Roman Catholicism

(proper noun)

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with more than one billion members worldwide.

Related Terms

Examples of Roman Catholicism in the following topics:

  • Widespread Belief

    • Protestant denominations accounted for 51.3%, while Roman Catholicism, at 23.9%, was the largest individual denomination.
    • Today, most Christian denominations in the United States are divided into three large groups: Evangelicalism, Mainline Protestantism and Roman Catholicism.

  • Career Development: Vocation and Identity

    • Use of the word "vocation" before the sixteenth century referred firstly to the "call" by God to the individual, or calling of all humankind to salvation, particularly in the Vulgate, and more specifically to the "vocation to the priesthood," which is still the usual sense in Roman Catholicism.

  • Masks in the Kalabari Kingdom

    • Although the Ijaw are now primarily Christians (95% profess to be), with Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism being the varieties of Christianity most prevalent among them, they also maintain elaborate traditional religious practices.

  • Empress Maria-Theresa

    • By marriage, she was Duchess of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany and Holy Roman Empress.
    • The empress actively supported conversion to Roman Catholicism by securing pensions to the converts.
    • She tolerated Greek Catholics and emphasized their equal status with Roman Catholics.
    • Though she eventually gave up trying to convert her non-Catholic subjects to Roman Catholicism, Maria Theresa regarded both the Jews and Protestants as dangerous to the state and actively tried to suppress them.
    • Their eldest son, Joseph, became Holy Roman Emperor.

  • Religious Divide in the Holy Roman Empire

    • The war began when the newly elected Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand II, tried to impose religious uniformity on his domains, forcing Roman Catholicism on its peoples.
    • The Peace established the principle Cuius regio, eius religio ("Whose realm, his religion"), which allowed Holy Roman Empire's states' princes to select either Lutheranism or Catholicism within the domains they controlled, ultimately reaffirming the independence they had over their states.
    • This added a third major faith to the region, but its position was not recognized in any way by the Augsburg terms, to which only Catholicism and Lutheranism were parties.
    • The Peace of Augsburg began to unravel: some converted bishops refused to give up their bishoprics, and certain Habsburg and other Catholic rulers of the Holy Roman Empire and Spain sought to restore the power of Catholicism in the region.
    • Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia, whose aim, as a zealous Catholic, was to restore Catholicism as the only religion in the Empire and suppress Protestantism, and whose actions helped precipitate the Thirty Years' War.

  • The Byzantine Empire

    • The Byzantine Empire began as a continuation of the Roman Empire but gradually became distinct through cultural changes.
    • After the death of Theodosius I in 395, the Roman Empire was divided into an Eastern half based in Constantinople and a Western half based in Rome.
    • They continued to call themselves Romans and, until the early seventh century, continued to speak Latin.
    • Even Roman Catholicism remained the official religion of the Byzantine Empire until the eleventh century.
    • Early Byzantine architecture drew upon earlier elements of Roman architecture.

  • The Development of Papal Supremacy

    • In the late 2nd century CE, there were more manifestations of Roman authority over other churches.
    • When Constantine became emperor of the Western Roman Empire in 312, he attributed his victory to the Christian God.
    • After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, barbarian tribes were converted to Arian Christianity or Catholicism; Clovis I, king of the Franks, was the first important barbarian ruler to convert to Catholicism rather than Arianism, allying himself with the papacy.
    • Other tribes, such as the Visigoths, later abandoned Arianism in favor of Catholicism.
    • After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the pope served as a source of authority and continuity.

  • The Peace of Westphalia

    • The three treaties involved were the Peace of Münster (between the Dutch Republic and the Kingdom of Spain), the Treaty of Münster (between the Holy Roman Emperor and France and their respective allies), and the Treaty of Osnabrück (between the Holy Roman Empire, Sweden and their respective allies).
    • The peace negotiations involved a total of 109 delegations representing European powers, including Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III, Philip IV of Spain, the Kingdom of France, the Swedish Empire, the Dutch Republic, the Princes of the Holy Roman Empire and sovereigns of the free imperial cities.
    • All parties would recognize the Peace of Augsburg of 1555, in which each prince would have the right to determine the religion of his own state, the options being Catholicism, Lutheranism, and now Calvinism.
    • After the Peace of Westphalia, each prince of a given Imperial State would have the right to determine the religion of his own state, the options being Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism.
    • the Treaty of Münster between the Holy Roman Emperor and France was one of three treaties that made up the Peace of Westphalia

  • Philip II and the Spanish Armada

    • The son of Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire, and his wife, Infanta Isabella of Portugal, Philip II of Spain was born in 1527.
    • During his reign, Spain reached the height of its influence and power and remained firmly Roman Catholic.
    • Philip saw himself as a champion of Catholicism, both against the Muslim Ottoman Empire and the Protestants.
    • In 1588, the English defeated Philip's Spanish Armada, thwarting his planned invasion of the country to reinstate Catholicism.
    • In 1593, Henry agreed to convert to Catholicism.

  • The Catholic Church

    • Christianity spread throughout the early Roman Empire despite persecutions due to conflicts with the pagan state religion.
    • In 380, under Emperor Theodosius I, Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire by the decree of the emperor, which would persist until the fall of the Western Empire, and later with the Eastern Roman Empire until the fall of Constantinople.
    • After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, the Catholic faith competed with Arianism for the conversion of the barbarian tribes.
    • During this period the Visigoths and Lombards moved away from Arianism toward Catholicism.
    • Although southern Britain had been a Roman province, in 407 the imperial legions left the isle, and the Roman elite followed.