Recently, while reading the Book of the Apocalypse (the last book in the Bible frequently called “Revelation” by Protestants) I noticed the astonishing Greek words εὐαγγέλιον αἰώνιον (Apo 14:6) translated into the Latin as evangelium aeternum meaning “The Eternal Gospel” in English. Upon reading that, I realized it was the very best definition of Catholicism, namely, the Eternal Gospel precisely because Divine Revelation cannot change (Mal 3:6.)
If you look up catholic in a dictionary, you will find the word universal as one of the main definitions of the word. This refers to catholic in general. (Notice, I did not capitalize the word catholic in the two previous sentences.) Thus, it is true that catholic means universal in a general sense. However, this is not true in an ecclesiastical sense, at least not in the time of an unprecedented Church crisis when most of the baptized all across the glove believe many theological errors.
Today, Catholics will often say “Catholic means universal.” Although they are trying to sound global, their scope is very limited to the last fifty years of confusion. For example, some of the Catholics who say “Catholic means universal” could very well mean that a lay person could receive Holy Communion in the hand at a Novus Ordo Missae (NOM) anywhere from Thailand to South Africa to Guatemala to Canada. And this is true. Any lay person could easily find a NOM anywhere from Thailand to South Africa where he or she could receive Holy Communion in the hand.
However, what is common is not what is normal. Or, better formulated: What is common during a Church crisis is not what is normal in all of Church history. For example: Never in Church history have lay people received Holy Communion in the hands (and yes, I’m aware of the one Church father anomaly that has actually been disproved by Taylor Marshall numerous times from a historical point of view.) What has become “universal” today has nothing to do with Catholicism in the 2nd century or 6th century or 11th century or even 19th century.
In the fourth century of the land-mass we call “Turkey” today, it would have been common to find a bishop who would have said something like: “While Jesus was a great man, he was simply a sinless creature, not the Creator.” Of course, 99% of you recognize this as the Arian heresy. Most bishops in 4th century Turkey denied the Trinity because they followed the heretic Arius. But did that make Arianism the same as Catholicism just because it was “universal” at the time all over the Eastern Empire? Of course not.
An isolated time in Church history that is pock-marked with confusion never carries the measure of the once-delivered universal Faith. One must always look at what the saints of every era, of every location have believed, not just a time of confusion like the post-Vatican II Novus-world (an entity that Archbishop Viganó refers to as the Counter-Church and which Bishop Sheen may have predicted would become the “ape of the Church.”)
You see, the true Catholic Church can never produce error, even if 99% of the world’s people who were baptized Catholic come to believe, for example, that “all religions are a pathway to God.” If 99% of the baptized-laity and 99% of the putative-hierarchy came to a conclusion that Hinduism or Islam or Judaism could save someone without Jesus Christ, it still wouldn’t make it true. Even if that heresy of indifferentism became “universal” across the globe (as it has) it still wouldn’t make it Catholic. Thus, Catholic does not mean “universal,” at least not according to how most Catholics use it today.
Universal is also a disturbing word for anyone like me preaching a soteriology (the theology of salvation) of Jesus Christ crucified in these dark days. While universal does not necessarily carry the denotation of Universal-Unitarianism, we see that the word universal certainly does carry the connotation of Universal-Unitarianism. When you boil it down, the soteriology of Vatican II is no different from that of a Universalist-Unitarian congregation. (I tried to deny that last sentence for a good chunk of my priesthood, but I finally had to surrender to the obvious truth.)
How then should we define Catholic? The Latin word Catholic comes directly from the Greek meaning Kata-Holos or According to the Whole. To believe the Catholic Faith is to believe the Whole Faith. Yes, that is what Catholic truly means: According to the Whole. But not just “the whole” opinion-poll of broken Catholics from Egypt to France in a time of unprecedented anti-catechesis like the year 2025. Rather, Catholic has to be “the whole” of what was believed by every saint from Egypt to France in the 17th century and the 13th century and the 7th century and the 2nd century.
St. Vincent of Lerins also lived in a Church crisis when most of the baptized Catholics defected to become Arian heretics. Thus, they were not Catholic anymore. (My article from two days ago was attempting to disprove the modern myth of Once a Catholic always a Catholic. In summary, the reason that phrase is totally and completely wrong is because a person always has free will to become a heretic or an apostate if he wants to.)
St. Vincent of Lerins defined universality in the fourth century:
In the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For that is truly and in the strictest sense Catholic, which, as the name itself and the reason of the thing declare, comprehends all universally. This rule we shall observe if we follow universality, antiquity, consent. We shall follow universality if we confess that one faith to be true, which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity, if we in no way depart from those interpretations which it is manifest were notoriously held by our holy ancestors and fathers.
Notice that St. Vincent links universality not to an opinion-poll of broken “Catholics” in his day, but rather universality means “the whole of the faith” as what was “believed everywhere, always and by all.” We in the Church Militant need to stop looking around at what contracepting Catholics who touch the Eucharist with unconsecrated hands have to say about the faith and start studying all the saints of the previous ages of the Church when real miracles abounded. Only then will we see the saving doctrine given by Jesus Christ to the Apostles must necessarily be what was “believed everywhere, always and by all.”
The two key words from St. Vincent missing by modern heretics in their definition of Catholic is today are: Always and antiquity. The true Catholic Faith as universal is exclusively what was always believed, from antiquity onwards to a remnant of few believers today. Thus, we must strive every day for what St. John declared in the Apocalypse chapter 14 was the Eternal Gospel or in Latin Evangelium Æternum and in the Greek: εὐαγγέλιον αἰώνιον.