Very little. Catholicism is what all England was before Henry the VIII wanted a divorce. The minor changes that were made resulted in the Church of England, or Protestants.
Catholics believe the pope is head of the church and is infallible even if he goes against biblical teachings. After all, the catholics organized the Bible into the books it is today.
Protestants believe that Christ is the head of the church and that the Bible is infallible.
IMO the differences:
- the Pope in the Rcc - even though various protestant have their own "version of the pope"/papacy.
- the Eucharist during the mass
- celibacy among their priests
- only men as priests
while there are other differences when it comes to specific branches of protestant ism - these are the basics.
Catholics believe the Eucharist *is* the body of Christ
Protestants believe the Eurcharist *represents* the body of Christ
Catholics place a lot of importance on tradition as well as the bible
Protestants base their beliefs solely on the bible.
A lot of Protestants believe in predetermination (IE you don't have free will, God has mapped everything out for you)
Catholics believe in free will.
Protestants believe that only faith in Jesus Christ will save you.
Catholics believe that how you live your life (IE good works) is a major deciding factor in your eternal fate.
Protestants believe in Heaven and Hell
Catholics believe in Heaven, Hell and Purgatory (which is where most people go, because few people are good enough to go straight to heaven or bad enough to go to hell - you do your time in purgatory then move on up to heaven)
I don't know what protestant attitudes towards Mary are - probably that she was *just* the mother of god.
Catholics revere Mary as the Mother of God. They believe that she was so honored by God that she didn't die, she ascended into heaven. They don't worship her, or put her above Jesus, but revere her as the most blessed of all women.
As far as services go, a lot (but not all) of protestant services are lively with dancing and singing - a bit like what Catholics do at nightclubs.
Catholic services are about contemplation and reverence of the mysteries of life and so are much more sober affairs. Anglican services and Catholic services are almost identical.
Having said that though, protestantism is just any kind of western (IE not including orthodox and Coptic) christian that isn't a catholic - so their beliefs will probably vary.
Just as an addendum, I find the level of misunderstanding by Protestants about Catholicism to be quite astounding. Seriously. You don't have to agree with it, but at least educate yourself so you know what you're disagreeing with.
One major difference - Salvation is by faith (Martin Luther) and comes from Jesus Christ vs salvation comes from the church by works through the sacraments. It is a major enough difference that the whole protestant movement separated from it.
Edit: It is such a major difference that many protestants do not believe Catholics are saved(since you can't be saved by works) and therefore not Christians at all.
Protestants have no enjoyment in life other than their self imposed hardship and abstinence.
Catholics have similar rules but they are much happier as they ignore them and periodically confess their sins in return for being granted a clean slate for their next period of misbehavior.
Protestants are loyal to their host country while Catholics are loyal to Rome and wish to destroy the English Monarchy and everything Protestant.
Protestantism Respects virgin Mary, and adores only God in Jesus name.
Catholics adore Virgin Mary before Jesus, even though they know that Jesus and God is One and Same!
Catholicism is the original Christian Church. They weren't called Catholics at first but from the line of St. Peter, on whom Christ built his Church, came the Catholic Church.
In the 1500s Martin Luther, a Catholic priest, had issues with some corrupt practices of the Church and the current Pope. He informed Rome of these things which he felt were erroneous. They did not accept his position and so he broke away from the Church. He opened the door for many to follow.
This caused the next centuries to give birth to many different protestant movements. There are some 30,000+ denominations (counting all the different Baptist versions) who have slightly different beliefs and practices.
The Catholic Church has remained the same in it's core teaching for 2000 years. There have been changes in some of the liturgy and perspectives of the Chucho but the core of the faith has never changed.
Catholics are Christians. We worship the one true God. We believe that Christ is God and died for our sins on the cross, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven.
We believe in eternal life, baptism, forgiveness of sins, the gifts of the spirit etc.
The differences in Catholicism and most protestants, but no all, are:
We have the Eucharist. It is the miracle of the consecration of bread and wine, in which these items become the body, blood, soul and divinity of our Lord. It's called transubstantiation.
We honor Mary, the mother of God.
We honor the Saints and holy people of God.
We pray to Mary and the Saints and ask they pray to God for us. This is often mistaken for worship, but it certainly is not and Catholics know the difference.
We believe that the priest has the authority to pronounce the forgiveness of sins from Jesus Christ. Jesus forgives our sins through the priest..the priest does not forgive our sins.
We have statues in our churches which remind us of the Holy Family, or of the Apostles...these are not idols but reminders of the commitment and pure acceptance of the will of God that so many have set as an example.
We have a Pope who stands as the Vicar of Christ. He is preserved from error by the Holy Spirit when teaching on faith and morals. This is not a gift given the man but given the office. It is rare that a Pope will speak infallibly. Not every Pope has done this.
The Papacy is a direct line from St. Peter, the first Pope. Even though you won't find the word Pope in the Bible, Peter was the first leader of the Church.
You will get a lot of answers from Protestants who do not understand what Catholics believe or do and therefore make assumptions they'll pass off as fact. Only true Catholics understand and know what they believe.
In some of the different Protestant faiths, they Will accept some of the things of the Catholic church...but not all.
coming from n,Ireland in some places it can be a very sore and bitter subject,
there has been 30 years of violence here because of protestantism and Catholicism .
i don't know the In's and outs ,but i believe in protestantism as i am a christian protestant and we believe in the lord Jesus Christ, he is gods son ,sent to earth as a baby ,born of a virgin,lived a godly life ,was pure and of no sin ,and died a terrible death for you and me . because of the first sin from Adam. god has given us a chance of repentance (forgiveness of sin) to be with him in heaven and reign supreme with him , others who do not repent will go to that horrible place called hell ,where i wouldn't like any one to go .
what i know of Catholicism is , i don't really know if they believe in the virgin birth but they believe that the virgin Mary is supreme and they pray to her ,to ask Jesus or god for forgiveness ,they do this by weekly confession and they have to pay for confessing their sins to a priest ,on the other side ,the protestant side we believe that we can pray to god through Jesus Christ for forgiveness of sins .
Catholics believe also in purgatory they believe this is a place between heaven and earth were the dead hang around until there is enough prayers said to get them into heaven. i could go on all day about this but i wont that is only a summery of the subject. !!!!! i dint think any one should give me a bad rating they only do that because they dint like the truth in what I'm saying , that it is the truth.
The catholics believe in Mary, Saints, Pope. Some verses of the Bible are not read, actually they do not allow the followers to read the Bible lest they discover those verses, they worship idols, they have church laws instead of the Ten Comandmets. The protestants only follow the Bible.Period.
"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.
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
What are the differences between Protestantism and Catholicism?
