Romaphobia
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Fear, dislike, or hate of Roma people. uncountable
- 2 Fear, dislike, or hate of Roman Catholicism. uncountable
"There lurks, we fear, the old Protestant Romaphobia, which will not allow him to speak boldly on the subject. If we really believe that our LORD gave power to remit sins to His Apostles, can we for a moment doubt that when a priest is ordained by the very same form of words which our LORD used in conferring this power, he receives that power, too? or shall we believe that every bishop performs a solemn mockery, not to say blasphemy, when he uses these words at every ordination? If, then, this power is really given, is it not given to be used? and is not the disuse of this power a fearful withholding of the means of pardon from the faithful?"
Example
More examples"There lurks, we fear, the old Protestant Romaphobia, which will not allow him to speak boldly on the subject. If we really believe that our LORD gave power to remit sins to His Apostles, can we for a moment doubt that when a priest is ordained by the very same form of words which our LORD used in conferring this power, he receives that power, too? or shall we believe that every bishop performs a solemn mockery, not to say blasphemy, when he uses these words at every ordination? If, then, this power is really given, is it not given to be used? and is not the disuse of this power a fearful withholding of the means of pardon from the faithful?"
Etymology
From Roma + -phobia. Late 20th century. Before that, its synonyms were the usual words for the referent.
From Roma + -phobia, where Rome is metonymic for the Roman pope, the Vatican, and their church. Mid-19th century.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.