You Can Call Yourself Whatever You Want...

By Mitchell

But at the end of the day if you're a Catholic, you're a Catholic. Cyntr on "identity" religion:

When one describes oneself as a Catholic, nothing ought to go before the term "Catholic" unless it properly describes the Rite to which one belongs; last time I checked, there is no Conservative Rite, no Liberal Rite, and no Neo-whatever Rite. It implies that WE are the only REAL Catholics, which is a HUGE judgment on the rest of the Catholic Church that absolutely nobody is qualified to make. It's a blatantly evil division in the church, "MY piece of the Catholic Church is better than YOUR piece of the Catholic Church". One may as well say that since I attend St. Thomas Aquinas church, only *I* have the Essence of Catholicism, whereas you over there at the church with some non-POD name are not actually Catholic.

There are those who are more observant and orthodox Catholics than others, but there is no "American" Catholic, nor is there a "Vatican II" Catholic or anything else. As Judie puts it, you can call yourself whatever you want, but at the end of the day it's your fidelity to Christ and His Church, your faithfulness to His teachings, and the way that you've lived your life according to His words, not the label you adopt for yourself, that tells the story.

There is only one Holy, Catholic, and Apolistic Church, and that's the Church we're a part of.