Catholic Church

American  

noun

Roman Catholic Church.

1. a visible society of baptized Christians professing the same faith under the authority of the invisible head (Christ) and the authority of the visible head (the pope and the bishops in communion with him).

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Catholic Church British  

noun

1. short for Roman Catholic Church

2. any of several Churches claiming to have maintained continuity with the ancient and undivided Church

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Catholic Church Cultural  

1. A common abbreviation for the name of the Roman Catholic Church.

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Etymology

Origin of Catholic Church

late Middle English word dating back to 1400–50

Example Sentences

Physically and spiritually, San Juan Capistrano is centered around its mission, one of 21 established by the Catholic Church under the Spanish crown in the 18th and 19th centuries, forming the scaffold of modern-day California.

From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 4, 2026

The SSPX, which claims hundreds of thousands of followers, opposes modernizing changes adopted by the Catholic Church in the 1960s.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jul. 2, 2026

Allen said more and more young people were taking an interest in the Catholic Church.

From Barron's • Jun. 10, 2026

As Chesnut noted, UFOs-as-demons is actually an evangelical idea from the 1950s and ’60s, and not something the Catholic Church has ever meddled in.

From Slate • Jun. 8, 2026

The publication of De Revolutionibus was accepted essentially without a murmur by the Catholic Church, and the book was largely ignored by Rome for the rest of the sixteenth century.

From "The Scientists" by John Gribbin