Definition of "catholic"

The church is catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does, belongs to all.

1624, John Donne, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation XVII., in The Works of John Donne, vol. 3, ed. Henry Alford, London: John W. Parker (1839), pp. 574-5

Essentially, and in idea, the empire, in the minds of the Romans, was world-wide. This conception descended to the Church, which was ‘Catholic’ in spite of Buddhists, Confucians, and (later) Muhammadans.

1946, Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, I.29

Newton Heath depot has lately been catholic in its choice of power for the 6.10 p.m. Manchester-Southport and the 9 p.m. back via Bolton.

1961 March, “Motive Power Miscellany”, in Trains Illustrated, page 181

This semifossorial mammal tends to reside in areas with herbaceous cover, frequenting runways in the upper soil horizons where it feeds on a highly catholic diet of animal and plant materials […]

1995, Brian D. Crandall & Peter W. Stahl, Human Digestive Effects on a Micromammalian Skeleton, Journal of Archaeological Science (1995) 22, 789-797

"I've got catholic tastes. Catholic with a small "c", of course."

1959, Anthony Burgess, Beds in the East (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 584

He was omnivorous in his appetite for knowledge, quite catholic in his range of interests […]

2003, Simon Winchester, The Meaning of Everything; The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary, New York: Oxford University Press, page 72

And as the whole booke of Psalmes is Oleum efjusum, (as the Spouse speaks of the name of Christ) an Oyntment powred out upon all sorts of sores, A Searcloth that souples all bruises, A Balme that searches all wounds; so are there some certaine Psalmes, that are Imperiall Psalmes, that command over all affections, and spread themselves over all occasions, Catholique, universall Psalmes, that apply themselves to all necessities.

c. 1625, John Donne, edited by Evelyn M. Simpson and George R. Potter, The Sermons of John Donne‎, volume 7, Berkeley: University of California Press, published 1962, page 51

And this vast number is but a selection ; the editors chose only out of the mass before them what was most noteworthy and trustworthy, and what was of catholic rather than of national interest.

1868, James Anthony Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects‎, 3rd edition, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., page 363