THE TERMS " CATHOLIC " AND "ROMAN CATHOLIC."
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR']
Gainsford in your issue of July 5th claims "for the followers of the Pope" the sole right to be termed Catholics. He bases the right upon antiquity. But history is against him. He forgets Justinia.n's Code, in which it was decreed that all believers in the Trinity should be called Catholics: "Hoc est, ut secundum Apostolicam disciplinam, Evan- geliique doctrinam, Putris et FUR et spiritua Sancti unam deitatem sub pan i majestate et sub pia Trinitate credamus. Hanc legem sequentes Christianorunt Catholi- corm nomen jubemus amplecti " (" Codicis Justiniani," Liber Nonus, Nuremberg, 1488; Tit. I., fol. iv., recto "). It was Ignatius who said, " Ubi Christus, ibi Ecclesia," and the Bishops at Basle declared: " Ecclesia Romana non eat universa sed eat de Universitate Corporis mystici," &c. (Appen. Conc. Basle, Sacrosanct. Generali). The followers of the Pope have merely a concurrent right to the term "Catholic," in common with the Anglican, Greek, Presbyterian, Noncon- formists, and others who worship the Trinity. Pope Gregory, who sent Augustine as a missionary, defines the Church as one flock under one shepherd, and that shepherd Christ. All that flock are entitled to the generic term "Catholic." He never wrote that the whole flock was under an earthly shepherd, and that shepherd the Pope.—I am, Sir, &c., E. GARNET MAN. Walton-on-Thantes.
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