Portal:Catholicism
Catholicism is the entirety of the beliefs and practices of the Latin and Eastern Churches that are in full communion with the pope as the Bishop of Rome and successor of Saint Peter the Apostle, united as the Catholic Church. The first known written use of "Catholic Church" appears in a letter by Ignatius of Antioch c. AD 107 to the church of Smyrna, whose bishop, Polycarp, visited Ignatius during his journey to Rome as a prisoner. He wrote:
His use of "Catholic Church" suggests that it was already in current use, for he sees no need to explain himself and uses the expression as one already known to his readers. It gives expression to St. Paul's teaching that all baptized in Christ are one body in Christ (Galatians 3:28; Ephesians 4:3–6, 12–16). Dissenting groups breaking away from this universal unity were already known to the Apostles: in his letters Paul refers to the "Judaizers" (those requiring observance of the Mosaic Law), and in his Book of Revelation St. John calls them "Nicolaitans". They believe that it is a small step for those faithful to the teaching of the Apostles to identify themselves as the Catholic Church ("the one Church everywhere"), and not to include those dissenting and breaking away from unity with her. The term Catholic Christianity entered into Roman law by force of edict on 27 February AD 380:
 Selected article  The Roman Catholic Church in Mongolia is part of the worldwide Roman Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope and curia in Rome. There are only about 760 Roman Catholics in the country who are served by four parishes, three in the capital Ulaanbaatar. Roman Catholicism was first introduced in the 13th century during Mongol empire, but died out with the demise of the Yuan Dynasty in 1368. New missionary activity only set in after the Opium war of the mid-19th century. A mission was founded for Outer Mongolia, giving Mongolia its first Roman Catholic jurisdiction, but all work ceased within a year when a communist regime came to power. With the introduction of democracy in 1991, Roman Catholic missionaries returned and rebuilt the church from scratch. As of 2007, there is an Apostolic Prefecture, a bishop, four parishes, and diplomatic relations between the Holy See and Mongolia since 1992.  Selected picture  Credit: Raffaello Sanzio The School of Athens or "Scuola di Atene" in Italian is one of the most famous paintings by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael. It was painted between 1509 and 1510 as a part of Raphael's commission to decorate with frescoes the rooms that are now known as the Stanze di Raffaello, in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican.  Selected biography  William Edington (d. October 6, 1366) was an English bishop and administrator. He served as bishop of Winchester from 1346 until his death, keeper of the wardrobe from 1341 to 1344, treasurer from 1344 to 1356, and finally as chancellor from 1356 until he retired from royal administration in 1363. Edington’s reforms of the administration — in particular of royal finances — had wide-ranging consequences, and contributed to the English military efficiency in the early stages of the Hundred Years' War. As bishop of Winchester he was responsible for starting an extensive rebuilding of Winchester Cathedral, and for founding Edington Priory, the church of which still stands today.His parents were Roger and Amice of Edington near Westbury, Wiltshire. Though it has been claimed that he was educated at Oxford, there seems to be no support for this.  Did you know...
 Feast Day of March 26  Saint Margaret Clitherow (1556 – 1586) is an English saint and martyr of the Roman Catholic Church.She was born as Margaret Middleton, the daughter of a wax-chandler, after Henry VIII of England had split the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church. She married John Clitherow, a butcher, in 1571 (at the age of 15) and bore him two children. She converted to Roman Catholicism at the age of 18, in 1574. She then became a friend of the persecuted Roman Catholic population in the north of England. Her son, Henry, went to Reims to train as a Catholic priest. She regularly held Masses in her home in the Shambles in York. There was a hole cut between the attics of her house and the house next door, so that a priest could escape if there was a raid. A house in the Shambles once thought to have been her home, now called the Shrine of the Saint Margaret Clitherow, is open to the public (it is served by the nearby Church of St Wilfrid's and is part of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Middlesbrough); her actual house (10 and 11, the Shambles) is further down the street.In 1586, she was arrested and called before the York assizes for the crime of harbouring Roman Catholic priests. She refused to plead to the case so as to prevent a trial that would entail her children being made to testify, and she was executed by being crushed to death – the standard punishment for refusal to plead.  Selected quote 
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- ^ Extract of English translation from Henry Bettenson, ed., Documents of the Christian Church (London: Oxford University Press, 1943), p. 31, cited at Medieval Sourcebook: Theodosian Code XVI by Paul Halsall, Fordham University. Retrieved Jan 5, 2007. The full Latin text of the code is at IMPERATORIS THEODOSIANI CODEX Liber Decimus Sextus (170KB download), archived from George Mason University. Retrieved Jan 5, 2007.
