The Canon · No. 050
Roman Catholicism
The Catholic Church
1054 CE (as a distinct communion) – present · Abrahamic · Living · Global; largest in Latin America, Europe, Philippines, sub-Saharan Africa
V. THE MEDIEVAL WORLD — c.500 – 1500 CE
How many
About 1.4 billion — the largest single religious institution on earth and the world's oldest continuously functioning organisation.
Who began it
No founder distinct from Christianity itself. The church traces its episcopal line to Peter and holds the pope to be his successor as bishop of Rome.
What it is for
Salvation through Christ, mediated ordinarily through the church and its sacraments.
What it worships
The Trinity. Saints and Mary are venerated, formally distinguished from the worship (latria) owed to God alone — a distinction Protestants have never found convincing and Catholics have never stopped making.
What it holds
Papal primacy and, since 1870, papal infallibility, which applies only to solemn definitions on faith and morals and has been invoked unambiguously perhaps twice. Scripture and tradition as two channels of one revelation. Transubstantiation — the bread and wine become Christ's body and blood in substance while the appearances remain. Purgatory, a state of purification for those who die in grace but imperfect. Justification by grace through faith working in love, which is where Trent and Luther divided. Marian dogmas: perpetual virginity, Immaculate Conception (1854), Assumption (1950).
What it does
Seven sacraments: baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, penance, anointing of the sick, holy orders, matrimony. The Mass, in the vernacular since 1964 with the Latin rite retained in limited form. Confession to a priest. The rosary. Pilgrimage to Rome, Lourdes, Fatima, Compostela, Guadalupe. Clerical celibacy in the Latin rite, though married priests exist in the Eastern Catholic churches and by exception. Vast networks of schools, universities and hospitals — the church is the largest non-governmental provider of both in the world.
After death
Death, particular judgment, then heaven, hell or purgatory as a temporary purifying state ending in heaven. Final judgment and bodily resurrection at the end of history. Limbo, a theory for unbaptised infants, was never dogma and was quietly set aside in a 2007 document. The Catechism states that hell's principal punishment is eternal separation from God, and declines to name anyone as being in it.
Its texts
The Bible with 73 books. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992). Twenty-one ecumenical councils by Catholic reckoning. Canon Law. Aquinas' Summa Theologiae. Papal encyclicals, of which Rerum Novarum (1891) founded modern Catholic social teaching.
Its branches
The Latin Church plus 23 Eastern Catholic churches in communion with Rome but keeping Byzantine, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian and other rites. Traditionalist movements (SSPX) and the Old Catholic churches (split 1870) sit at the edges.
Of note
The Catholic Church is simultaneously a religion, a sovereign state, the largest charitable organisation on earth and an institution now managing the consequences of a century of concealed abuse. All four are true at once.
Its timeline
- c.33–64 CE Traditional dating of Peter's ministry and death at Rome.
- 440–461 CE Leo the Great asserts Roman primacy in strong terms.
- 800 CE Charlemagne crowned emperor by the pope; the western church-state alliance begins.
- 1054, 1204 CE Schism with the East, then the sack of Constantinople.
- 1075–1122 CE Investiture Controversy; the papacy wins the right to appoint bishops against imperial claims.
- 1231 CE Papal Inquisition established.
- 1309–1377 CE Avignon papacy; then the Western Schism, with up to three claimants.
- 1517 CE Luther; the Reformation splits Western Christianity.
- <strong>1545–1563 CE</strong> Council of Trent defines Catholic doctrine against Protestantism and reforms clerical abuses. It sets the shape of the church for four hundred years.
- 1633 CE Galileo condemned; formally acknowledged as an error by John Paul II in 1992.
- 1854, 1870, 1950 CE Immaculate Conception defined; papal infallibility defined at Vatican I; the Assumption defined.
- <strong>1962–1965 CE</strong> Second Vatican Council. Vernacular liturgy, religious freedom, ecumenism, and Nostra Aetate, which repudiates the charge of Jewish collective guilt and reframes relations with Judaism and Islam.
- 2002–present The clerical sexual abuse crisis breaks in Boston and then worldwide; the resulting inquiries in Ireland, Australia, Germany, France and elsewhere are the gravest institutional crisis in centuries.
- 2013 CE Benedict XVI resigns, the first pope to do so voluntarily since 1294; Francis elected, the first Jesuit and first Latin American pope.
Sources
Not yet checked against named sources. This entry is the house's reading; until it is checked, treat each claim as unverified. Correct it, with a source.