The Holy Catholic Church

A Shame We All Must Bear

The Apostles Creed is arguably the most universal of all Christian creeds and confessions.  It is an organic creed, by which we mean that it was not written or constructed by any ecclesiastical body or one author or group of authors.  Very early in the history of the New Covenant, church congregations, separately and also co-operatively, developed what was called a rule of faith.  A rule was a summary of the salient points of Christian doctrine  and understood to be an accurate reflection of apostolic teaching.

It turned out that the the rules, as developed and used in churches from Italy, to North Africa, to Persia were pretty much all the same.  Over time the rules became the Rule--a commonly held statement of faith,  authenticated not so much by any ecclesiastical body, but by universal acceptance and use.
  And so it has continued to be.  Anyone who believes the Bible to be God's inerrant and infallible Word--a conviction that can be wrought in the heart and conscience only by the Spirit of God Himself--quickly recognises that virtually all the articles of the Apostles Creed are lifted straight out of Scripture.  To disbelieve the Apostles Creed is to disbelieve God's holy word.

One of the articles reads thus: "I believe a holy catholic church . . . "  This is a doctrinal confession eagerly adopted by all professions, including Eastern Orthodox churches and Protestant.  It is not a statement of belief  about the Roman Catholic church.  The word "catholic" means universal: the article in the Creed, then, is a statement of faith about the world-wide, universal domain of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Folk who make statements about the Roman Catholic Church, and who leave out the adjective "Roman" and simply refer to the Catholic Church are either careless or ignorant.  Barney Zwartz is the Religion Editor, for The Age newspaper. Whilst he should know better, he makes this very error.    Speaking about the current inquiry into sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in Australia, Zwartz makes the following statement:

For the Catholic Church - the principal target of witnesses because the extent of abuse by its clergy so completely outweighs every other church, and whose leaders have been deeply resentful of that focus - I am in despair.

He of course means the Roman Catholic Church.  He does not mean the Catholic Church--something altogether different, of which the Roman Church is but one part.  The same basic sloppy error is repeated throughout his piece.   A comparable ignorance would be for the Sports Editor of the Age to refer to football without further specification of whether he was referring to Union, League, or Rules, or the Gaelic Code, for that matter. 

None of the above, of course, is meant in any way to diminish the importance of the topic under discussion in the piece--the sexual abuse of minors under the care of the Roman Catholic Church on the part of some of its office bearers and how particular Church authorities dealt with such cases when they came to light.  These are grave matters indeed and bring shame to all Christians and all churches, not just to those within the Roman Catholic Church.

The shame is universal precisely because we believe a holy, catholic church.