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The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.28 to 1.39 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2024. [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 9 ] It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions and has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilization .
A religious order is characterized by an authority structure where a superior general has jurisdiction over the order's dependent communities. An exception is the Order of Saint Benedict which is not a religious order in this technical sense, because it has a system of independent houses, meaning that each abbey is autonomous. However, the ...
Many Catholic movements were born in 19th-century Austria, such as the Progressive Catholic movement promoted by thinkers such as Wilfried Daim and Ernst Karl Winter. Once strongly opposed by the Church because of its anti-clerical tendencies, liberalism started to be reapproached by Catholics, giving birth to a Catholic liberal movement in ...
While the pope and the bishops have opposed birth control, the majority of American Catholics disagree with them, and believe the church should change its teaching on birth control. A Pew Research poll conducted in 2013 found that three-quarters of U.S. Catholics (76%) say the church should permit birth control. [ 49 ]
Canon law (Latin: jus canonicum) [381] is the system of laws and legal principles made and enforced by the hierarchical authorities of the Catholic Church to regulate its external organisation and government and to order and direct the activities of Catholics toward the mission of the church. [382]
Catholics do not worship Mary but honor her as mother of God, mother of the church, and as a spiritual mother to each believer in Christ. She is called the greatest of the saints, the first disciple, and Queen of Heaven (Rev. 12:1). Catholic belief encourages following her example of holiness.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, quoting the Second Vatican Council's document Lumen gentium, states: "The pope, Bishop of Rome and Peter's successor, 'is the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful.'" [32] Communion with the bishop of Rome has become such a ...
Catholicity (from Ancient Greek: καθολικός, romanized: katholikós, lit. 'general', 'universal', via Latin: catholicus) [1] is a concept pertaining to beliefs and practices that are widely accepted by numerous Christian denominations, most notably by those Christian denominations that describe themselves as catholic in accordance with the Four Marks of the Church, as expressed in the ...