Catholic Array of Deeply Held Opinions ...

[Carol]

Carol earlier wrote:
> >I wanted to know why the Catholic church considered itself
universal. (I suppose it goes back to the time when Roman Catholic and
Christian were virtually anonymous, if you didn't count Greek
Orthodox, which probably didn't have that name yet.)

CJ responded: 
> Exactly. The term itself, "catholic" (from Greek "kata" and "holos"
-- "according to the whole", or "universal") dates to a letter from
Ignatius in the second century, predating even the Apostles' Creed. So
yes, it comes from a time when the Catholic Church was truly catholic,
and the term was a theological point, not a name.

Carol again:

Thanks. that's more or less what I thought, only I didn't know about
Ignatius.

"Virtually anonymous"? Did I really write that? Sheesh! I meant
"virtually synonymous," of course.

Carol, thanking CJ for politely ignoring my typo or senior moment or
whatever it was