Difference between Roman Catholic Church and Catholic Church

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I am trying to understand a recent discussion I had with someone who keeps insisting that the RCC and the Catholic church are not the same. The argument basically comes to them mentioning certain doctrines or practices for example the Papacy, Debates over Baptism ie Cyprian and Stephen to support the claim that the RCC was the result of departing from the earlier Catholic Church. Im interested in getting both the RCC response to this as well as you Protestants that agree with this line of argumentation.
 
simspt said:
I am trying to understand a recent discussion I had with someone who keeps insisting that the RCC and the Catholic church are not the same. The argument basically comes to them mentioning certain doctrines or practices for example the Papacy, Debates over Baptism ie Cyprian and Stephen to support the claim that the RCC was the result of departing from the earlier Catholic Church. Im interested in getting both the RCC response to this as well as you Protestants that agree with this line of argumentation.
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It’s a matter of terminology. Catholic Church is what appears in the Nicene Creed (“One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church”), and Christians who recite the Nicene Creed believe by it different things.

Christians who are under the Pope of Rome, typically called Catholics or Roman Catholics, understand the Catholic Church as the Church founded by Christ over which the Pope of Rome is earthly head.

Many Protestant Christians believe the (Catholic) Church is an invisible Church of true believers, and crosses denominational lines.

Orthodox Christians believe the Catholic Church is both visible and invisible; and while there is no Vicar of Christ, the Orthodox belief is that the Orthodox Church is the Catholic Church and is led by the bishops and by the Holy Spirit. Many Orthodox will say that Rome separated herself from the Catholic Church due to the filioque, claims of universal jurisdiction, etc.
 
That’s a great question. One I’ve thought of too.Thanks Madaglan!
 
The Roman Rite is merely one branch of the worldwide Catholic Church. The Pope (the Bishop of Rome) is head of (I think) 14 different branches of the Catholic Church (Coptic, Byzantine, etc.). The 14 branches all recognize the sovereignty of the Pope, but they have different customs and traditions. In fact, the Eastern Churches of the Catholic Church have their own (different) Code of Canon Law.

A Roman Catholic person is just as Catholic as a Maronite Catholic or Melkite Catholic. Their theologies are the same. But the liturgies are different, their customs and traditions are different, and so on. As merely one example, only the Roman Rite prohibits married men from taking Holy Orders as priests.
 
The Catholic Church is a communion of twenty-two different Catholic churches. The Pope is the head of 1) this communion and 2) one of the twenty-two Catholic churches. The Catholic Church with the most members is the Latin Catholic Church. It is this Church of which the Pope is the head. It is sometimes less correctly called the Roman Catholic Church. The Latin Catholic Church uses a number of rites. The one which is most used is the Roman Rite. There are others, e.g. Ambrosian, Mozarabic, Carthusian, Carmelite, etc.

The other twenty-one Catholic churches are collectively known as the Eastern and Oriental Catholic churches. They are: 1) Coptic and 2) Ethiopian Catholic churches that use the Alexandrian Rite; the 3) Syrian, 4) Maronite, and 5) Syro-Malankara Catholic churches that use the Antiochian Rite; the 6) Armenian Catholic Church that uses the Armenian Rite; the 7) Chaldean and 8) Syro-Malabar Catholic churches that use the Chaldean Rite; the 9) Byelorussian, 10) Bulgarian, 11) Greek, 12) Hungarian, 13) Italo-Albanian, 14) Melkite, 15) Romanian, 16) Ruthenian, 17) Slovak, 18) Ukrainian, 19) Yugoslavian, 20) Albanian, and 21) Russian Catholic churches use the Constantinopolitan Rite.
 
Godfollower said:
The Roman Rite is merely one branch of the worldwide Catholic Church.
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Merely one* branch*? And what Church did the Holy Roman Catholic Church branch off from to become a branch? -just curious:shrug:
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ewtn:
“The Church of Rome is the Primatial See of the world and one of the five Patriarchal Sees of the early Church (Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem).”

CATHOLIC RITES AND CHURCHES
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Madaglan said:
Many Protestant Christians believe the (Catholic) Church is an invisible Church of true believers, and crosses denominational lines.
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And this view of “catholic” is unsubstantiated by history and patristics as I understand it.
 
john paul jones, matthew answered it perfectly. the first division was into eastern and western, with the great schism. as you can see here, all the others are divisions of the eastern branch. check out wikipedia’s religious “series”, also. I think the information there is outlined in a very easy-to-follow way, regardless of what religion you’re researching.
The Catholic Church is a communion of twenty-two different Catholic churches. The Pope is the head of 1) this communion and 2) one of the twenty-two Catholic churches. The Catholic Church with the most members is the Latin Catholic Church. It is this Church of which the Pope is the head. It is sometimes less correctly called the Roman Catholic Church. The Latin Catholic Church uses a number of rites. The one which is most used is the Roman Rite. There are others, e.g. Ambrosian, Mozarabic, Carthusian, Carmelite, etc.
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The other twenty-one Catholic churches are collectively known as the Eastern and Oriental Catholic churches. They are: 1) Coptic and 2) Ethiopian Catholic churches that use the Alexandrian Rite; the 3) Syrian, 4) Maronite, and 5) Syro-Malankara Catholic churches that use the Antiochian Rite; the 6) Armenian Catholic Church that uses the Armenian Rite; the 7) Chaldean and 8) Syro-Malabar Catholic churches that use the Chaldean Rite; the 9) Byelorussian, 10) Bulgarian, 11) Greek, 12) Hungarian, 13) Italo-Albanian, 14) Melkite, 15) Romanian, 16) Ruthenian, 17) Slovak, 18) Ukrainian, 19) Yugoslavian, 20) Albanian, and 21) Russian Catholic churches use the Constantinopolitan Rite.
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simspt said:
I am trying to understand a recent discussion I had with someone who keeps insisting that the RCC and the Catholic church are not the same. The argument basically comes to them mentioning certain doctrines or practices for example the Papacy, Debates over Baptism ie Cyprian and Stephen to support the claim that the RCC was the result of departing from the earlier Catholic Church. Im interested in getting both the RCC response to this as well as you Protestants that agree with this line of argumentation.
Click to expand...
There are 3 canons, which cover 22 churches, and many rites. The orthodox churches and the Oriental Orthodox churches which mostly mirror the catholic churches by name have their own popes and consider themselves true catholics. They are catholic but not explicit in nature and not in communion with the Holy See but the Pope did declare that from a pastoral perspectively they are almost completely in communion and are a path for salvation for their members. If you attended a Byzantine Catholic Church and a Byzantine Orthodox Church you would find them so closely similar that you would basically have to be told they were not Catholic with the exception of some roman traditions that creeped in and were retained by some eastern rite churches. The biggest difference in eastern rite churches is that there is a discipline that priests can never marry or be married as Roman Catholics and Eastern Catholic can be married prior to ordination. This was because of a Nicence council that the Roman Catholic Church mostly did not attend in which the Bishops agreed that asking a person to give up their family for priesthood was wrong. Again, this is a discipline. There is also a different canon, and a different way of explaining and referring to Mother Mary which is equally right.
 
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