THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

The Catholic Church was founded in the first century by the Lord Jesus Christ. The name “catholic” means “universal”, and appears for the first time in the letter that Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, wrote for his friend Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna and disciple of the apostle John: “Where is Jesus Christ there is the Catholic Church “(Smyrnais VIII, 2). The Church is Catholic because it is called by Jesus Christ to the universal spread of the Gospel. In the first centuries from its birth, the Catholic Church was fiercely persecuted by the Romans, so much so that because of its wickedness the imperial city was figuratively called “Babylon” (1 Peter 5:13; Revelation 17:5.6.9). But divine providence never abandoned the Catholic Church, and therefore in 313 the Roman emperor Constantine the Great decreed, together with Licinius, Christianity “religio licita”, allowing freedom of worship to all Christians in the Roman Empire. After the Edict of Milan of 313, with which Constantine and Licinius decreed freedom of worship to Christians, with the Edict of Thessalonica of 380, Theodosius, Gratian and Valentinian II (who at the time was only nine years old) decreed Christianity – according to the canons of the First Council of Nicaea – state religion, suppressing Arianism and pagan cults throughout the Roman Empire. Due to two great schisms, that of the East in the eleventh century and that of the West in the sixteenth century, the appellative “Catholic” took on a confessional meaning, and indicates the group of believers in communion with the Bishop of Rome. And since some Christian denominations have assumed the nickname “old Catholics” (the latter separated from the Church of Rome in the nineteenth century), the Christians who remained in communion with the Church of Rome are also called “Roman Catholics”.