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ROMAN
The Reformers had not been slow in taking advantage
of the situation; their popular tracts and catechisms
were flooding every country and leading thousands of
souls away from the Church. The Fathers of Trent,
therefore, "wishing to apply a salutary remedy to this
great and pernicious evil, and thinking that the
definition of the principal Catholic doctrines was not
enough for the purpose, resolved also to publish a
formulary and method for teaching the rudiments of
the faith, to be used by all legitimate pastors and
teachers" (Cat. pra;f., vii). This resolution was taken
in the eighteenth session (26 February, 1562) on the
suggestion of St. Charles Borromeo, who was then
giving full scope to his zeal for the reformation of the
clergy. Pius IV entrusted the composition of the
Catechism to four distinguished theologians: Arch-
bishops Leonardo Marino of Lanciano and Muzio
Calini of Zara, Egidio Foscarini, Bishop of Modena,
and Francisco Fureiro, a Portuguese Dominican.
Three cardinals were appointed to supervise the work.
St. Charles Borromeo superintended the redaction
of the original Italian text, which, thanks to his
exertions, was finished in 1564. Cardinal William
Sirletus then gave it the final touches, and the famous
Humanists, Julius Pogianus and Paulus Manutius,
translated it into classical Latin. It was then pub-
lished in Latin and Italian as "Catechismus ex decreto
Concilii Tridentini ad parochos Pii V jussu editus,
Romse, 1566" (in-folio). Translations into the ver-
nacular of every nation were ordered by the Council
(Sess. XXIV, "De Ref.", c. vii).
The Council intended the projected Catechism to be the Church's official manual of popular instruction. The seventh canon, "De Reformatione", of Sess.
XXIV, runs: "That the faithful may approach the Sacraments with greater reverence and devotion, the Holy Synod charges all the bishops about to admin- ister them to explain their operation and use in a way adapted to the understanding of the people; to see, moreover, that their parish priests observe the same rule piously and prudently, making use for their ex- planations, where necessary and convenient, of the vernacular tongue; and conforming to the form to be prescribed by the Holy Synod in its instructions (calechesis) for the several Sacraments: the bishops shall have these instructions carefully translated into the vulgar tongue and explained by all parish priests to their flocks . . .". In the mind of the Church the Catechism, though primarily written for the parish priests, was also intended to give a fixed and stable scheme of instruction to the faithful, especially with regard to the means of grace, so much neglected at the time. To attain this object the work closely follows the dogmatic definitions of the council. It is divided in four parts: I. The Apostles' Creed; II. The Sacra- ments; III. The Decalogue; IV. Prayer, especially The Lord's Prayer. It deals with the papal primacy and with Limbo (q. v.), points which were not dis- cussed or defined at Trent; on the other hand, it is silent on the doctrine of Indulgences (q. v.), which is set forth in the "Decretum de indulgentiis", Sess.
XXV. The bishops urged in every way the use of the new Catechism; they enjoined its frequent read- ing, so that all its contents would be committed to memory; they exhorted the priests to discuss parts of it at their meetings, and insisted upon its being used for instructing the people.
To some editions of the Roman Catechism is pre- fixed a "Praxis Catechismi", i. e. a division of its contents into sermons for every Sunday of the year adapted to the Gospel of the day. There is no better sermonarj\ The people like to hear the voice of the Church speaking with no uncertain sound; the many Biblical texts and illustrations go straight to their hearts, and, best of all, they remember these simple sermons better than they do the oratory of famous pulpit orators. The Catechism has not of course the
authority of conciliary definitions or other primary
symbols of faith ; for, although decreed by the Council,
it was only published a year after the Fathers had dis-
persed, and it consequently lacks a formal conciliary
approbation. During the heated controversies de
auxiliis graiioc between the Thomists and Molinists,
the Jesuits refused to accept the authority of the
Catechism as decisive. Yet it possesses high authority
as an exposition of Catholic doctrine. It was com-
posed by order of a council, issued and approved by
the pope; its use has been prescribed by numerous
synods throughout the whole Church; Leo XIII, in a
letter to the French bishops (8 Sept., 1899), recom-
mended the study of the Roman Catechism to all
seminarians, and the reigning pontiff, Pius X, has
signified his desire that preachers should expound it
to the faithful.
The earliest editions of the Roman Catechism are: "Roma; apud Paulum Manutium", 1566; "Venetiis, apud Dominicum de Farris", 1567; "Colonise", 1567 (by Henricus Aquensis); "Parisiis, in adibus Jac. Kerver", 1568; "Venetiis, apud Aldum", 1575; Ingolstadt, 1577 (Sartorius). In 1596 appeared at Antwerp "Cat. Romanus . . . qua;st ionibus dis- tinctus, brevibusque exhortatiunculis studio Andrese Fabricii, Leodiensis". (This editor, A. Le Fevre, died in 1581. He probably made this division of the Roman Catechi,sm into qviestions and answers in 1570). George Eder, in 1569, arranged the Catechism for the use of schools. He distributed the main doc- trines into sections and subsections, and added per- spicuous tables of contents. This useful work bears the title: "IMethodus Catechismi Catholici". The first known English translation is by Jeremy Donovan, a professor at Maynooth, published by Richard Coyne, Capel Street, Dublin, and by Keating & Brown, London, and printed for the translator by W. Folds & Son, Great Shand Street, 1829. An American edition appeared in the same year. Dono- van's translation was reprinted at Rome by the Prop- aganda Press, in two volumes (1839) ; it is dedicated to Cardinal Fransoni, and signed: "Jeremias Donovan, sacerdos hibernus, cubicularius Gregorii XVI, P. M." There is another Engli.sh translation by R. A. Buckley (London, 1852), which is more elegant than Donovan's and claims to be more correct but is spoiled by the doctrinal notes of the Anglican translator. The first German translation, by Paul Hoffaeus, is dated Dil- lingen, 1568.
J. WiLHELM.
Roman Catholic, a qualification of the name Catholic commonly used in English-speaking coun- tries by those unwilling to recognize the claims of the One True Church. Out of condescension for these dissidents, the members of that Church are wont in official documents to be styled "Roman Catholics" as if the term Catholic represented a genus of which those who owned allegiance to the pope formed a par- ticular species. It is in fact a prevalent conception among Anglicans to regard the whole Catholic Church as made up of three principal branches, the Roman Catholic, the Anglo-Catholic and the Greek Catholic. As the erroneousness of this point of view has been sufficiently explained in the articles Church and CATHOLIC, it is only needful here to consider the his- tory of the composite term with which we are now concerned. In the "Oxford English Dictionary", the highest existing authoritj^ upon questions of Eng- lish philology, the following ex-planation is given under the heading "Roman Catholic". "The use of this composite term in place of the simple Roman, Ro- manist, or Romish, which had acquired an invidious sense, appears to have arisen in the early years of the seventeenth century. For conciliatory reasons it was employed in the negotiations connected with the Spanish Match (1618-1624) and appears in formal
