“Romanist”: Dialogue with a Protestant

This exchange took place in the combox of the video, “Did Martin Luther Remove Books from the Bible? With James Swan” (Weidner Institute, 10-24-24). The words of my dialogue opponent (“frennynikki2447“) will be in blue.

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I’ve noticed this among Romanists since my early teenage years. . . . 

Are you a Genevist or a Wittenberger or Henry VIIIist?

Hello there, I haven’t heard those designations before though I can get their gists by “Genevist” you mean “Calvinist”, “Wittenberger” a Lutheran, “Henry VIIIist” an Anglican but I’m neither. These institutions however insist to rather call them according to their preferred names. As for me, I am a Trinitarian Pentecostal but like them we consider ourselves Catholics. Thank you for your patience and God bless.

So I call you a Trinitarian Pentecostal, but you — for some inexplicable reason — refuse to call us by our preferred name.

To call me a Trinitarian Pentecostal is just another way to call the kind of Pentecostal I’m in but we go by other names too. I do see the point you’re making here and I know the preferred name is “Roman Catholic” but unlike the words “Genevist”, “Wittenberger”, and “Henry VIIIist”, the word “Romanist” has historical basis. However, that doesn’t mean it’s the only one I use, I also use “RC” or just “Catholic”. So obviously, I don’t make it a dogma to use “Romanist” exclusively. In fact when I refer to the Roman Catholic Church, to shorten things, I do use the “Roman Church” at times. To be fair, the word “Protestant” was not proposed by the Reformers, Luther rather preferred either “Christian” or “Evangelical” while Calvin did not approve of “Calvinist”. They both saw their names unfit. Moreover, The name “Reformed Catholic” is preferred among Reformed and Anglican churches.

Most of us prefer “Catholic” since there are many Catholics (i.e., who believe there is a pope, etc.) who are not Roman rite. The Catechism of the Catholic Church never uses “Roman Catholic” at all. That title was originally a pejorative used by the early Anglicans, who wanted to be Catholic without the pope. So they called themselves “Catholic” and called us “Roman Catholic.” “Roman Catholic” is not necessarily pejorative today, but “Romanist” — like “papist” — certainly is, and no serious scholar would ever use it.

Thank you for that response. I’ve heard of that from a Roman Catholic somewhere about it originating from Anglicans and he too didn’t take that lightly. Here in my country (a Catholic majority), though they use “Catholic”, they do not bear any animosity to being called one at all. In fact the full name of the Roman Church in Latin is “Ecclesia Catholica Apostolica Romana” if I’m not mistaken in 1875, so it eventually grew to be an accepted term and many of my people use it in their birth certificates. Now, I’m still fine with using Romanist since unlike the words you typed in, it has a historical basis. Just as we let you call us “Protestants” despite the fact that this wasn’t even proposed by the Reformers but over time got stuck. The preferred names in the Protestant world are: a.) Evangelical, Christian (by Martin Luther, Evangelical Catholic (Lutheran) b.) Reformed (by John Calvin), Reformed Catholic (Calvinist and Anglican). (c.) Christian Catholic (Pentecostal, at least for us here, one of our designations). I do recall one time, I coined the term “Crossers” for Roman Catholics but I grew weary of the word and just stick to Roman Catholic, RC, Catholic and Romanist.

“Protestant” is not objectionable among the vast majority of Protestants (hence I use it and am happy to use subtitles like “Reformed” etc., too), in the way that “Romanist” is objectionable to almost all Catholics. So it becomes a question of extending the courtesy of calling folks what they want to be called, which is basic ethics and human relations.

Aye, that’s because most folks do not know that the word was not proposed by the Reformers so they do not find it objectionable. Some who do, tend to mention it just so people in their congregations can be reminded that it was never always the case. Nevertheless, as I’ve said it before, I don’t always use the word “Romanist”. It’s not a dogma for us to use it always because evidently there are other words to choose from. At least RC’s like Mr. Joe Heschmeyer has learnt to use “Popery”(another derogatory term) even if it’s only part of his channel’s title. I can admire him for that. Just like me when people called me “Kimpang” a word in our language which means “cripple” (that’s because I am, though it was derogatory, well, even today), I used to be deeply hurt and cry but over time I got to live with it. I’d even learn to use it for a laugh before people could use it against me. Anyway, the whole point of the word “Romanist” is to highlight the differences between Protestant and Catholic beliefs.

You should use “Roman Catholic” then, if you can’t bring yourself to call folks like me “Catholics.” I already agreed that that isn’t a pejorative like “Romanist” and “papist.” It’s not about personal hurt; it’s about a standard ethical precept of calling people by their own preferred titles: not what someone else chooses for them. Rev. Jordan Cooper, e.g., uses “Roman Catholic” on his channel, probably — I would guess — because, as an academic, he knows that nobody in the world of scholarship uses “Romanist” and that it’s a pejorative. He’s a Lutheran and I call him a Lutheran, just as I call “Reformed” Christians that title, even though I think the Protestant Reformation wasn’t a reform. :-) I usually don’t use the latter term, however (though I did recently in a video of mine) because I believe it’s a misnomer (“Protestant Revolt” is the neutral and objective term), but that’s not a person, so courtesy questions aren’t in play.

I do see your point and for your satisfaction and everybody else’s, I’ll stop using “Romanist”. I’m not that hard to be persuaded unless of course it’s concerning doctrines and some other things. However, I might do the liberty of asking some ten Catholics here whether or not they’re fine with being called “Romanist”. Starting with my three RC minister uncles. Nonetheless, you could say I have “reformed” on this part because I removed “Romanist”. -Semper Reformanda Thank you for your patience and God bless you.

Great! Glad to hear it. I highly doubt that they would be enthralled with that, but even if they didn’t care, it remains true that no one in academia uses it, because it’s 1) a pejorative, and 2) outdated and reflective of a tiny minority view among Protestantism: anti-Catholicism. It tends to be folks who don’t think Catholicism is a species of Christianity (itself an absurd, indefensible position) who use it.

Did you ever take your “survey”? If so, what happened?

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