Universal, not denominational Catholic

Meaning

The commentary explains Catholica and the corresponding German universal-language in their local, all-embracing sense. In the name-catalogue and the companion’s discussion of the most general genus, the words concern range or universality. They do not, by themselves, identify Roman Catholic allegiance.

This is a distinction of sense, not a claim that every occurrence of the word across early modern writing has the same meaning. The complete phrase and its source speaker remain decisive. The exact historical form is indexed with its actual passage; the note’s normalized or isolated label belongs to editorial access.