What is the difference between Catholics & Christians?

Question

My grandma is a strong Christian and she said that the Catholic version of the Bible is 'absolute rubbish'.

Will someone please explain the difference. Thank you.

Answer 1

The Catholics will tell you they're the only "real" church and that non-catholics are going to hell. The whole lot of us. They say the pope is a position appointed by Jesus with Peter being the first pope. They say the pope can speak for God and makes laws here on earth that laypeople must obey. They believe their translation of the bible (which has five more books than the Christian bible) is the only true translation.

Christians will tell you that Peter wasn't the first pope and that the Catholic church was founded around 300 AD by Constantine. They believe lots of denominations are going to heaven, they just worship different on Sundays. They don't include the extra five books believing them to not be inspired by God. They have multiple translations, let the reader pick which they like best. Hence your grandma's comments.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter. Jesus himself said the two greatest commandments are love God and love your neighbor. If everyone did those two simple things, life would be good.

Answer 2

The history is rather odd to how it all came about.

A long long time ago, there was basically only the Roman Catholic Church. King Henry the VIII wanted a divorce from his first wife, but the Pope wouldn't let him. This led to the formation of the Church of England, by Henry the VIII. The followers of this church are called the protestants. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wives_of_Henry_VIII)

There are two ways that the word 'christian' is used today.

1) The broad term that defines those who follow Jesus Christ's teachings.. (the denominations of Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Western Orthodox, Angelican, or Protestant).
(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/christian & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_denomination)

2) or the specific: as being a protestant.

It could be confusing to those who say something like "I am a Catholic Christian." .. meaning that you are a Catholic (with certain customs and differences than the other denominatinos) that follows in the Christian faith; Jesus' teachings.

It could be further simplified that the Catholic Bible is a more liberal interpretation while the Protestant / Christian Bible is more conservative.

Answer 3

CAtholic is the biggest,fullest and oldest subset of Christin(Nicene Creed- believing Trinitarians). Other Trinitarian Christians came from Catholicism(which means the universal and whole).

The Catholic version of the Bible with the 7 Deuterocanonical/"Apocrypha" books is the older canon (list of inspired books in the Bible) called the Alexandrian Judeo-Christian Canon( frm the 2nd-1st cent BC). The Protestant canon of the Bible(some Protestant versions in clude these 7 books,like the original King James) is the Pharisee Jamian Palestinian Canon and is from the late 1st centuryAD drawn up by people who rejected not only the New Testamnet but all the claims of Jesus. The Early Protestant reformers(but not all of them) rejected the Catholic Canon because the Books of Maccabees teach intercession of martyred saints and scrificing and praying for the dead, which doctrines the Protestants rejected. So they went with the Pharisee canon(over the Saducee or Samaritan Canon).

Since your grandma thinks the Catholic Bible is absolute rubbish then the protestant ones are too since the Protestant Bible is at least 85% of the Catholic Bible and most of the Protestant translations are very close to the Catholic ones.

Catholic,Orthodox and Trinitarian Protestant churches are Christian. There are more differences among the 30,000+ Protestant denominations than between the Catholic Church and many Protestant groups,like Lutheran,for example.
All Protesatnts more or less disagree with the catholic Church on the role of the Pope of Rome, intercession of the saints above or beyond ,especially of Mary,how many sacraments there are, the role of the ordained or ministerial priesthood, the role of Tradition and the Church,Bible alone,Faith Alone and what grace alone and Christ alone mean

Answer 4

Christian is a term that includes many denominations - including Catholic.

The Catholic Church mostly uses a different translation of the Bible ( the Revised, standard version, i think) while many other Protestant Christians ( not all) use the King James Translation.

they say the same thing in different words. and i believe that the bible used by the Catholics omits the last line from The Lord's Prayer. ( it's an interesting story)

to me, they are the same Bible. the translations are just different.

I have meet a few people who seemed to REALLY believe that Jesus spoke King James English and that the King James translation is the REAL Bible. They don't believe that the REAL Bible is a translation.

Answer 5

Your grandma is wrong on this, because the King James version is a spin-off of the original Catholic Bible (the difference is that Martin Luther threw out seven books because they didn't agree with his doctrine).
Catholics have ordained priests, uphold the sanctity of life, believe in the Trinity, have legitimate sacraments, believe that you can pray to Mary and the saints for intersession (NOT worship)...
Catholicism is the original Christian religion founded by Christ. All others branched off from the Catholic Church, which has retained it's beliefs and doctrines for 2000+ years.
And yes, all Catholics are Christians but not all Christians are Catholic.
And I wouldn't rule it out, because they great majority of Christians are also Catholics. Pretty impressive, if I do say so myself.

Answer 6

Catholicism and Christianity don't seem to be the equal faith.Most men and women generally tend to believe and say that they're the equal.Catholicism isn't the department of Christianity.It is an additional faith.There are Christians,Roman Catholics, Independents, protestants, Orthodox and Anglicans.These are the 6 leader/primary 'religions' that worship the Christian God or Jesus Christ or each.I have no idea so much approximately different religions I handiest recognise approximately Catholicism.So it is not convenient to factor out the truly variations.

Answer 7

I wouldn't say rubbish but there are additions to it that are not in the original writings. King James Version is probably the most accurate, the living bible is one of the easier versions, the New King James Version is pretty good too.

I can only surmise that your parents are raising you Catholic or that you have friends who are Catholic. I was raised Catholic and found that it didn't satisfy the hunger for God within me. I use to sit in the pews and look at Jesus on the cross and wonder "WHY?" Why was that guy on the cross and how come they are telling me all these other things and not why He was on that cross. I stopped going to church and then when I went into the Air Force they gave me a Gideon bible which had the New Testament with Psalms & Proverbs. I had never read the bible and found it very interesting. Later I met some Christian people who I talked to and I wasn't totally comfortable with them...not quite real...I met a little old lady named Mildred one day. Mildred lived on Liberty Lake in Washington State. Mildred shared Jesus with us and was the most loving and Godly woman I had ever met. We were all in our late teens or early 20's. Mildred loved us all and nothing we said to her seemed to shake her. The character of her life drew me to want to know the true and living God. I have never been the same again!
I will say that I have some wonderful friends who are Catholic and love the Lord. As for me, the Catholic Church didn't do it for me. I needed and wanted more!

I hope this helps you---you can email me with any other questions if you want to.

Answer 8

I was brought up in central Scotland. I recognise your grandma's view point. Bigotry between Protestants and Catholics is, unfortunately, inherent in Scottish society (as it is in Irish). My grandparents on both sides were staunch Protestants. I witnessed the hatred held by many an ignorant, so called, Christian to other Christians of a different denomination (football plays a large part in this!).

Thankfully I have grown up with no need to believe in a mythical being higher than humanity. You only have too look at the state of the world today to see the mess that extremist organised religion creates, be they Christian, Jewish or Islamic. Peace.

Answer 9

Catholics are Christian, my dear. All respect to your grandma, but if the flavour of christianity she's chosen encourages the dissing of other flavours, maybe you should look around for a flavour that doesn't.

And your question is asking people to compare the King James version of the bible (I assume) with an unidentified version - and there are so many out there, I wouldn't like to guess which one.

You know what? You could get hold of two bibles, sit down and read them, and make up your own mind if either, neither or both have good points.

Helen

Answer 10

+ Similiarities +

"What separates us as believers in Christ is much less than what unites us." (Pope John XXIII)

Almost all important doctrine is completely agreed upon between Catholic Christians and other Christians.

Here is the joint declaration of justification by Catholics (1999), Lutherans (1999), and Methodists (2006):

By grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping us and calling us to good works.

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/documents/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_31101999_cath-luth-joint-declaration_en.html

There are many minor doctrine issues and some major cultural traditional differences which, I believe, do not matter that much.

A Catholic worships and follows Christ in the tradition of Catholicism which, among other things, recognizes that Christ made Peter the leader of His new Church and Pope Benedict XVI is Peter's direct successor.

For more information, see the Catechism of the Catholic Church: http://www.usccb.org/catechism/text/index.htm

+ The Bible +

The New Testament canon of the Catholic Bible and the Protestant Bible are the same with 27 Books.

The difference in the Old Testaments actually goes back to the time before and during Christ’s life. At this time, there was no official Jewish canon of scripture.

The Jews in Egypt translated their choices of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek in the second century before Christ. This translation of 46 books, called the Septuagint, had wide use in the Roman world because most Jews lived far from Palestine in Greek cities. Many of these Jews spoke only Greek.

The early Christian Church was born into this world. The Church, with its bilingual Jews and more and more Greek-speaking Gentiles, used the books of the Septuagint as its Bible. Remember the early Christians were just writing the documents what would become the New Testament.

After the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, with increasing persecution from the Romans and competition from the fledgling Christian Church, the Jewish leaders came together and declared its official canon of Scripture, eliminating seven books from the Septuagint.

The books removed were Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Wisdom (of Solomon), Sirach, and Baruch. Parts of existing books were also removed including Psalm 151 (from Psalms), parts of the Book of Esther, Susanna (from Daniel as chapter 13), and Bel and the Dragon (from Daniel as chapter 14).

The Christian Church did not follow suit but kept all the books in the Septuagint. 46 + 27 = 73 Books total.

1500 years later, Protestants decided to keep the Catholic New Testament but change its Old Testament from the Catholic canon to the Jewish canon.

The books that were removed supported such things as
+ Prayers for the dead (Tobit 12:12; 2 Maccabees 12:39-45)
+ Purgatory (Wisdom 3:1-7)
+ Intercession of saints in heaven (2 Maccabees 15:14)
+ Intercession of angels (Tobit 12:12-15)

The books they dropped are sometimes called the Apocrypha.

Here is a Catholic Bible website: http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/

+ With love in Christ.