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Essay on Ordination of Women
Catholicism
The majority of Christian faiths do not describe themselves as "Catholic". In Western Christianity the principal faiths who regard themselves as "Catholic", beside the Roman Catholic Church, are the Old Catholic Church, the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, and some elements of Anglicanism ("High Church Anglicans" or "Anglo-Catholics"). These groups hold beliefs and practice religious rituals similar to Roman Catholicism, but differ substantially from Roman Catholicism on the issue of the Bishop of Rome's status, power and influence.
The several churches of Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy consider themselves to be the Catholic church as in being the "universal" Church. The Orthodox churches generally see the Latin "Catholics" as being heretical schismatics who left the "true catholic and apostolic church"Some groups call themselves Catholic but are questionably so: for instance the Liberal Catholic Church, which originated as a breakaway group from the Old Catholic Church, but incorporated so much theosophy that it had little doctrinally in common with Catholicism anymore.
Roman Catholicism
The main and largest Catholic denomination is the "Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church", more commonly known as the "Roman Catholic Church". It is so named because its adherents are all in communion with the Pope and Bishop of Rome, and most parishes follow the Roman or Latin Rite in worship, although there are other rites. In casual usage, when people speak of "Catholics" or "Catholicism," they usually but not always mean Roman Catholicism.
The historic Roman Catholic position (as well as that of the Orthodox and other ancient churches), is that women cannot be priests or bishops, because priests and bishops are successors to the Apostles, and that in the sacrifice of the Eucharist the priest acts in representation of Christ.Catholicism, from the Greek katholikos , meaning "general" or "universal", is a religious name applied to two strands of Christianity.....
