
...for even the term "Catholic" does not signify anything spiritual...
...Marshall...
...And why should the Catholic Church be treated differently—in English-speaking countries...
...But God speed the day when all Christian people will be satisfied in being called Christian, and not be hemmed in by any qualifying or limiting adjectives, such as Greek, Roman, or Anglican, but simply Christian...
...The phrase, "in casibus non exceptis," is often added to the Latin...
...No Catholic could call an Anglican a Catholic...
...No Catholic could call a Monophysite a Catholic...
...Rev...
...It describes for them a Christian who belongs to some Church that antedates the Reformation...
...After all, words do change their meaning in the course of time...
...TO the Editor:—Surely the term "Roman Catholic," though descriptively clear, is ambiguous by implication...
...But with Anglicans the case is different...
...Is there a single Christian denomination that does not hold that it is, or forms part of, "the Holy Catholic Church" of the Creed...
...The true translation of this legal maxim is, "Exemption strengthens the law for all not exempted...
...But the Anglicans, and those who have lately followed their contention, use the word "Catholic" in a different sense...
...The application of this maxim to generalizations or inductions from particular cases in science or art is incorrect...
...The discovery of our newest planet is a triumphant vindication of Newton's law, where irregularity was not an exception at all but an exemplification of his scientific generalization...
...To insinuate that the Roman Catholic Church changes her religious dogma is plainly heretical...
...To ourselves it means exclusively a Christian who is in communion with Rome...
...for if I am not mistaken, the use of "Roman Catholic" is exclusively confined to them...
...Permit me to point out, in conclusion, that there is one sense, and one only, in which the term "Roman Catholic" is unobjectionable and that is when applied to a Catholic citizen of Rome...
...Reeve says that "many good Christians feel that they must use the term 'Roman Catholic' for conscience sake" because he believes that the Church of England "is still Catholic in all essentials...
Vol. 12 • August 1930 • No. 15
