The Apostles Creed
     The Apostle's Creed has as its history the elements of the oldest known creed.  The first of the two forms of the Apostles' Creed can be traced to about 140AD.  The earliest form of the Apostles' Creed was used at baptisms, and from about 200AD this creed was the unifying creed of the earliest churches.  As Christianity spread to new lands and other cultures, this creed became a concise summary of the biblical account of salvation.  Thus ,every time we say the Apostles' Creed, we are reaffirming our baptismal vows and succinctly stating what we believe about salvation. 
     The sentence, "I believe in the holy catholic church," has been in the creed since its inception.  The sentence has absolutely nothing to do with the Roman Catholic Church, since the Roman Church began several centuries after the Apostles' Creed was used.  The sentence simply means that we believe in the universal church of Jesus Christ - which is really the church we are baptized into.
     Two interesting notes:  in 1786 the Methodist church revised the original Apostles' Creed and deleted the clause "he went down into hell and did rise again on the third day."  It was replaced with "he was crucified, dead and buried, the third day he rose from the dead."  Since 1786, no Methodist church has said "he went down into hell...".
     In 1836 and again and again around the turn of the century, when anti Roman Catholicism and prejudice were very high, there was a movement to change "holy catholic church" to the "one universal Church of Christ".  However, there were never enough votes gathered among the General Conference delegates to change the wording.