Originally posted by luckee
quick question for the ignorant.
What exactly is the difference between catholic and christian?
I grew up hearing the two used together quite often. I get older and hear them used seperately more often than not.
Can anyone explain?
Christianity used to be one church, which is the church under the leadership of the Pope. Then, came Martin Luther (I\'m pretty sure he was the first of the reformers), who was a guy in Germany, and he analyzed the church\'s activities.
He thought, "Why would we need the Pope to commune with God? Why can\'t just any person just go to church and have a direct relationship with God like the Pope?" He believed that anyone who is faithful to God doesn\'t need to have a priest, bishop, archbishop, or the Pope to be able to talk to God.
He saw the church\'s way of doing things was also corrupt. Back then, rich nobles would donate money to the church or have a church built as a way of showing his faith, which by then would ensure his salvation into heaven. Luther thought that buying your way into heaven was dispicable. He believed that through hardwork and devotion in the name of God would ensure one\'s salvation. He thought that donations to the church was only helping the Pope get rich.
Back in his day, the books were all written in Latin. Not every person knew how to read their own language, let alone Latin. I think that it was Luther (but I\'m not quite sure if it\'s him exactly) who wrote the vernacular Bible which means he translated the Bible into German (vernacular means one\'s speaking language, so it doesn\'t necesarrily mean just German. The BIble was later translated into other languages as well).
There were other things that Luther saw wrong with the church\'s doings. So he decided to reform the religion. And that\'s how Protestantism popped up. The one that Martin Luther created was Lutherism. If I remember correctly, Protestantism is every other Christian denomination other than Catholic. The root word is "protest;" Some followers of the church converted to Protestantism when they realized that they don\'t need to buy their way into heaven or they didn\'t need to have so many communions. They believed that priests don\'t have and can\'t have the "divine power" to change wine into blood and bread into flesh. Catholics have saints who play important roles in the church while Protestants believe that they don\'t have as important roles as God or Jesus themselves. Anyways, people started to think that maybe the church is corrupt and many broke into different denominations, like Henry VIII.
So to summarize, when you hear Catholic, it refers to the church that has the Pope being the head honcho. When you hear Christianity, it means all religious denominations that believes Jesus Christ is the Messiah.
PS What I said is what I remember from my Humanities class three years ago. Those who do practice Christianity and really really understand the difference, please feel free to correct me!
