Catholic (lowercase c)

Heard in the wild

The longer version

What it means

Lowercase "catholic" means universal, whole, worldwide — the church everywhere, in every century, across every tradition. When the ancient creeds say "the holy catholic church," they mean that: one church, not one denomination. Uppercase "Catholic" means the Roman Catholic Church, headed by the Pope, which took the word as its name because it claims to be that universal church.

So a Presbyterian reciting "I believe in the holy catholic church" is affirming that there's one church of Christ across all places and times — which she believes she belongs to — and is not converting to Rome mid-sentence. The two meanings are related but not the same, and the difference is a single capital letter.

Why people say it

Christians keep the word because it says something they believe and have no better word for: that the church is bigger than any one congregation, denomination, nation, or era. "Universal" is the usual translation, but it's abstract. "Catholic" carries the weight of two thousand years.

How to respond

If you hear it in a creed, nothing is required; if you're reciting along, say it and mean "the whole church." If someone tells you they're "small-c catholic," they're telling you they value Christian unity across denominations. If a Roman Catholic uses "Catholic," they mean their church. Context and capitalization tell you which, and if it's spoken you may have to ask.

If you hear it in different churches

Everyone. Catholics obviously; Orthodox affirm the "one holy catholic and apostolic church" of the Nicene Creed and understand themselves as it. Anglicans and Lutherans recite the creeds with the word intact. Methodists and Presbyterians usually keep it with a footnote; some Baptists and evangelicals, who don't recite creeds, rarely encounter it and are the most startled when they do.

Where does “Catholic (lowercase c)” come from?

The Greek katholikos means "according to the whole." Ignatius of Antioch used it first, around AD 110: "wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the catholic church." The Apostles' Creed (in use by the 300s) and the Nicene Creed (381) both confess the "catholic church," and for the first thousand years the word simply meant the one church. After the East–West split of 1054 and the Reformation of the 1500s, the Western church centered on Rome kept "Catholic" as its proper name, while Protestants argued they too were part of the catholic church. The result is one word with two meanings that have been confusing visitors ever since.

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Go deeper on the network

• The Apostles' Creed — where "the holy catholic church" comes from ↗
• The Nicene Creed — "one holy catholic and apostolic church" ↗

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