Is Catholicism the only true Christian religion?

[tracky8]

Please forgive me if parts of this question sound uneducated or elementary… I am very confused and need guidance.

I consider myself a Christian - I was raised based on Chrisitan beliefs and attended Methodist church (though not regularily). I always assumed that I was baptised as a baby, but recently discovered that is not the case. So, as of today, I consider myself a Christian (and try to live as one should), but I have never been baptized, and I am not well educated in religion outside of the “normal” lay person’s knowledge.
I have a close friend that is Catholic, and have learned quite a bit from him. I have even been atttending Mass off and on for the last year or so. I have considered converting to Catholicism, but have not done so yet - mainly because my family would most likely think I was crazy (no one is anti-Catholic, there just has never been any Catholic influence in our lives). I never turned away from the Catholic Church - I was just not raised in it and never knew the difference…
My most important questions come from what my friend has told me:
Is Catholicism the only “real” Christian religion? Will I go to hell if I am not a Catholic (and if something should happen to me before I am baptized will I also go to hell)? Am I a “fraud” as a Christian if I do not convert to Catholicism?

I am so very confused and I need guidance.

Thank you for your answers.

 

[Fr.Vincent_Serpa]

Hi,

There are many good, devout Christians who are not Catholic. They worship regularly and try to live according to the Gospel. Some churches where founded a few centuries ago and some more recently. At some point their particular denomination was founded by a well-intentioned person who found it necessary to interpret Scripture differently than was done in all the other churches at the time.

The Catholic Church also has many devout Christians who try to live the Gospel. But the Catholic Church was founded over two-thousand years ago by Jesus Christ Himself. It has no other founder. Catholics have always believed that Jesus gave it authority to bind and loose when He gave such authority to St. Peter. St. Peter was the head of the Church until he died and was succeeded by Pope Linus in 67 A.D.

See: oce.catholic.com/index.php?title=Pope

catholic.com/library/Apostolic_Succession.asp

So its interpretation of Scripture has been consistent all through the centuries, despite the moral weakness of some of its leaders. Jesus promised to remain with His Church and has—or Catholicism would have disappeared a long, long time ago.

If you sincerely do not believe that what I have said about the Catholic Church, this of itself will not make you a fraud or send you to hell when you die. But if you do believe that what I have written in true, then you are obliged to act on it and become a Catholic. You are in our prayers.

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.