Different catholics?

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allisonP

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Ok, as some of you may know I am trying to learn about the catholic church. I come on here with an open mind and heart and with alot of prayer seeking truth.
So I am going to ask another question šŸ˜ƒ
I thought I understood that the catholic church is one.
That there is one body. One church. one faith.
I keep seeing however that there is old catholic, orthodox catholic, eastern orthodox, there is russian catholic. SO many.

Are they not catholic?
Meanig do they not follow the apostleship of the Pope?

Any help welcome! :confused:
 
Those who are in union with the Pope are members of the Catholic Church. There are many rites within the one church. A rite is a liturgical difference-- such as what language Mass is said in, etc. The Roman Rite is the rite in the west (what youā€™d call a Roman Catholic). There are other Eastern Rites such as Byzantine, Maronite, etc. Many of these are geographical in basis. They are fully Catholic, they are in union with the Pope.

Then, there are schismatic and heterodox churches that use the name ā€œCatholicā€ and they are not in union with the Pope. They use the word ā€œCatholicā€ in their title, like Old Catholic, or American Independent Catholic, but they are not authentically Catholic.
 
Welcome, and good luck in your discernment for the truth!

There are groups that use the term ā€œCatholicā€ in their name, that are not - they do not obey the Magisterium (teaching of the Church), and do not believe in the supremacy of the Pope.

Within the Catholic Church, there are different groups, I believe 22 - they have different rituals, or rites, in how they celebrate Mass, sacraments, etc. They all follow the Magisterium and the Church.

There are plenty of other groups - many of which originally pulled away from Catholicism, some of which pulled away form groups that already pulled away from Catholicism. A lot of these justify their own unique faith through their own selective interpretation of the Bible, which shows you one of the nonsenses of believing that God was leave us with a Bible subject to gross variations in interpretation and not give us Tradition passed down, and the teaching of the Church that has always believed the same things.

I believe there are about 22,000 Protestant groups, showing you the variations that exist in Bible interpretation. šŸ˜‰

The Catholic Church is ā€œOneā€ because it was the only Christian Church in the beginning. All other Christian groups pulled away from the Church, they were not there in the beginning.

Hope that helps, I am sure others can chime in with some more details but this is the cliff note version!
 
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