Why do so many believe that Catholics are not Christians?

Question

The Roman Catholic Church is the largest single body within the Christian religion with over 1 BILLION baptised members.
How can they not be Christians?

Answer 1

Because those people that believe that are the same people that advocate banning of gay marriage. Honestly, they're prejudiced and ill educated.

Answer 2

Because they worship idols.
They have literally changed verses in the Bible to the way they want it to read and actually taken out text from the Bible. That is why there is a Catholic Bible. Check it out and compare text from the Catholic Bible and the King James Version. Very different and they have actually put in Bible Books that were never there in the beginning.
Repititive prayer.. Jesus preached against that in The New Testament.
I could go on, but I won't. The only thing that the Catholic Church and other Churches have in common is the belief in God and even though that is the most important aspect of all religions, they just stray so far from the Bible that it's ridiculous. It's mostly tradition that they stick to.

Answer 3

I believe that some Catholics are Christians. I am of the protestant branch that left the Catholic church because of its corruption during the reformation.

The difference to me (based on my interaction with professing Catholics) is that there are a lot of people that claim Catholicism, but do nothing having to do with it. They are baptized in at birth and they assume that is their salvation. By their fruit, I would not think them to be Christians.

There are some truly devout people that love God and want to serve Him. Mother Theresa was an obvious example of this. So some Catholics are Christians.

Praying to Mary and the saints strikes me as having other gods, and this is very wrong. The idea that you can do whatever you want as long as you come in occassionally and confess to a priest? Not ok. That is not in line with what the Bible teaches. These are my observations of how things play out, I don't know what the actual teachings are. Just what I can see doesn't bear the fruit of Biblical Christianity most of the time.

Answer 4

Because they don't believe in accepting Jesus as their savior - for the "only" forgiveness of sin. A priest cannot forgive you at confession. The bible says you must confess your sins & ask Jesus to forgive you, and he will (no matter what the sin) if you are sincere. Also there is no mention of praying to Mary or any other saint for that matter. No mention of a rosary. No mention of pergatory. Being baptised should be a decision you make - it's a outward act of whats happened to you when you accept Jesus as your savior. A baby cannot make a decision to folow Jesus therefore to baptise a baby has no effect.
The bible never says anything about the Pope - he is a catholic church figure only - mere man. Thank you for your question.

Answer 5

the bible tests what is christian...if a doctrine falls into a category in violation of that it makes it false no matter the size of its members.

right is right no matter how many do it, wrong is wrong no matter how many people do it
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Every argument i have heard to defend the catholic church has nothing to do with christ, that should set off a red alarm! its like a kid saying my daddy is bigger than yours...all i hear is we have more members, we ar older, yada yada yada....

member size is not a test of biblical doctrine, and the age of what you call the presbyterian church can be as old as christ beig that it strives to reach biblical teachings rather than man made traditional dogma. That being said i dont want this to be a attack on catholics, just the catholic church....im sure it is not impossible for a catholic to find christ and thats what achristian is, but the many biblical falsities cause people to put their faith in the church instead of christ. This can be seen in the common response on here that i always here...."not all christians are catholic but all catholics are christian"...this is basically tellin you that the church provides salvation not christ...if you simply join the catholic church and do what we tell you you will have salvation....salvation comes from christ and christ alone this is the problem of catholicism

Answer 6

Christians; Those who follow Christ by living as Christ did.

I don't think that Christ, were he here today, wouldn't be hanging out at the Catholic Church. When he was here before he hung with the lowest of the low and loved them unconditionally. His passion was for loving and serving the weak. Is that the attitude of the catholic people you know? It isn't of the ones that I know.

It is a beautiful religion, full of tradition and majesty. But Jesus wasn't about that. So please understand... God doesn't care if your Catholic.

It's big because people rest in that going to church, and doing the sacraments, somehow makes up for all of there other shortcomings.

But I know that it is not my sin that will send me to Hell, but my pride.

I apologize to all of the good catholics, but from what I have seen, you are rare.

Answer 7

It really makes you marvel at first. Christianity as we know it was defined by the Cathlolic Church. There was them and there were the Gnostics. If not for Catholic agressiveness, would people be proclaiming a undying belief in Monad, Christ and Sophia?

But then recall that the Christians took the Jews' sacred writing for their own and persecuted them ever since (although since the horrors of World War II, antisemitism has fallen much from favor.) It is history attempting to repeat itself.

Answer 8

Some people believe apostacy. They believe that the catholic church has turned away from the true teachings of Jesus.

Some people believe that the catholic church is truly Christian.

Some people obviously don't care one way or the other.

Btw, mere numbers prove nothing. A billion (or more) people can be duped into following false doctrine.

Answer 9

It is silly to think that Catholics are not Christians.

Many people do, however.

Here is an article of mine explaining the fullness and adequacy of Catholicism as Christianity.
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The Profundity of Catholicism
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by Jim J. McCrea


People of the world have a very false conception of Catholicism.

They think of it as dry old dogmas which are not connected to real
life and arbitrary moral rules that stand in the way of our true
freedom. The mainstream media presents the Catholic Church this way.

However, there is an infinite distance between the caricature and
the reality.

In reality, Catholicism expresses the deepest dynamism and nature of
life and reality. It is the perfect expression of the true, the
good, and the beautiful.

The world that is in opposition to it is an expression of extreme
ugliness. Take the example of the modern "progressive" immodestly
dressed woman or girl. Here, both modesty and femininity have been
departed from. We have a specter of round fleshy bodies with faces
as hard and sharp as nails. The modern world is imbalanced one way
or the other, while avoiding the mean where the true good is found -
where Jesus Christ is found.

Many are of the impression that Catholicism is for stupid people.
This misconception is held also by many evangelical Protestants with
their too-bright and too-much-on-the-surface joy.

However, as far as truth goes, nothing is deeper or more profound
than the intellectual tradition of the Catholic Church.

It says in the "Imitation of Christ"



"The more a man is united within himself, and interiorly simple, the
more and higher things doth he understand without labor; because he
receiveth the light of understanding from above."

(Bk. I, Ch. 3)
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The more *pure* a person is, the subtler, profounder, and higher
realities he is able to grasp with his mind.

In heaven, as we ascend through the nine choirs of angels, which are
the nine grades of being in heaven, the knowledge there becomes
subtler, deeper, and more profound.

But as it becomes subtler, deeper, and more profound, it also
becomes simpler, easier, more obvious, and more intelligible - and
there is an increasing delectability in that knowledge.

There exists infinite potential grades of depth and profundity of
knowledge (outside of what has actually been created) going higher
and higher, leading right to the abode of the Blessed Trinity. In
the abode of the Blessed Trinity there is infinite profundity and
infinite simplicity at the same time. Only God is capable of
understanding all truth absolutely simply and comprehensively. The
rest of us are given more or less a share of that.

But it is all important to point out that our love must grow in
proportion to the truth that we have; for the knowledge that we have
is only there for the sake of our expressions of love or agape.

Catholicism has all truth and all love contained within it, which is
incarnated in Jesus Christ. It is our life's journey to unpack that
more and more.
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Answer 10

Really, the number of Catholics isn't an issue.

People who say that Catholics are not Christian don't know the history of the Church.

And most of them don't WANT to know.

Family Tree of Christianity:

http://www.uri.org/Christian_Family_Tree.html

"The four oldest Christian families are the following: the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the non-Chalcedonian Orthodox tradition, the Western Catholic tradition and the Anglican tradition."

Answer 11

I believe a large number of Christians are "luke warm" Christians, hence, besides being passive worshipers, they are serverely uneducated. And if we can't rely on fellow Christians to know about their own faith, how can we begin to get upset when others get it wrong?

I think all Christians need to learn more about their faith. Books are the ultimate source of knowledge, but all Christians need to have some important bookmarks:

http://www.biblegateway.com/ (searchable Bible translations)
http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/ (early evidence of Jews/Christians)
http://www.ntcanon.org/ (development of New Testament)
http://www.newadvent.com/ (tons of early stuff including early writing by Church fathers and Council documents)

I also think all Christians should know how Christianity relates to Islam and Judaism. And that Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox are all sub-sects within Christianity. Other important key terms include: Apocrypha, Pseudopigrapha,and Dead Sea Scrolls, just to name a few. : ) Sorry for rambling, I just feel strongly about this.