Portal:Roman Catholic Church

Catholic Church Portal

Introduction

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.378 billion baptized Catholics worldwide 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 church consists of 24 sui iuris churches, including the Latin Church and 23 Eastern Catholic Churches, which comprise almost 3,500 dioceses and eparchies located around the world. The pope, who is the bishop of Rome, is the chief pastor of the church. The Diocese of Rome, known as the Holy See, is the central governing authority of the church. The administrative body of the Holy See, the Roman Curia, has its principal offices in Vatican City, a small independent city-state enclave within the Italian capital city of Rome, of which the pope is head of state.

The core beliefs of Catholicism are found in the Nicene Creed. The Catholic Church teaches that it is the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church founded by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission, that its bishops are the successors of Christ's apostles, and that the pope is the successor to Saint Peter, upon whom primacy was conferred by Jesus Christ. It maintains that it practises the original Christian faith taught by the apostles, preserving the faith infallibly through scripture and sacred tradition as authentically interpreted through the magisterium of the church. The Roman Rite and others of the Latin Church, the Eastern Catholic liturgies, and institutes such as mendicant orders, enclosed monastic orders and third orders reflect a variety of theological and spiritual emphases in the church.

Of its seven sacraments, the Eucharist is the principal one, celebrated liturgically in the Mass. The church teaches that through consecration by a priest, the sacrificial bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. The Virgin Mary is venerated as the Perpetual Virgin, Mother of God, and Queen of Heaven; she is honoured in dogmas and devotions. Catholic social teaching emphasizes voluntary support for the sick, the poor, and the afflicted through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. The Catholic Church operates tens of thousands of Catholic schools, universities and colleges, hospitals, and orphanages around the world, and is the largest non-government provider of education and health care in the world. Among its other social services are numerous charitable and humanitarian organizations. (Full article...)

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The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago is a particular church of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. The Archdiocese of Chicago is one of the largest dioceses in the nation by population and comprises Cook and Lake counties, covering 1,411 square miles (3,653 km²) of Illinois. The original Diocese of Chicago was created on November 28, 1842, and was elevated to the status of an archdiocese on September 10, 1880. On September 27, 1908, the Diocese of Rockford was broken off from the Archdiocese, and to create the Diocese of Joliet in Illinois on December 11, 1948, territory was taken from the Peoria, Rockford and Chicago dioceses. The Archbishop of Chicago concurrently serves as the metropolitan bishop of the Ecclesiastical Province of Chicago, whose suffragan bishops are the bishops of Belleville, Joliet, Peoria, Rockford, and Springfield.
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Credit: Blieusong

The façade of Notre-Dame de Paris, showing the Portal of the Virgin, Portal of the Last Judgment and Portal of St-Anne.

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Ralph (died October 20, 1122), also known as Ralph d'Escures from the family estate Escures, near Séez in Normandy, was a medieval Abbot of Séez, Bishop of Rochester and then Archbishop of Canterbury. He studied at the school at the Abbey of Bec before he entered the abbey of St Martin at Séez in 1079 and became abbot of the house in 1091. He was a friend of both Saint Anselm and Gundulf, Bishop of Rochester, whose see, or diocese, he took over on the death of Gundulf. He was not chosen archbishop of Canterbury by the chapter of Canterbury alone. His election involved an assembly of the lords and bishops meeting with King Henry I of England. Ralph then received his pallium from Pope Paschal II, rather than travelling to Rome to retrieve it. As archbishop, Ralph was very assertive of the rights of the see of Canterbury and of the liberties of the English Church. He claimed authority in Wales and Scotland. Ralph also quarreled for a time with Pope Paschal II.
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Did you know...

... that bishop Mauritius Ferber (pictured) of Warmia was treated for illness several times by the physician-astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus?
... that when Robert de Bethune was nominated Bishop of Hereford in 1130, King Henry I of England did so because he felt he needed one "godly bishop" around?
... that Toto's seizure of power in Rome in 767 is one of the first indications that the military aristocracy believed that supreme power in Rome rested with the papal office?

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Feast Day of January 25

Maurus (French: Maur; Italian: Mauro) (512–584) was the first disciple of Benedict of Nursia. He is mentioned in Gregory the Great's biography of the latter as the first oblate, offered to the monastery by his noble Roman parents as a young boy to be brought up in the monastic life.

Four stories involving Maurus recounted by Gregory formed a pattern for the ideal formation of a Benedictine monk. The most famous of these involved Maurus's rescue of Placidus, a younger boy offered to Benedict at the same time as Maurus. The incident has been reproduced in many medieval and Renaissance paintings. (Full article...)
Attributes: crutch; weighing scale; young man in garb of a monk, holding an abbot's cross and spade
Patronage: cripples; invoked against rheumatism, epilepsy, gout, hoarseness, cold; Azores; charcoal burners; cobblers; coppersmiths; shoemakers
See also: Saint Apollos