This word literally means universal. In the Scriptures it is never applied to a church, but only to the Epistles of James, Peter, John and Jude, which were not addressed to a single church or individual. There is no universal visible church; and, if there were, it could not be called Roman Catholic or Greek Catholic or Anglo-Catholic, for these are contradictory terms. If a church is Roman or Greek or English, it is certainly not catholic or universal.

In the early centuries, after the first century or the Apostolic Age, churches thought to be orthodox were called by some writers Catholic in distinction from those thought to be heretical. After the Protestant Reformation in the 16^th century, the so-called "Church or Rome" tried to monopolize this title; but the so-called "Greek or Orthodox Church" also claimed it. The terms "Anglo-Catholic" was invented in England in connection with the so-called "Tractarian Movement," the issuance and influence of what was called "Tracts for the Times," tending to the old and false doctrine of "Roman Catholicism."

As stated before, there is no universal visible church on earth. There are hundreds of thousands (in fact millions) of square miles where the gospel has never been preached by any man; and Mohammedanism, a pretended religion which allows the gratification of man's vilest passions, is spreading far more rapidly than even a profession of Christianity. Elder Sylvester Hassell The Gospel Messenger -1914