Are Catholic and Universal Interchangeable Synonyms?

[Paul DeBaufer]

I just read an article on the true meaning of the word catholic. I, like many others, thought that it really meant universal, but it seems that defining catholic as universal is an over simplification. Seems that there are sound theological reasons that the Roman Church chose the Greek word over the Latin.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel...usaolp00000008

I think I would much rather be catholic than universal.

[Shea Zellweger]

when discussing the one holy, apostolic Church, yes.
When followed by ism, no.

It's an interesting word study, and it bears some degree of fact- the Latin Fathers usually transliterated words when they thought the Latin equivalent didn't capture the Greek meaning. But neither word really means now what it did then, and they have indeed been made synonymous in English, for better or worse.