I’m a bit confused. Is this an “outreach” Bible Study to reach Protestants?
In my experience, there CAN be a wide spiritual gulf between us Catholics and our Protestant friends, even with the best ecumenical intentions by both parties. You need to be very well versed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church in order to bring clarity and understanding to Protestant friends. I would discuss this endeavor with your Priest.
Differences commonly encountered:
Protestants believe almost exclusively in the written word of God, while Catholics believe in the written word plus oral tradition of the Church. The exclusive adherence to the written word is a concept that Martin Luther introduced when the Church was already 1500 years old. But, for this reason, Protestants do not venerate Mary, the Blessed Mother of Jesus to the extent Catholics do. Mary is not extensively written of in the Bible, but the Catholic Church has discerned a great deal about her over the centuries. Similarly, Protestants do not tend to venerate all of the Saints of the Catholic Church.
Protestants tend to view the bread and wine of the Eucharist as symbolic, whereas Catholics view the bread and wine as the literal trans substantiated body and blood of Jesus Christ.
The differences, large and small go on and on. Protestants seem not to understand the value of Catholic Sacraments and rituals. Confession is something commonly not understood or valued by Protestants. Most Protestants believe that the sinner can go directly to God, himself, without need for a mediator.
To end on a more humorous note, I once remember being invited to a Protestant Bible Study on the First Friday of Lent. This nice group of people all brought various delicious pot-luck casseroles to share. As a Catholic, I brought only some fish cakes. Well, I was the only one eating fish that night! There were several prayers, and I dutifully made the Sign Of The Cross at the beginning and end of each prayer. People were all friendly and tolerant but there was a palpable air of tension present.
If you are going to outreach to Protestants, you need to be firm and strong in your Catholicism in order to witness to them. You will have a lot of patient explaining and teaching to do, so you need to be well-informed.
