[Mindy82]

Please, please don't slam me, I only wish to learn... I know this will floor many of you, but if you could find it in your heart to reply, I would greatly appreciate it...

I believe in God, but am not really religious, nor am I baptized... Can you tell me what is the difference between Catholic and Christian?

Thank you

[StorkWatcher]

I see you received responses on the Christian board. There are good ones!

I'm glad you asked the question - please don't be embarassed!

As a Catholic who married to a non-Catholic (Protestant) man and have always had non-Catholic Christian friends, this is a very common question I've gotten.

You'll get various answers, but to me, the main differences I found growing up were:

We take Communion at every Mass (church service) while most of my friends took it once a month or less.

We're baptized as infants rather than making a voluntary commitment as an older child to do so.

We do not worship anyone other than God (it's a commandment - we have the same 10 as other Christians), but we do pray for intercession (basically asking them to pray for us), to the saints and Mary, the Virgin Mother of Jesus.

We have a few extra "rules" for the ways/times we worship. (Special Holy Days where we are supposed to go to church, extra obligations during Lent, etc.)

Hope this helps! It's a VERY general commentary.

[iliplain]

Catholic is one of the many Christian religions, which means religions that believe in Christ. (Christians believe in God and Jesus, Christ, As the Messiah....Judaism believes in God , Islam believes in God (Allah) and Mohammed as its prophet....this is just a very simplistic description

[djp03]

The center of the CAtholic Faith is the Eucharist which is the body and blood of Jesus Christ. During the Mass, the bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Jesus by the priest. This a mystery and takes the gift of faith to believe. The Eucharist is kept in the tabernacle ( a box near the altar) of every Catholic Church. That is why Catholics genuflect (bend on one knee) towards the tabernacle when they enter a Catholic Church. Catholics also believe in apostolic succession.... which means that Pope Benedict is the vicar of Christ (head of the church on Earth). Google the word "Catholic" and some good sites should come up to help explain the Catholic faith more.


M

[bocefus]

Mindy-

No reason to be embarassed. What a confusing topic. There are some great replies already. I just want to re-iterate that catholics are christian, although I have heard many protestants claim otherwise and for some reason a lot of people (including these boards) will use designations of christian vs catholic. Catholicism is the first and original christian church founded by Christ. Not trying to bash anyone else, just tired of being accussed of being non-christian.

[Fe2002]

Yep, that is the statement someone said to me that prompted me to ask the very same question. So don't feel embarrassed...

All of the replies have been very enlightening... thanks.