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The history of the Catholic Church is the formation, events, and historical development of the Catholic Church through time.. According to the tradition of the Catholic Church, it started from the day of Pentecost at the upper room of Jerusalem; [1] the Catholic tradition considers that the Church is a continuation of the early Christian community established by the Disciples of Jesus.
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 .
The Catholic Church teaches that it is the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church founded by Jesus. Concerning non-Catholics, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, drawing on the document Lumen gentium from Vatican II, explains the statement "Outside the Church there is no salvation":
Stained glass window in a Catholic church depicting St. Peter's Basilica in Rome sitting "Upon this rock," a reference to Matthew 16:18. The Catholic Church teaches that Christ founded only "one true Church", and that this one true Church is the Catholic Church with the bishop of Rome (the pope) as its supreme, infallible head and locus of communion. [8]
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 ...
The terms catholic, catholicism, and catholicity are closely related to the use of the term Catholic Church. (See Catholic Church (disambiguation) for more uses.) The earliest evidence of the use of that term is the Letter to the Smyrnaeans that Ignatius of Antioch wrote in about 107 to Christians in Smyrna .
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that faith, hope, and love (charity) "dispose Christians to live in a relationship with the Holy Trinity. They have God for their origin, their motive, and their object – God known by faith, hoped in, and loved for His own sake." [9]
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the Catholic Church: . Catholicism – largest denomination of Christianity.Catholicism encompasses the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole.