Just wondering.. if Catholicism is not a Christian religion, then no Christian religion ever existed, correct?

Question

as far as I know Catholicism introduced Christianity to the world, and it is the original Christian religion, so what's with all the "Catholics are not Christians" all about?

those Protestants owe their beliefs from the Catholic religion. if the Catholic Church is wrong in how they worship and serve God and and His people, then who can say what's wrong and what's right among the Protestants when Protestantism is just an off-shoot from Catholicism? even the Bible the Protestants use came from the Catholic Church.

so, if Catholicism is not a Christian religion, then there's no Christian religion, and all claiming to be Christians of today are not Christians at all.


*note: I'm not Catholic, but I know the facts.

(I have been a silent observer concerning Catholics vs Protestants, so I thought of asking this question.)

who dared gave a thumbs-down to Granny Annie's answer? she's just telling the truth! why, is it wrong to tell the truth nowadays?

spiritroaming, yes, she is SOOOOOOO right, isn't she! I'm glad you repeated her answer. :)

Answer 1

Too right. And those who think otherwise need to read the Book of Acts.

And they need to realize just how they insult their Jesus whom they claim as Lord.

He said, "Upon this rock (Peter) I will build my church and THE GATES OF HELL SHALL NOT PREVAIL AGAINST IT" If the Protestants were right it would mean that the gates of hell prevailed for three quarters of the church's history!

He said to Peter, NOT to all the apostles, just to Peter, "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and earth. Whatsoever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." That's a flat-footed statement that Peter and his successors are gonna be top dogs and God will rubber stamp their decrees with His own version of a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. Now how can God do that and still keep things on the straight and narrow? Easy. Jesus said, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." So He's keeping tabs. He sent the Spirit to dwell among us and the Holy Spirit is in there keeping the papacy straight where it needs to be, ie, faith and morals. The rest of it is trivia and man's freedom holds sway.

One bit of true irony. The evangelical fundamentalists who insist in the literal inerrancy and interpretation of Scripture all seem to conveniently decide that there's a few things that can be taken symbolically rather than literally. Among them, all the above statements made by Christ. And the one I like best, "Verily I say unto you, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you shall not have life within you." That's the basis for the Eucharist being truly the Body and Blood of Christ, but those literalists have decided it's only symbolic, not literal. Of course, if they followed their own tenets then it'd have to be taken literally and suddenly, POOF! There they'd be, back in Holy Mother Church, scratching their heads and muttering, "Where did we go so wrong?". Poor things.

Answer 2

Thanks for the question, Velvet.

What I find interesting is that those who say that the Catholic Church follows only the teachings of men seem to focus only on the things which t h e y can't find evidenced in scripture or won't acknowledge as being there (like baptism and confession, and eucharist, etc). They also forget about the Catholic teachings concerning how salvation comes about, etc, which they would agree with. What they don't realize is that by focusing on what they see wrong with the Catholic Church, they base their faith on being right (or better than Catholics) instead of basing it on Jesus and on what he actually taught (and I don't mean the 2 or three scripture passages quoted out of context that certain groups point to to show how "wrong" Catholics are).

Answer 3

Well stated, Velvet.

The Apostle's Creed, which dates back to 140 AD, and which is still affirmed by most Protestants and all Orthodox and Catholic Christians, talks about the "holy catholic church." This is the oldest creed of Christianity, and there is some evidence that each of the apostles contributed to its wording. The word "catholic" is not capitalized because catholic, in this context means "universal." Jesus established a single human organization, his Church, and appointed the disciple he called "Rock" (in Greek, Petros) to be its first leader.

What makes Catholicism especially interesting is the last statement in the book of John: "Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written." In other words, not all of Jesus' teachings were written down in the Bible. Jesus taught by word of mouth, and his teachings were transmitted by his disciples by word of mouth. The essential written records of the Church from the first century form the New Testament. Much of Jesus' teaching was also written down in the second and third century as the writings of the Fathers of the Church.

This oral teaching is preserved in Catholic thinking and practice; Catholics call it "Tradition." For example, Jesus' teaching on baptism in John 3, that we must be born again by water and the Holy Spirit, requires the elucidation of this richer source of writings. Accordingly, many practices that anti-Catholic Protestants attack as unchristian (such as infant baptism) are perfectly Christian, grounded in the rich body of teachings from the Fathers of the Church that came originally from Jesus' explanations to his disciples.

One last point: Both Protestants and Catholics can be Christians, followers of Christ. But a person can belong to a Catholic or Protestant organization and not be a Christian if he or she doesn't seriously follow his way, doesn't believe in his truth, or isn't born again into his life.

Cheers,
Bruce

Answer 4

This is always the hole in the claims of anti-Catholic activists.

If it were not for generations of monks copying out and recopying out the scriptures, no Protestant would ever have heard of the New Testament (the printing press was not invented until 1600 years of Christian faith had already come and gone.)

And if a Catholic priest had not nailed his theses to the door of the Wittenberg church, there would even be no such thing as Protestants!

Answer 5

Not all Protestants have this view of the Catholic faith.

I converted to Catholicism 16 years ago. Being raised Protestant I never heard issues against other faiths (Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, etc.). And frankly, I never heard bashing of non-faiths.

I think most of this came about through this Fundamentalism movement .
During this period, "fundamentalist" came to refer principally to those advocating a separatist practice as a means of maintaining the fundamentals of the faith. These separatist fundamentalists split off from the modernist mainline churches, forming various new orthodox denominations.
In the 1940s, a split occurred among these separatist fundamentalists, specifically over the issue of separatism.
While the persistent separatists continued to identify themselves as "fundamentalists", the other sector came to regard the term as undesirable, having connotations of divisiveness, intolerance, anti-intellectualism, lack of concern for social problems, and possibly even ignorance or foolishness. This second group wished to regain fellowship with the orthodox Protestants who still constituted the vast majority of the clergy and laity in the large Northeastern denominations – Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, and Episcopalian. They began calling themselves "evangelicals" rather than "fundamentalists".

The evangelicals regarded the separatists’ approach as unduly antagonistic and counter-productive; furthermore, by abandoning ecclesiastic, academic, and social institutions, the separatist fundamentalists had essentially surrendered control of these fields to the modernists. The separatist hard-liners tended to oppose Billy Graham, the reading of Christianity Today, and patronage of Wheaton College and Fuller Theological Seminary, while evangelicals supported these.

During this period, dismayed by changing social conditions, many of the separatist fundamentalists also rethought the withdrawal from society, and became politically active, and as such were sometimes described as neo-fundamentalists. They formed coalitions with other conservative Christians. Jerry Falwell, and Tim LaHaye together with Pat Robertson became leaders of the trend. Religious and moral conservatives of all kinds also went on the offensive at that time, all trying to re-assert conservative (orthodox) control of the churches and other institutions. However, this shift has tended to blur the lines between fundamentalist, evangelical, and all other conservative Christians, and even social conservatives of all religious persuasions.

With all that said, one needs to search the history of religions , including the Catholic Church.

Where the Bishop is, there let the multitude of believers be;
even as where Jesus is, there is the Catholic Church'' Ignatius of Antioch, 1st c. A.D

Answer 6

Just because Granny Annie is SO right, I am repeating her. :)

One bit of true irony. The evangelical fundamentalists who insist in the literal inerrancy and interpretation of Scripture all seem to conveniently decide that there's a few things that can be taken symbolically rather than literally. Among them, all the above statements made by Christ. And the one I like best, "Verily I say unto you, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you shall not have life within you." That's the basis for the Eucharist being truly the Body and Blood of Christ, but those literalists have decided it's only symbolic, not literal. Of course, if they followed their own tenets then it'd have to be taken literally and suddenly, POOF! There they'd be, back in Holy Mother Church, scratching their heads and muttering, "Where did we go so wrong?". Poor things.

Answer 7

All you have to do is go to the services of the various Christian sects and then to to a Catholic mass and it will become obvious that they are all founded in Catholicism. The whole bickering over nits of theology is just funny.

Answer 8

Catholics claim to be the original church. I will not dispute this here even though I somewhat disagree. However even saying that Catholics are the original church. This does not mean they are necessarily correct today. The Catholic church has become so infested with man's doctrine's and beliefs that while I will not say they are not Christians I will say that they have drifted from what true Christianity is. They have embraced beliefs that are not Biblical and said they are right because it is tradition. Things such as Mary being sinless are not only tradition and not Biblical. They are in fact opposed to what the Bible says.

As to the Catholic church being responsible for the us having the Bible. I have been thinking about this lately and the answer is they are not responsible. God is. He used them to give us the Bible but that does not make them right. Just because God chooses to use an individual or a group does not make them God's church or chosen. In the book of Numbers God uses an as.s. Does that make it God's chosen? No, it makes it a vessel that was available at the time.

Answer 9

you are right on the ball with this one. it is quite sad how our seperated brothers and sisters in christ(protestants) view the catholic faith, the one true faith. protestants are forever indepted to the faith of the catholic church sadly some don't acknowledge the church of christ as a christian faith. even at the basic level a christian is one who follows christ, so it only stands to reason that the catholic faith is christian in that at its core is jesus christ. protestants don't understand catholicism and most go of the rampant anti catholicism tracts and misconceptions instead of going to catholic sources where they would receive the proper information regarding catholicism, or ould that be to much like common sense for them....?

Answer 10

The first Church was called Catholic. But when the 300's came around and paganism started to infiltrate the original doctrine, we ended up with a false religion that ruled for centuries. Then the mid 1500's came about and the Bible was being translated into the common language from the original language, people were seeing how false this Roman Catholic Church was. As more Truth was being revealed to mankind, different religions were sprouting up all over the place and were being quashed by the Roman Catholic Church and it's rule with an Iron Fist. As people are getting back to the basics of the Bible, they are finding out how futile religion is and are getting back into the Relationship with the Creator as was intended. A Christian is anyone that is Born Again of the water and of the Spirit. Baptized by immersion in the name of Jesus Christ and filled with His Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. There are many denominations that are coming to this Truth and being filled with His Spirit every day!