Allow me to clarify.... let us start with something like this...
The word catholic (derived via Late Latin catholicus, from the ancient Greek adjective καθολικός (katholikos) 'universal') comes from the Greek phrase καθόλου (katholou) 'on the whole, according to the whole, in general', and is a combination of the Greek words κατά (kata) 'about' and ὅλος (holos) 'whole'.
OK...
So in my mind we had this Jewish Jesus movement going on in competition with other Jewish sects with its "universal" aspect contrary to the Jewish bloodlines. And then also recruiting from/influencing various Asian, Arabic, African, Greek, roman beliefs and gods and science (cause religion it seems to me was not only the governing rules but also answers to currently unanswerable questions)
I'm not sure we're reading the present onto the past here?
The first recorded use was in Ignatius of Antioch's letter to the Church at Smyrna, and his use implied unity between the local laity and their bishop reflected the unity of the Church as a whole.
So when the powers that be in Italy decided to go all in on this Christianity thing they had to compartmentalize and differentiate themselves from the other groups of people that were following Jesus in their way.
Whoa, LOL! I assume this means the Pope, Bishop of Rome? In which case it completely ignores the actual historical process, which was more often than not based in the Greek rather than the Latin world – the Pope in Rome thought the Arian dispute a local issue in Alexandria, and no big deal for the 'universal church' – it was a spat between a presbyter and his bishop. It got out of control because the presbyter in question had friends close to the emperor.
A contemporary marketing guru will say "You've got to identify your USP" but I very much doubt there were table discussions somewhere in Rome about how to package the product.
The 'Roman Catholic Church' as a particular identifier did not arise until the 13th century, and did not enter common usage until the 17th, and then as a pejorative term by reformers.
When the Lutherans argued their faith before Emperor Charles V in 1530, they declared: "This is about the Sum of our Doctrine, in which, as can be seen, there is nothing that varies from the Scriptures, or from the Church Catholic, or from the Church of Rome as known from its writers" (Augsburg Confession XXI Conclusion 1). Luther and his followers believed they defended the authentic faith and that their teachings adhere to the founding apostolic, catholic or universal church and that the Church of Rome had lapsed into error.
If I extrapolate the believers I know today in whatever religion or sect or combinations of religious and/or secular thought... they each may give others space...but if they are into their religion to any degree it is because they believe their group has got it a little (or a lot) more right than every other group.
Well clearly I disagree with religion-as-commerical-enterprise that appeared in the US, as far as Christianity is concerned. As I've argued, 'the prosperity gospel' says more about repackaging Christianity to suit an American ideology than the 'Jesus movement' of the first Christian centuries.
So if you are running an empire and making a huge belief system shift and taking on a fairly mew belief system with a lot of ideas, and pamphlets, and scrolls, and letters floating around with a ton of mystical and surreal stories.
But no-one was running an empire when the term came into use – during the second century. It changed over time, but that's a deeper discussion. Here I rather think you're making sweeping statements not anchored in the historical process?
Ya commit to doing the due diligence, sorting out the pieces, research and name the historical sites, rearrange the underlying Judaic belief system and create this book canonizing the new order of the approved scripture....and telling everyone ya got the new and improved universal system of Christianity for all...what should we call it?
Sorry, this reads to me like an opinion based on prejudice and unhistorical perspective.
www.vaticannews.va
