The development of Roman Catholicism.?

Question

Trace the development of who we are as Roman Catholic Christians from our foundations in Judaism, through scripture, discussing our covenantal relationship with God, how this relationship developed over time, symbols used to represent the covenants, our emergence as the followers of God, who are shepherded by Rome's leadership, and what is expected of us by God and the Church in the practice of our faith in God and towards one another. I am looking for a long, essay type answer, because I would like all the information I can get. Thank you.

Answer 1

The History of the Roman Catholic Church covers a period of just under two thousand years, making the Church one of the oldest religious institutions in history. As one of the oldest branches of Christianity (the Eastern Orthodox and some other churches are also "apostolic" in origin -- i.e., they also date their origins back to the founding of the Christian Church at the time of the Apostles), the history of the Roman Catholic Church plays an integral part of the History of Christianity as a whole. For the sake of simplicity, the term "Catholic Church" as it is used in this article refers specifically to the Catholic Church founded in Rome, and presided over by their governing Bishop, commonly known as the Pope.

The history of the Catholic Church is vast and complex, covering many different eras in which the Church was a key influence in the course of European and world civilization. Yet, the Catholic Church is basically unchanged in its substantial teachings and organisation since the dawn of the Christian era in the first century.

Over time, schisms have disrupted the unity of Christianity. The two largest of these involved the separation from the Catholic Church of Orthodox Christianity the (East-West Schism) and Protestantism (the Reformation) respectively. The Catholic Church has been the moving force in some of the major events of world history including the Evangelization of Europe and Latin America, the spreading of literacy and the foundation of the Universities, hospitals, monasticism, the development of Art, Music and Architecture, the Inquisition, the Crusades, an analytical philosophical method, and the downfall of Communism in Eastern Europe in the late 20th century.
The Catholic Church's institutional basis is the the person and teachings of Jesus as described in the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. These describe Jesus as an observant Jewish carpenter from the region of Galilee, who was both the promised Messiah or anointed one (Christos in Greek, giving rise to the title Jesus Christ) and son of God, in fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy. Catholicism thus considers itself a successor religion to Judaism with the Christian God and the God of the Jews seen as one and the same.
To Simon Peter, Jesus had earlier stated that he would entrust to him the keys to Heaven and that upon the "rock" (Latin Petrus) of Peter he would found his Church. The Catholic Church sees its history as beginning at this point, with the Pope as the successor of Saint Peter.

The office of universal ecclesiastical history is, as its name implies, to exhibit a well-balanced description of all phases of ecclesiastical life. The investigation and treatment of the various phenomena in the life of the Church furnish the material of which universal church history is built. It must first treat of the one true Church which from the time of the Apostles, by its uninterrupted existence and its unique attributes, has proved itself that Christian association which is alone in full possession of revealed truth: the Catholic Church. It must, moreover, deal with those other religious associations which claim to be the Church of Christ, but in reality originated through separation from the true Church. The Catholic historian does not admit that the various forms of the Christian religion may be taken, roughly speaking, as a connected whole, nor does he consider them one and all as so many imperfect attempts to adapt the teachings and institutions of Christ to the changing needs of the times, nor as progressive steps towards a future higher unity wherein alone we must seek the perfect ideal of Christianity. There is but one Divine revelation given us by Christ, but one ecclesiastical tradition based on it; hence one only Church can be the true one, i. e. the Church in which the aforesaid revelation is found in its entirety, and whose institutions have developed on the basis of this revelation and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. To assume equality among the various forms of the Christian religion would be equivalent to a denial of the Divine origin and supernatural character of the Church.

While, however, the Catholic Church is the central subject of universal ecclesiastical history, all other forms of the Christian religion must also be considered by it, for they originated by secession from the true Church, and their founders, in so far as each form can be traced back to a founder, were externally members of the Church. Some of these separated bodies still retain among their institutions certain ecclesiastical forms which were in common use at the time of their separation from the Church, wherefore a knowledge of such institutions is of no little use to students of ecclesiastical conditions previous to the separation. This is true in a special manner of the Oriental Christian communities, their liturgy and discipline. Moreover, such schismatic bodies became, as a rule, the bitterest enemies of the Church; they harassed and persecuted its faithful adherents and endeavoured in every way to induce them also to secede. New doctrinal discussions arose as a result of these secessions, ending usually in fuller and more exact statements of Christian teaching, and new methods had to be adopted to nullify the attacks made by apostates on the Catholic Faith. In this way non-Catholic communities have often indirectly influenced the development of the interior life of the Church and the growth of new institutions.

The vast material which, from these points of view, a universal history of the Church must treat, calls of course for methodical arrangement. Ecclesiastical history has generally been divided into three chief periods, each of which is subdivided into shorter epochs characterized by changes of a less universal nature.

Source(s):

wikipedia

Catholic encyclopedia

Answer 2

Within a few decades of the death of the apostles, schisms were already evident among the Christians. Will Durant states: “Celsus [second-century opponent of Christianity] himself had sarcastically observed that Christians were ‘split up into ever so many factions, each individual desiring to have his own party.’ About 187 [C.E.] Irenaeus listed twenty varieties of Christianity; about 384 [C.E.] Epiphanius counted eighty.”—The Story of Civilization: Part III—Caesar and Christ
Constantine favored the Eastern, Greek, side of his empire by having a vast new capital city built in what is today Turkey. He named it Constantinople (modern Istanbul). The result was that over the centuries the Catholic Church became polarized and split both by language and by geography—Latin-speaking Rome in the West versus Greek-speaking Constantinople in the East.
Divisive debates about aspects of the still-developing Trinity teaching continued to cause turmoil in Christendom. Another council was held in 451 C.E. at Chalcedon to define the character of Christ’s “natures.” While the West accepted the creed issued by this council, Eastern churches disagreed, leading to the formation of the Coptic Church in Egypt and Abyssinia and the “Jacobite” churches of Syria and Armenia. The unity of the Catholic Church was constantly threatened by divisions on abstruse theological matters, especially regarding the definition of the Trinity doctrine.
Another cause for division was the veneration of images. During the eighth century, the Eastern bishops rebelled against this idolatry and entered into what is called their iconoclastic, or image-destroying, period. In time they returned to the use of icons.—Exodus 20:4-6; Isaiah 44:14-18.
A further big test came about when the Western church added the Latin word filioque (“and from the Son”) to the Nicene Creed to indicate that the Holy Spirit proceeded from both the Father and the Son. The end result of this sixth-century emendation was a rift when “in 876 a synod [of bishops] at Constantinople condemned the pope both for his political activities and because he did not correct the heresy of the filioque clause. This action was part of the East’s entire rejection of the pope’s claim of universal jurisdiction over the Church.” (Man’s Religions) In the year 1054, the pope’s representative excommunicated the patriarch of Constantinople, who in return put a curse on the pope. That split eventually led to the formation of the Eastern Orthodox Churches—Greek, Russian, Romanian, Polish, Bulgarian, Serbian, and other self-governing churches.

Answer 3

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