I thank the several folks who have taken the time to express concern that use of "Roman Catholic" to describe the Church might be offensive to those of us of the Eastern and Oriental Catholic Churches, who are Catholics - but not Roman. To be honest with you, most of us wouldn't find the usage offensive/exclusionary simply because most non-Catholics, in using it, are intending to refer to the only Catholics of whom they are aware - those of the West. If we get involved in a discussion in which it is used, our tendency is merely to point out that there are Catholics who aren't Roman.
A few other comments:
The original usage by the Anglicans was not so much derogatory as it was distinguishing - as someone pointed out, they intended to make the point between those who adhered to Rome, versus themselves. It has become associated in folks' minds with the term "Romish", which was never intended to be anything other than derogatory, but there really was no connection between the two words, other than their common root - "Rom".
It really isn't a derisive term any longer, because no one would understand it as expressing a sneer. Those who deride Catholics for any of the usual reasons just use "Catholic" with a sneer in their voice - adding "Roman" doesn't add any particular measure of disrespect or derisiveness (with the exception of one Old Catholic Church, which has a peculiarly anti-Roman cast to its literature, unique among its genre, as most Old Catholics are fully respectful of the Church of Rome, despite their disagreements with it).
That it is used by so-called "independent" Catholics, Old Catholics, Polish National Catholics, etc, to distinguish the Church headquartered in Rome from themselves should generally be looked at positively by Catholics, as it better assures that folks will not be confused between the two.
The argument that no one should be allowed to decide what Catholics are called - other than Catholics - fails as an argument because Catholics are not united or of a common mind as to what to call themselves*. There are individual Vatican documents that use the phrase "Roman Catholic" and you would be amazed to discover how many Catholic canonical jurisdictions in America (and possibly elsewhere) are legally incorporated as the "
Roman Catholic Archbishop of ______, a corporation sole". Since none of us is empowered to speak for the Church and I don't see Rome issuing any press releases decrying the usage, I'd suggest that the passage into common usage of the term as a descriptor of Western or Latin Catholics united with Rome should be accepted for what it is - to use common parlance "it is what it is". (The makers of Kleenex have long since given up the battle over the generic usage of their product name to describe all facial tissues - they decided that the ongoing public usage of the product name was free advertising.)
*Nor do we obey the rule in speaking of others. The preference of Mormons, for example, is to be called Latter-Day Saints. We (and others), however, have a decided tendency to label them as "Mormons". So, if we wish to hang our hats on that argument, "What's good for the goose ..."
Finally, THERE ARE NOT 22 RITES IN THE CATHOLIC EAST AND ORIENT -
THERE ARE 6 RITES AND 22 CHURCHES IN THE CATHOLIC EAST AND ORIENT -
PLEASE READ BEGINNING WITH POST #28 IN THE THREAD
Switching Rites ON THIS FORUM TO UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RITES AND CHURCHES.
Sorry for shouting, I could post the same explanation again, but it gets tiresome and repetitious and wastes bandwidth to do so.
Many years,
Neil
