I thought Christian and Catholic people are diffferent...?

Question

Am I wrong?
I thought that the Catholics believed in Mary strongly.
And that Christians believes in the Lord only.

Answer 1

Christians pray to God through Jesus.

Catholics use an icon or dummy of Mary.

Answer 2

Catholics are Christians. I think people make a common mistake by separating Catholics from Christianity due to a difference in words, but also because of errors and misunderstandings about Catholic Christian teaching. Catholics do have a strong devotion to the Blessed Mother; Protestants do not, asserting that this devotion is non-biblical and even going as far as accusing us of worshiping Mary. Neither of these things are true.

Devotion to our Lady IS biblical; check out the gospel of Luke 1: 41 & 42: When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, "Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

Then verse 48 where Mary speaks prophetically about herself: For he has looked upon his handmaid's lowliness; behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed.

Further, Catholics do not worship Mary. That would be idolatry, directly disobeying God's 2nd commandment that forbids such a practice.

God bless.

Answer 3

Belief in Mary is not the same as belief in the Lord, and in fact, I don't hear that phrase from Catholics. We believe in One God, the Father Son and Holy Spirit. We believe Mary conceived by the Spirit, and officially the dogma is that she was conceived immaculately (without the stain of original sin) by an act of grace. That doesn't make her a savior or redeemer or anything equal to Christ, but it does mean God's grace was working strongly on her.

The economy of salvation is through Christ alone, and the Catholic Church exists to further His ministry. If you believe in Mary but not in Christ, you are lost (although I'm really not sure what you'd believe in Mary about, since without Christ she's just another good person).

Answer 4

You are correct. Catholics appear to worship and pray to many "gods" --Jesus, Mary, and a number of various "sainted" people who were appparently good people who die and become saints. Christians for the most part do not worship or pray to saints or to Mary, they pray to either Jesus or God. Some christian religions view God and Jesus as the same person so there are strong differences even among so called christian religions. Some christian religions still also have many of the same practices that catholicism has, just don't recognize the pope or Mary, but a few still have saints.

I have seen catholics on TV that worship other things besides the deities: When the shroud of Turin or the mysterious cask full of "Jesus's Blood" was taken out for viewing at their cathedrals, the masses worshipped and prayed to those items also. At Bethlehem, christians and catholics alike crawl into a hole to kiss a spot where supposedly Jesus was born, another form of idol worship.

Answer 5

Catholics are Christians. We honor Mary as the mother of Jesus, but we don't worship her, as some people seem to think that we do.

Protestant Christians believe in something called "Sola Scriptura," which means "by Scripture alone." Catholic Christians believe that God speaks to us through tradition and other means, as well as through the Bible.

That is the primary difference in the way that the two groups form their doctrines.

Answer 6

Catholicism is a form of Christianity.
Christianity is a form of Abrahamicism, the belief in the Abrahamic deity of Judaism, Islam and Christianity.

Just as members of Abrahamic sects are all hot to say the other forms of Abrahamicism are getting it wrong, so too do subsets of Abrahamicism argue that their own bretheren are getting it wrong.

Jesus defined his people as "whosoever believeth in me," and therefore Catholics are as Christian as any other Abrahamicist that has Jesus but not Mohammed in their version of Abrahamic mythology.

I think Abrahamicists are often funny, personally, how they go around claiming the other followers of the same deity are not the real followers, then go around saying their own kind are not real followers. There is not a single branch on that whole family tree of religions that isn't considered "not a real" by some other branch.

Answer 7

Catholics believe in Jesus only for salvation but, they also honor their Mother Mary like the commandments tell us as Jesus gave Mary to us at the cross. How do the other denominations honor Mary? They dont. Big mistake.

Answer 8

Well, I actually not too familiar with the Catholic religion, but a Christian is someone who believes in Christ...wouldn't Catholics fall under that category?

Answer 9

christians and catholics are different but mostly the same just as jewish people and catholics are also the same both beleive in the bible just different parts are amplified in their eyes jewish people beleive Jesus was a great prophet but not the son of God christians beleive he was and catholics are kind of on the fence a bit (christians teach from only the new testament mainly, jews beleive in the old testament only, and catholics kind of teach from both a bit) mind you this is a real short summary to a very long answer and a bit over simplified.

Answer 10

It depends on one's definition of Christianity. Protestant (i.e. non-Catholic) churches generally have radically different doctrines than the Catholic church (e.g. whether or not we can pray to Mary), but all believe in Christ. The Catholic Church has other writing which they use along with the bible, e.g. traditions and apocrypha, while Protestants generally only use the bible.