What is meant by “Radical Catholicism”? Let’s begin with this explanation.
According to Daniel P. Horan, OFM, “in 1990 the now-late Jesuit scholar of English literature and philosophy, Walter Ong, S.J., wrote an essay for America magazine in which he explained the use of the word “catholic”.
He said that we should look at the meaning of the word catholic itself to get a better handle on its complex meaning.
His insight can radically challenge our understanding of what it means to be a Catholic Christian in today’s world.
He focused on the etymology or origin of the word “catholic.” While most people use it to mean “universal,” Ong points out that the Latin or Roman Church (as distinct from the Orthodox or Eastern Church) had a word for universal in Latin — universalis.
One asked: If “universal” is the adequate meaning of “catholic,” why did the Latin church, which in its vernacular language had the word universalis, not use this word but rather borrowed from Greek the term katholikos instead, speaking of the “one, holy, catholic and apostolic church (to put it into English) instead of the “one, holy, universal and apostolic church”?
Universal does bear a certain sense of inclusivity, for it gathers everything and everyone that is within the boundary of that line drawn around the circle. Yet, by virtue of the boundary or circle, it necessarily implies exclusion for whatever and whoever falls outside of the “universal” line.
By contrast, katholikos comes from two Greek words: kata or kath (meaning “through” or “throughout”) and holos (meaning “whole”). This notion of “throughout-the-whole” carries no notion of boundary or lines drawn that demarcate those who are “in” and those who are “out.”
The point, Ong suggests, is that the life, ministry and preaching of Jesus of Nazareth also supports this notion of katholikos — “Catholic” — rather than a more exclusive notion of the church as “universal.” He points to Jesus’s very short parable of “the yeast” found in Matthew 13:33 (and Luke 13:21), in which Jesus likens the Kingdom or Reign of God to a woman who makes bread.
The Kingdom of God is said to be like the yeast that is added to flour and is found “throughout-the-whole” of the dough, building it up, not destroying or separating the flour, but becoming one-with, part-of, and mutually benefiting from and contributing to the life of bread.
One is quick to point out how non-colonial yeast is. In its own organic way, it inculturates and accepts the ingredients in which it finds itself. One can even take starter dough from one type of bread and add it to an entirely different type of flour and the yeast appropriates the form of its surrounding, and does not turn the new ingredients into a replica of itself.
Yeast, in its true catholicity and insofar as yeast can in its own way, does not seek conformity in this regard, but works with and celebrates the diversity of flour and ingredients it encounters. The source of this explanation is located at: ‘Catholic’ Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Does | HuffPost Religion
So, I use the term, Radical Catholicism, to imply that we must go back to the root meaning of Christianity and Catholicism which is found in the meaning of the Kingdom of God as is explained previously.
You can refer to the Kingdom of God page above.
Faith Seeking Understanding 