I don’t want to offend anyone (honestly, I really just want to understand), but I don’t fully understand the difference between Catholics and Christians. I have friends who fell out over this but I don’t fully understand why.
23 Likes
Let Us Pray For You
Your prayer matters. Have thousands of Christians around the world offer a prayer on your behalf. Our unique prayer submission will spread your prayer to Churches, Shrines, prayer groups and holy sites around the world.
So the short answer is yes, Catholics are Christians. They’re actually the largest branch of Christianity - about 1.3 billion people, which is over half of all Christians worldwide. All Catholics are Christian, but not all Christians are Catholic.
The confusion usually comes from people using “Christian” to mean “Protestant” without realizing it. When someone says “I’m Christian not Catholic,” what they usually mean is “I’m Protestant.” Historically, Catholicism predates Protestantism by about 1,500 years. The early church that came directly from Jesus and the apostles developed into what we now call the Catholic Church.
The big split happened in 1517 when Martin Luther challenged certain Catholic teachings and practices. This created Protestantism - which includes Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and thousands of other denominations. Before that, there was the Great Schism in 1054 that split the church into Catholic (West) and Orthodox (East).
Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox - affirm the core beliefs: the Trinity, Jesus as fully God and fully man, salvation through Christ, his death and resurrection.
They disagree on authority structures (like the Pope), how many sacraments there are, whether you’re saved by faith alone or faith plus works, and the role of Mary and saints.
Your friends probably fell out over these theological differences, which people take seriously because they affect how you practice your faith.
The biggest issue is salvation.
Most Protestants believe you’re saved by faith alone - you trust in Jesus and his finished work on the cross, and that’s it.
Catholics teach that you need both faith and good works cooperating with God’s grace. They point to James 2:24 which says “a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.” Protestants counter with Ephesians 2:8-9 about being saved by grace through faith, not by works.
Some evangelicals genuinely believe Catholic teaching on this constitutes a “different gospel” that can’t save people. They’re not trying to be mean - they think it’s a matter of eternal consequences. Catholics believe Protestants have cut themselves off from the fullness of truth by rejecting the Church’s authority and the sacraments.
There’s also papal authority (Protestants reject it entirely), praying to Mary and saints (Protestants say that’s unbiblical), purgatory (Protestants say it’s not in Scripture), and whether the bread and wine actually become Christ’s body and blood or are just symbolic.
Since Vatican II in the 1960s, the Catholic Church officially recognizes Protestants as “separated brethren” - genuine Christians who are separated from full communion but still part of Christ’s body through baptism. Most mainstream Protestants accept that Catholics are Christians too, even if they disagree on theology.
What you’re seeing with your friends is probably less about theology and more about identity and tribal loyalty at this point.
The historical animosity was real and brutal - religious wars, persecution, mutual condemnations. But most of that has softened significantly. In 1999, Catholics and Lutherans signed the Joint Declaration on Justification, basically resolving the Reformation’s central dispute about salvation. Pope Francis commemorated the Reformation’s 500th anniversary WITH Lutheran leaders in 2016. That would’ve been unthinkable even 50 years ago.
Today, about 61% of Americans say Catholics and Protestants are more similar than different. Interfaith marriages between Catholics and Protestants are common and generally not controversial anymore. You’ll find Catholics and Protestants serving together at homeless shelters, co-leading prayer groups, and cooperating on social issues.
Every Catholic is a Christian, but not every Christian is Catholic - that’s where your friends’ tension is coming from. The Catholic Church is the ancient root that Orthodox and Protestant branches separated from later on, each with different traditions and interpretations of the same basic faith.
I don’t get why people say Catholics aren’t Christians. Catholicism is the largest Christian denomination and goes back to the early church.
We all follow Christ, just with different traditions. There’s that verse in Ephesians 4:5 about ‘One Lord, one faith, one baptism’ that kind of sums it up.
Christianity is the umbrella term for anyone who follows Jesus Christ. Under that, you’ve got Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, and lots of other denominations. The confusion usually happens because many Protestants (like Baptists, Methodists, non-denominational churches) will just call themselves ‘Christian’ without adding a label. Meanwhile, Catholics specifically say ‘I’m Catholic.’ So it can sound like they’re two separate things, but Catholicism is one branch of Christianity.
Not your fault, just the terminology and the way we talk about it really does make it pretty confusing.
7 Likes
Catholics are Christians, just like Protestants are Christians, and Orthodox believers are Christians. Christian is just the umbrella term for all of them.
When I started looking into the history, it made more sense. Catholicism and Orthodoxy go back to the very beginning - they’re the ancient branches that eventually split from each other centuries ago. Then Protestantism emerged much later, and that’s where things get really complicated because there are so many different Protestant denominations. I think what causes the tension you’re seeing with your friends is that sometimes when people say ‘Christian,’ they mean ‘Protestant Christian’ without realizing they’re being unclear. And that can feel dismissive to Catholics, who have just as much claim to the Christian identity - arguably an older one.
It’s like someone saying ‘I have a dog’ and another person responding ‘Oh, I have a real dog’ when they both have dogs, just different breeds.
1 Like
I think of it like Jesus’s parable of the vineyard workers. Catholicism was there from the first hour with its traditions and structure centered in Rome, but it’s one part of the larger Christian family that all confesses Jesus as Lord.
Catholics are Christians (the biggest group, with about a billion members), but not all Christians follow Catholic-specific beliefs like purgatory or papal authority. Different workers in the vineyard arrived at different times and worked differently.
Not the same but people do misuse the terms without really thinking sometimes.
Your question is not offensive at all.
All Catholics are Christians, but not all Christians are Catholics. Catholicism (led by the Pope in the Vatican) is one of the oldest branches of Christianity. Still, there are plenty of other groups too, like Baptists, Methodists, Orthodox churches, and more.
‘Christian’ is the big umbrella term, and Catholic is one specific tradition under that umbrella. It just happens to be the largest one.
So much has happened in the past that doesn’t apply in Catholicism anymore, but I can see why some people still get into arguments about it. Historically, there have been scandals, corruption and violence that some still hold against the Catholics.
2 Likes
We use the word ‘Christian’ for all followers of Christ, but in casual American English, many people say ‘Christian’ when they mean ‘Protestant’ or ‘non-denominational’. So when your friends say they’re ‘Christian, not Catholic,’ they’re using the casual meaning, not the theological one. It’s more linguistic than doctrinal.
I think what tears friendships apart is the fundamental difference between the two sides: whether salvation comes through faith alone or whether works and sacraments are necessary.
It is hurtful when our close friends tell us that our path to God isn’t valid. I’ve struggled with this myself - questioning each other’s salvation can make people feel like their faith is being dismissed.
Catholics believe the bread and wine literally become Jesus’s body and blood during Mass. Most other Christians see it as a symbolic remembrance. Either way, this shouldn’t separate us.
Catholics are Christians. They see their church as the original one founded by Jesus, with the Pope as the spiritual leader who has authority over church doctrine.
But they are not the only group of Christians. Other branches of Christianity have different forms of worship, interpret scripture differently, and run their churches, but they all center their faith on Jesus Christ.
That’s probably why your friends had such strong opinions about it. Different denominations have their own ways of doing things and reading the Bible. They have very different beliefs and practices, and sometimes those differences matter a lot to people.
I had to figure this out myself when trying to explain it to someone.
Catholics ARE Christians. Christianity is the umbrella term for anyone who follows Jesus Christ. Catholics and other Christians share the core beliefs - Jesus is the Son of God, salvation through Christ, and the Bible. They differ in practices and traditions, though. Catholics have the Pope, focus more on the sacraments, and include additional books in their Old Testament.
I think mostly Protestant Christians use ‘Christian’ to refer only to their own traditions, which isn’t really accurate. When your friends fell out, one of them probably felt like the other was saying Catholics weren’t ‘real’ Christians, which would be pretty insulting.
The Catholic Church considers itself the original Church, and other denominations split off later throughout history. So all Catholics are Christians.
Hope that helps clear things up.
Yeah, all Catholics are Christians because they follow Christ. A lot of denominations appeared over the centuries because they disagreed about scripture interpretation and church authority. That’s probably why your friends got heated about it - people feel pretty strongly about which tradition got it right.
The main Catholic-specific stuff includes the Pope as the spiritual leader. They believe that Christ is literally present in the Eucharist (not just symbolically), following the Catechism, and that there are additional books in the Bible.
The core belief in Jesus is the same in all branches of Christianity, though.
1 Like
C. S. Lewis once wrote, ‘We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road.’
Catholics ARE Christians.
What makes someone Christian in the first place? When you look at the historic foundations, like the Nicene Creed and the Apostles’ Creed, they define Christianity at its core. Catholics affirm these creeds, so they’re Christian.
Catholic and Orthodox Christians share many practices and beliefs that set them apart from other branches, yet they still have the same foundational creeds. Christianity is the big family, and Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants are different branches of that same family tree. They share the same roots but have different traditions.
Your friends probably fell out because sometimes people use ‘Christian’ as shorthand for ‘Protestant Christian’ and forget that Catholics are Christians too.
3 Likes