The Catholic Church is not a denomination. Ever since the most ancient times, Christianity as a whole professed: “
We believe in the Church, which is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic”.
We follow a Sacred Tradition that is two thousand years old, and any other denomination has their own interpretation that is based on the Sacred Tradition, modified and deprived of many teachings. As you learn the treasures of the faith, preserved unblemished by the most ancient yet ever young Church, you yourself will understand and find what your soul looks for. It must necessarily be so (Jn 10:27, Lk 10:16):
My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me …] Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me.
And yes, you are part of whatever community you belong to, even if they call themselves a “non-denominational” community, unless you have discovered Christ on your own, in which case I think you are an inquirer and I know that you have a great blessing, for Christ has spoken a timeless truth (Jn 6:44):
No man can come to me, except the Father, who has sent me, draw him
There are centuries of writings on what we call the Magisterium (or teaching authority) of the Catholic Church. I encourage you to find out more. There are also centuries of private revelations and supernatural works performed by holy men who followed Christ very closely and with heroic faith, which we are not bound to believe under pain of sin, but which nevertheless show the continued and persistent presence of the Lord and a constant guidance of the Holy Spirit in the Catholic Church.
Another fundamental issue is that the Catholic Church teaches that many elements of sanctification can be found in Christian communities not in full communion with Her. Also, the Catholic Church recognizes in other religions that search, among shadows and images, for the God who is unknown yet near, and considers all goodness and truth found in these religions as “a preparation for the Gospel and given by him who enlightens all men that they may at length have life.”
The Sacred Tradition, firmly rooted in the Sacred Scriptures, teaches that just as there is one bread, there is one body, the Church, of which all the baptized are members, and whose Head is Christ.
We profess that this Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him, although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure.
Fully incorporated into the society of the Church are those who, possessing the Spirit of Christ, accept all the means of salvation given to the Church together with her entire organization, and who - by the bonds constituted by the profession of faith, the sacraments, ecclesiastical government, and communion - are joined in the visible structure of the Church of Christ.
The Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of Christian, but do not profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter. Those who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church.
I exhort you once more to learn about the Sacred Tradition in its fullness, beginning perhaps with the
Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a brief overview of the unchanged teachings of Christianity, which may later be expanded with the reading of the
Catechism.
It is spoken with words that will never pass:
seek and you shall find. May these words come to be once more in your life, as they have in mine and in the life of many, and as they will every day, until the end of time.
