What then is Catholic Identity?
Being a Catholic has basically two different faces: a common one and a plural one. There are fundamentally three things that make a Catholic a Catholic, namely: An acceptance of an approved set of dogmas (truths revealed by God) proclaimed as such by the Bishop (Pope) of Rome in union with all his brother bishops in the Catholic world; A realization that Catholic life is sacramental. This means that the created universe reflects and points back to the glory of the Creator and that God uses the things of the world as means to sanctify us (bread, wine, oil, water, prayers, etc.). The Church of Christ is governed by a many-leveled system of authority, administration and ministries. This extends from the bishops chief of whom is the Bishop of Rome to the priests and deacons in a parish, with all of their helpers. The Church speaks of a hierarchical structure. Beyond this common Catholic Identity, there are the many Catholic Identities of the 22 autonomous Catholic Churches, East and West,
