Ignatius Catholic

Catholics use a quote from Ignatius in 107 AD to try to show a reference to the Catholic church in early christian writings. It can actually disprove the catholic church. Here is the quote.

"Wherever Christ is there is the catholic church"

The word catholic here is the Greek katholicos. Many say it means universal but in the New Testament it can be translated whole, all, entire, every, etc. It just means all of a set. It isn't a name. See Acts 9:31 where it is all of a small region of geography. It is never used with the church. In catholic translation they translated by simply transliterating vs translating. What if they translated it as the New Testament does vs transliterating? It woudl likely say "there is the whole church" or there is the "entire church". It wouldn't be a reference to the modern catholic church at all. It would simply be a normal word if used without bias.

Since it was written before any ecuminical councils and before the papacy is recognizeable historically, it only requires that you be with Christ and Christ be with your congregation or local assembly of Christians, it doesn't require us to accept catholic theology or practice. It is actually accepting no denomination except Christian. If Christ is with you then you are the church. Of course they can argue to have Christ you must be catholic. That is a debate for another page, but I would argue if catholic you would be leaving Christ for human commands.