Facts about Catholicism

Four themes provide a brief review of this essential characteristic of contemporary Catholicism.

Roman Catholicism shares, with all Christians, the use of ancient Hebrew by proclaiming Amen or Alleluias, ancient Greek by using the title Christ(os) for Jesus, ancient Latin by speaking of the Seven Sacraments (sacramenta).

The work for peace and justice has become, from the official perspective, an identifying characteristic of Roman Catholicism.

The history of Catholicism is the story of how Christianity began and developed until the present day.

Necessary because of the claim of continuity of that pattern of religious life called Catholicism; challenging, because individuals and groups may discover false historical claims as well as basis for new historical claims.

The way, or pattern of life, which is contemporary Catholicism evidences its two thousand history in all its manifestations but especially in its ways of discerning how to live a moral life.

That history is written using the perspective of contemporary Catholicism to discern both authenticity and the historical strands that sustain that authenticity.