Catholics and Christians?

Question

Pardon my ignorance but I wish to know the difference between Catholics and Christians. I was baptised Catholic (although I do not follow religion), and I'm curious.

I'm sorry guys. Please don't be angry with me. I didn't know, ok? Geez

Answer 1

if you were baptized Catholic, you still are one, you just don't practice it. Catholics ARE Christians, the other christian churches/creeds/faiths broke off, starting around 1400-1500ad, and are still splitting with alarming frequency. Catholics wrote the Bible, started Sunday worship, spread the Faith to the bulk of the world, and established a more or less peaceful way of life in Europe. The German princes, and Henry VIII, saw the new Protestant religions as a way to further there own politics, by making themselves the heads of their own regions local churches. This meant that all tithes, which had gone to the Church now went to them, while they seized all Catholic property in their areas. if you want more info my contact is, [e-mail] thanx; matt

Answer 2

Well, its supposed to all fall into the category of Christianity. But what I discovered, (cause i was brought up catholic too) when I tried to find the origin of things, is..
The catholic church began about 3-500 years after the time of Jesus and they don't follow all the teachings of him. Now you can probably say that about all Christians in some way, shape or form. But as a church or institution they are sadly failing and misleading people and that is the truth once you get into the Bible which is the one truth, and this is what they claim to be following. They do teach fragments of the Bible, and totally misconscrew others.
The word Christian began with the earliest followers of Christ, which means one who follows Christ !

Answer 3

Catholicism is traditionally based upon the fact that Peter is responsible for the creation of the church not Jesus Christ - that is the ultimate difference, followed by the fact that they still believe they need an intercessor to confess their sins too, as though Jesus Christ dying on the cross for our sins wasn't sufficient enough.

As a Christian, one who believes that Christ is all sufficient and is the head of the Church and his death on the cross is the only intercession that was necessary for my sins and that I can personally pray to Christ and confess, you can see where the difference lies. The other primary issue, my neighbor is a very sweet Catholic lady, is that prayers must be made through Mary and she will give them to Jesus, but as a Christian, I believe Jesus hears my prayers directly as the Holy Spirit indwells within me and he is a part of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

I'm sure there are many manmade traditions that also differentiate the two - my neighbor states that she would rather people called her a Catholic than a Christian as she knows that Catholicism is the only Church. I would rather be called a Christian than anything else, because I believe that everything must go through Christ as he said it must or it is simply a waste of ones time and energy.

I'm sure if you searched the theology area of a library, you could find a good parallel of the differences.

Answer 4

A Christian believes that Jesus is the son of God. That Jesus lived a life free of sin and was crucified and on rose from the dead on the third day to give a message to his followers.
Christianity has four major divisions Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Protestant. From there it breaks down into denominations. So Catholics are Christians but Christians aren't always Catholic.

Answer 5

The catholics started the whole Christianity gig..... along the way some people thought they were missing the jist, so they created a set of new rules and nailed them to church doors - one of them was Luther, who basically started all the Lutheran off-spins - his idea was to relax catholicism....a concept which the baptists sure did not buy into it seems.... and so on and so forth.... the catholics started little groups amongst themselves, too.... the greek orthodox, russian orthodox, opus dei....etc...... at the end of the day..they all believe in jesus christ as a part of the trinity - hence the name CHRISTIANS..... kinda like the Buddhists believe in Buddha....

btw.. the earlier post that the catholics worship mary more than jesus or god is bull..... they do worship her and several other saints, but the trinity is what sits on top of everything.....

Answer 6

Catholics ARE Christians. Catholicism is one of over seventy different Christian denominations. Differences within these denominations range from many things; including but not limited to dogma, structure, salvation, scripture interpretation, sacraments, rituals, and the list goes on. If you wish to actually know what makes Catholics Catholic, try consulting a Catholic priest. They'd be more than happy to inform you of Catholicism. You'll end up getting a lot of b.s. and bias, both from Catholics and non-Catholics alike if you ask these questions on yahoo answers.

Answer 7

Catholics are Christian. They were the first Christians. All other churches broke off of the Catholic church over the last 2000 years. Christ himself started the Catholic Church. You are really zoned out of reality if you don't know at least that. You should go and ask a priest to explain these things to you. They are very nice and mild and will help you understand.

Answer 8

Catholics are Christians. Christians are people who believe Christ is the messiah ("Christ"ians). The other denominations of Christianity are reffered to as protestants, because they protested and subsequently split from the Catholic church in the 1500s.

Catholics do not hold mary as divine. I don't think any Christian denomination does.

There are some denominations of Christianity that believe the Bible to be taken literally (called fundementalists). Catholics tend to try to stay away from that idea (for instance, many believe in evolution, and not the story of creation, but we have the choice to believe either). At the same, however, we do not believe that the Bible is "bogus" because it was written by humans. We believe that the humans who wrote the books of the Bible were divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Answer 9

There is no difference. Christianity is the main branch of the majority of religions out there, example, Catholics, Baptists, Presbyrterians are all Christians and follow and believe in the same God, they just have different ways of worshipping

Answer 10

A Catholic is just one kind of Christian.

Christians believe in Jesus Christ as their saviour. Lots of religions believe in Christ, but are not Catholic because the Protestant churches broke away from the Catholic Church during the Reformation.

Some Protestants call themselves simply "Christians" because either they belong to a Protestant sect which is actually called the "Christian Church".... or they do not belong to any particular church but they believe in Christ, so they are Christians.

Catholic means "universal" -- it was the first Christian religion and is much the same all over the world.... as opposed to the various kinds of Protestant religions which are all just a bit different.