Though the universality of Christianity was a common idea in the New Testament, the term catholic never appears. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch in the early second century, was apparently the first to use the word. He spoke of this concept when he said, “Wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the catholic church.” By the end of the second century the term catholic was widely used of the church in the sense that the catholic church was both universal, in contrast to local congregations, and orthodox, in contrast to heretical groups.
Catholic=universal