What is the name of the Catholic church? I seem to remember reading somewhere that the prefix “Roman” was a pejorative term added by protestants after the Reformation.
Tomndebb or someone equally knowledgeable will probably be along shortly to give a better answer than this, but I think what you’re looking for is the “Roman Rite of the Catholic Church.” Basically, there are several different Rites, or local variations in Church practices. When the early Church started to rapidly grow, it was the branch based in Rome that started most of the Western European churches, and hence, started most of the missionary churches around the world, and so now a pretty big majority of Catholics in the world follow the Roman Rite.
“Roman Catholic” can be interpreted as a bit of an insult, though, because it implies that there’s more than one Catholic church. “Catholic” means “universal,” and so it doesn’t make a lot of sense to have more than one universal church - although, as noted above, that universal church can vary somewhat in the things it does. Early Protestants, feeling that they had a claim to the title of Universal Church themselves, used the term Roman Catholic to indicate that, well, those guys might call themselves Catholics, but they must not mean the universal church, so they need an adjective.
I don’t think most Catholics would get all that upset about it (I know I wouldn’t). Roman Catholic is a lot more convenient to say than “Roman Rite of the Catholic Church.”
This sounds more like a General Question than a Great Debate. Whatever.
The catholic church (lower case “c”) indicates the universal (or catholic) nature of all Chritianity (as is noted in the “marks of the church” recited at the end of various Creeds).
When the (generally) Eastern and Western branches of Christianity broke in schism in 1054, the Eastern bunch picked up the name Orthodox (as one of the key issues revolved about who had the orthodox (i.e., correct teaching) regarding the nature of the Holy Spirit. At about that time, the label Catholic began to be used for the Western branch. There are several groups who continued to live in the Eastern regions of Christianity but who continued to maintain their theology more in accord with the Western Christian Catholics. Several of them have unique names (e.g., the Maronites), however others are identifed by their location–Greek Catholics are, thus, identified separately from Greek Orthodox.
Once we begin identifying Greek Catholics and Chaldean Rite Catholics, what name should be used for that huge mass of Western Catholics in the Latin rite? Roman Catholic simply beat out Latin Catholic in usage.
Now, when the Reformation began, there was certainly a lot of anger directed toward the Church headquartered in Rome and many pejorative names were derived from that (“Romish Church” etc.) However, the phrase “Roman Catholic” is not inherently an insult.
Thanks, spiratu and tomndebb, you have answered my question. Sorry if I posted in the wrong forum, this is my first post.
BTW garcolga, welcome to the SDMB.
Well we called our selves “Catolicos Apostolicos Romanos”, (Apostolic Roman Catholics).
Hello, this is your friendly neighborhood Italo-Greek Byzantine Catholic.
The phrase “Roman Catholic” was indeed invented by the Protestant “reformers” as a perjorative. The idea was to imply that our primarily allegiance was to the Church heirarchy, H.Q.'d in Rome, rather than to God.
We Eastern Rite Catholics particularly detest the phrase “Roman Catholics”, partly because of this, and partly because of the ignoranc of people both outside of the Catholic Church, and by Latin Rie Catholics who basically think the Latin Rite (what most folks think of when they here the phrase “Roman Catholic” is the whole Church.
There are, in fact, twenty-four national Catholic churches, all in communion with the See of St. Peter (Rome). There are the Ukranian, Ruthenian, among many others. These tweny four churches are divided among nine rites- the Latin (or Roman, if you must) Rite, the Byzantine Rite, Chaldean, Coptic, Syrian, Malabar, Maronite, Melkite, Armenian, and Ethiopian.
The theology of the Eastern Rites, especially the Byzantine, Maronite and Melkite rites, is more in line with that of the Eastern Orthodox Churches ( the national Orthodox Churches are autocephalous), but we do subscribe to the dogmas of the Catholic Church, as well as recognizing the authority of the Pope.
Please don’t say Roman Catholic around me. I cringe when I hear the phrase.
I never thought of “Roman Catholic” as a pejorative, I suppose because I never considered its source.
To me it’s just a descriptive to distinguish one among several religions sharing similar beliefs and rituals. Like orthodox and reform Jews. Or Episcopalians and Lutherans.
I was born into a Roman Catholic (actually Irish Catholic, and the distinction between the two, if any, would make for an interesting new thread) family, and I don’t recall that there was any negative connotation to the term. Nor was I taught that Eastern and Greek Catholics did not merit the name “Catholic”. Of course, they were all doomed to hell 
, but that was merely due to false belief (just like all other religions), not because of abuse of the word “Catholic”.
Thanks, kaylasdad99, Estilicon, Thea Logica, and Yojimboguy for your responses!
Something interesting I thought I’d share:
When I was little, and attending a Catholic school, I couldn’t understand why we were the ROMAN Catholic church, since it was the Romans who put Christ to death, and I didn’t get why we would name the church after “bad people.”
Actually, the Apostles’ Creed refers to “the Holy Catholic Church.”
For many of us who were not raised in communication with His Holiness the Bishop of Rome and Patriarch of the West, this means the full communion of saints within and without the Church of Rome, inclusive of the Eastern Rites, the Orthodox Churches who were not in communion with Rome between 1054 and 1432, and from shortly after that until just a few years ago, all the Protestant churches whom the Pope of the time excommunicated during the Reformation, and so forth and so on.
As a member of a church which maintains the Apostolic Succession and claims to be a constituent part of the Holy Catholic Church but at present not in organic communion with the Pope, I’d suggest that the term has much broader meaning than merely “one of those guys who goes to Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation, is supposed to believe a bunch of stuff about Mary the Mother of Christ, and has to buy into what the Pope says, at least if he’s speaking ex cathedra.” (Not that there’s anything wrong with that…) 
As has often happened, the phrase, even if intended as a pejorative, has been adopted by those intended to be insulted (at least the Latin Rite Catholics). I don’t think I’ve ever seen an Latin Rite church in the United States that doesn’t have, in nice big letters, “Roman Catholic Church” plastered, etched, etc., on it.
Fair enough, but at the same time don’t try to re-label Latin Rite adherents. They call themselves Roman Catholics, and would probably cringe if they were called “Latin Rite Catholics” or some such.
Sua