Catholicism
Catholicism
Catholicism is a term used especially in the context of Christianity. It comes from the Greek where it meant "general" or "universal." It can mean one of several things:
- Due to the dominant history and current influence of the Roman Catholic Church, "Catholicism" is often used to mean the belief system of that church.
- It often refers to the belief system and practices of the Catholic Communion, the largest communion of Christian churches. This is used to distinguish these beliefs from the beliefs of other denominations.
- It can be used to refer to those churches which are Catholic in nature, declare that they uphold the Catholic faith, and claim apostolic succession through the Catholic side of the Great Schism. For examples see the Old Catholic Church, or the official Church of England Site [What is means to be Anglican (http://www.cofe.anglican.org/about/frame_means.html)] especially on "upholding the Catholic faith".
- It can mean universality. This was the first usage in the early Christian Church to distinguish what was believed to be the universal doctrine as opposed to heresies.
National Legion of Decency
The National Legion of Decency was an organization dedicated to identifying, and combatting, objectionable content in American motion pictures. Founded in April of 1934, for the first quarter-century or so of its existence, the legion wielded great power in the American motion picture industry.
Though established by Roman Catholic bishops, it originally included many Protestant and even some Jewish clerics as well; however, these latter gradually dropped out, and by the 1960s the organization had become an exclusively Catholic concern. Eventually, the entity was subsumed into the United States Catholic Conference, which later changed its name to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Legion_of_Decency [Nov 2004]
your Amazon recommendations