Catholic or Protestant? How do we know which is right?

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You are having a laugh 😛 😛 😛

Now it takes one to know one 😛 😛

I am one 😛

I regularly come out with the absurd to stimulate discussion. That I believe is how we progress in our understanding, but having to think to challenge.

But even I recognise when someone is doing what I do, winding up for a bit of fun 😛

Of course, you know full well that ‘Catholic’ and ‘Christian’ are synonymns. They are two words which describe the SAME thing sorry for the tautology.

To be ‘Catholic’ one MUST be Christian.

The Catholic Church is the origin and custodian of Christianity and the bible is HER handbook. 👍

A grave and enormous responsibility on the head of his holiness Pope Benedict to care for the whole flock of Christ, which is the Church militant of which I am so proud [my only boast] to be counted as a member
 
Discouraging Bible Reading - Simply a falsehood. No Catholic has ever been discouraged legitimately from reading the Bible. Good heavens, our entire mass is straight from the Bible.

No Bible Studies - Sorry if there are none at your local parish. You have to understand that we Catholics are “fed” in the Eucharist. Many of us simply do not find the hunger in scripture study that non-Catholics do. I truly think that the obsessive need for Bible Study after Bible Study is due to the lack of the Eucahrist in their lives.

The Catechism of the catholic Church has made full the scriptures. Who am I to interpret scripture the way I want? I love reading scripture but to be honest, there really is nothing new as far as faith and morals. Maybe the history is intriguing. But I have never read the Bible and found anything extraordinarily new to change my faith. The church has been teaching the Bible for 1700 years.

Without the Bread of Life, you will always hunger. I have the Eucharist and am never hungry.

If you are Catholic and not “fed” by the Eucharist, maybe you really don’t believe. Good Luck and God bless.
 
Sixtus said:
You are having a laugh 😛 😛 😛

Now it takes one to know one 😛 😛

I am one 😛

I regularly come out with the absurd to stimulate discussion. That I believe is how we progress in our understanding, but having to think to challenge.

But even I recognise when someone is doing what I do, winding up for a bit of fun 😛

Of course, you know full well that ‘Catholic’ and ‘Christian’ are synonymns. They are two words which describe the SAME thing sorry for the tautology.

To be ‘Catholic’ one MUST be Christian.

The Catholic Church is the origin and custodian of Christianity and the bible is HER handbook. 👍

A grave and enormous responsibility on the head of his holiness Pope Benedict to care for the whole flock of Christ, which is the Church militant of which I am so proud [my only boast] to be counted as a member
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Actually, Of course I knew that Catholics are Christians. What I didn’t know was that the Catholic Church came before other Christian worship practices. This is what I was basically asking, the ole’ ‘who is right’ question. I didn’t realize it all started as Catholic, and the other groups split off some time after. (at least that is how I am understanding it…)
 
sweetirishct said:
Actually, Of course I knew that Catholics are Christians. What I didn’t know was that the Catholic Church came before other Christian worship practices. This is what I was basically asking, the ole’ ‘who is right’ question. I didn’t realize it all started as Catholic, and the other groups split off some time after. (at least that is how I am understanding it…)
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Way after. From the beginning, there were always little, random heretical groups, but the first major schism was in 1050 AD, more than a thousand years after the Resurrection, when the Eastern Churches rejected the authority of the Pope and went their separate ways.

The next major split was in northern Europe, with the beginnings of Protestantism in 1529. Within ten years, the Protestant movement of Martin Luther inspired others to also start their own Protestant churches, and by 1539, there were at least four completely independent Protestant groups - Lutherans, Calvinists, Mennonites, and Anglicans - not only all at war with the Catholic Church, but also at war with one another. Today, the number of Protestant churches is difficult to count - there are at least dozens, some say hundreds, and there are those who even claim that there are at least 60,000 separate Protestant denominations. (I consider that a little high, myself. But if you look in any Yellow Pages under “churches,” anywhere in the world, you’ll find quite a lot of them.)
 
sweetirishct said:
I didn’t realize it all started as Catholic, and the other groups split off some time after.
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Our first Pope, St. Peter, was the same Apostle Peter that we read about in the Bible - the leader of the followers of Jesus. It is recorded how Jesus started the Catholic Church in Matthew 16:18. This is also where Jesus first gave him the name “Peter” (his original name was Simon) and promised to build His church on Peter.

We read about how Jesus made him our first Pope in John 21:15-19.
 
sweetirishct said:
So why is it that I can’t find a Bible study? If we were *truly ecouraged *to read the Word, every parish would have a study group and encourage its parishoners to participate…
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I find it surprising that you cannot locate a Catholic Bible study. My parish has a few general ones that are listed in the bulletin when they are getting ready to start a new study like at the beginning of each semester. There is another group for singles and one for young marrieds and one for high school teens and young mothers and men only and dozens that have evolved from Christ Renews His Parish retreat teams that have continued to meet after their formation period. Well, you get the idea.

Perhaps you should inquire in the parish office nearest you about Bible studies if you really want to go. Especially if you don’t attend mass every Sunday at the same parish and get the bulletin, you may miss out on announcements. I’m a convert to Catholicism as an adult and I find that sometimes people are assumed to just “know” things that are not obvious to everyone, like how to find a Bible study.

You seem to have lots of questions about the Catholic faith which would indicate that you never got good complete teaching on what our church teaches on many topics like authority of the church and Scripture, etc. It can be confusing to get answers to random questions instead of building the knowledge like building blocks. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is a good place to start looking up topics on your own. I spent years doing my own research to find the original and true Christian church and I ended up finding the Catholic church is the one true church that Christ founded. Scott Hahn has written numerous books that might answer your questions in depth also. He is a former Protestant Bible scholar who became Catholic after spending years trying to disprove the church’s claim to being the one true church.

I would suggest joining the RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) class next fall even if you are not technically studying to join the church. They tend to follow a schedule and start out (at least in my parish) with the basics like what is the Trinity and the history of Christianity (which of course begins with the history of our church). This might help you make sense of other things such as the church’s authority to teach and the different styles of writing that make up the Bible.
 
sweetirishct said:
So why is it that I can’t find a Bible study? If we were *truly ecouraged *to read the Word, every parish would have a study group and encourage its parishoners to participate…
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This question has been posed by you in another thread and addressed at length by several respondents, as well as many good suggestions as to how to remedy it. Just as in Protestant churches, sometimes programs such as these do not exist due to reasons other than perceived unwillingness to offer them; i.e. staffing issues, interested volunteers who can run them, and/or not enough parishioner attendance. While the Church may be many things, it is not impervious to outside influences beyond it’s control.

I entered this forum due to the simple fact that the title “Catholic or Christian” has been really bothering me since it first posted… I’m sure it’s been addressed by others, I just want to say that to make the statement or assumption that Catholics are not Christian and the two are opposed in meaning is to me unenlightened and something I find personally offensive. To me, you don’t get more Christian than the Catholic Church. I’m not trying to split hairs, I do realize many use the term Christian to mean Protestant, I just don’t agree with it. Nor do I wish to ignite any more discussion on the matter or debate the issue, I just wanted to let that be said as it was something I felt to be particularly unconstructive. Best of luck to you in your search…
 
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