On Catholicism

The Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity

O GOD, forasmuch as without thee we are not able to please thee: Mercifully grant, that thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Feast of Dedication

O MOST blessed Saviour, who didst vouchsafe thy gracious presence at the Feast of Dedication: Be present with us at this time by thy Holy Spirit, and so possess our souls by thy grace, that we may be living temples, holy and acceptable unto thee; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

Every Sunday, when we read the words of the Nicene Creed we proclaim, “And I believe One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.” What exactly does the term Catholic mean there? It’s used in other contexts; does it always mean the same thing? In what sense is the Anglican Church Catholic? There are many meanings to the term, and it’s used differently by different fellowships and denominations of Christians in different contexts.

In modern times, you will often find the term ‘catholic’ used in the creed instead of ‘Catholic,’ and sometimes you’ll even see substituted for it the word universal, or the word universal added in parentheses afterwards. The meaning behind this is simple: catholic means the universal fellowship of all those who hold an orthodox profession of faith in Christ. All that is required is to believe that Christ is the only begotten son of God, that he was incarnate and died for our sins on the cross, and that through faith in Him, we can be saved. There is a truth to this use of the term, but at the same time it does not capture the fullness of the term Catholic. Catholic is more discrete than catholic. What’s more, the rise of the use of the term universal is in large part a result of the rise in the term Catholic in its second context.

One of the most common uses of the term Catholic is when it is used interchangeably with the term Roman Catholic. The term refers to one specific fellowship and tradition, that of the Roman Catholic Church, which has and continues to claim to be the Catholic Church. The problem is that the Eastern Orthodox Church also claims to be the Catholic Church exclusively, and the Anglican Communion and others claim to be a part of the Catholic Church. Because of the predominance of the Roman Catholic Church worldwide and its cultural influence, particularly in the Anglosphere when we’re discussing the context of the English language term ‘Catholic’ there is often an assumption, particularly by Protestants who may otherwise not be familiar with the terminology, that any reference to Catholic is a reference to the Roman Catholic. That is not the case, however.

The connection between Catholic, meaning Roman Catholic, and catholic is in an effort to reassure congregants that when they are professing belief in the catholic (universal) Church, they are not claiming to be a part of the Roman Catholic Church. Among Anglicans, this concern tends to stem from the historic antipathy between Anglicans and Roman Catholics in England during and subsequent to the English Reformation. While in modern times, most of this antipathy has disappeared, some historical mistrust remains, and for different reasons similar antipathy exists in different places between Roman Catholics and Protestants of different denominations. Setting aside the motivations behind a desire not to be confused with being Roman Catholic, the more important failure of this practice is to again conflate the terms Catholic and Roman Catholic, which do have separate meanings.

Related to the term Catholic being used to mean Roman Catholic, there is another somewhat decidedly Anglican use of the term. Some High Churchman and ritualists will refer to themselves as Catholic, in some manner or another, meaning it to refer to their preference towards Roman Catholic style ritualism, without reference to theology. In this, there might be Anglicans who refer to themselves as Anglo-Catholics or Anglican Catholics, or Catholic Anglicans, but who do not support the theology of the Oxford Movement, which is the more defining characteristic of Anglo-Catholicism. Another variation might be the term Liberal Catholics, who again primarily consist of Liberal Christians who term themselves Catholic due to their use of Roman Catholic rituals in their High Churchmanship. While this form of labelling, in reference to practice over theology, can be valid due to its long-term understanding, it still does not appreciate the fullness of the term. You can have a Liberal Catholic Anglican, but that is a representation of a person’s theology and Churchmanship, and doesn’t speak to the Catholic Church at all.

So what is the Catholic Church?

In its fullest sense, when the Nicene Creed says Catholic Church, it is in reference to the once undivided Catholic Church of the first Christian millennium, which encompassed all orthodox Christians from the Apostolic Age up to roughly the Great Schism of 1054. During this period, there were many controversies and in certain senses, the Church was never truly undivided, but what is referenced here is the unity that was found throughout the Christian world. You could enter into any Christian church or house of worship certain that you would be both welcome and it would be familiar to you in terms of the sacramental life, the faith and practice, and its reverence for Holy Scripture. This is the Catholic Church directly referenced by the Nicene Creed.

In modern times, there are successors to the Catholic Church that remain a part of it. No communion precisely holds to the exact same principles and practices of the early Catholic Church, but so long as they hold true to the four principles of unity, they maintain a claim to Catholicity. As the Ven. Fr. Michael McKinnon puts it:

Those communions or fellowships of the once undivided Catholic church who have maintained the one canon of Scripture, the one faith, articulated in the creeds and councils of the Church, the one Sacramental life, emphasizing the sacraments of Baptism, and being born to new life, and the Supper of the Lord, and being nourished in new life, and the one apostolic ministry, with the threefold order of bishops, priests and deacons, and which taken together comprise the once undivided Catholic Church.

Now, while there are some Anglicans who use the term Catholic in reference to Roman Catholic practice, there are many more who, when they claim to be some form of Catholic Anglican or Anglo-Catholic, mean as much in reference to this understanding of Anglicans as a fellowship in succession to the Catholic Church, and which continues to uphold the four principles which defined the Catholic Church.

During the English Reformation, many viewed the separation from Roman jurisdiction in the 1530s as an opportunity to split doctrinally with Rome not in favour of the continental Reformation, but in an effort to restore the purity of Christianity through the faith of the Catholic Church by removing certain Roman superstitious additions to the faith, introduced during the medieval period. Lancelot Andrewes, a Bishop of the Church of England in the early 17th century and considered one of the brightest Anglican scholars of his day famously wrote that, “One canon reduced to writing by God himself, two testaments, three creeds, four general councils, five centuries, and the series of Fathers in that period – the centuries that is, before Constantine, and two after, determine the boundary of our faith.”

More recently, Archbishop Jeffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1945 to 1961, said, “The Anglican Communion has no peculiar thought, practice, creed or confession of its own. It has only the Catholic faith of the ancient Catholic Church, as preserved in the Catholic creeds and maintained in the Catholic and Apostolic constitution of Christ's Church from the beginning.” Article XIX, when unpacked, further affirms this view of the Catholicity of the Anglican Communion, speaking of faithful preaching of Scripture, the faith of which is articulated in the creeds, and administration of the sacraments, through the historic episcopate. All sources confirm a view of the Anglican Communion as being Catholic.

When the reciting the Nicene Creed, Anglicans do not profess merely to be part of the body of all Christian believers, nor does it speak of some kind of Roman Catholic heritage; in professing Catholicity, we hold to the Christian faith practiced by the early Catholic Church.