Differences Between Roman Catholicism and Conservative Protestantism

COMPARING THE BELIEFS OF ROMAN CATHOLICS &

CONSERVATIVE PROTESTANTS

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Overview:

During the 16th century, the Protestant Reformation split away from the Roman Catholic Church, thus destroying the unity of Christendom in western Europe. The Protestant movement further fragmented during the following centuries. At the present time, they number over a thousand Christian denominations in North America alone.

Both sections of Christendom agree on some major theological matters, like Angels, the crucifixion, Jesus' incarnation, bodily resurrection, and the imminent return of Jesus to earth in the second coming, Heaven, Hell, the Trinity, and the virgin birth of Jesus. They partly agree about baptism and the makeup of the Bible. But there exists a great gulf between the two groups on other matters of belief and church practice -- particularly with regard to salvation and the rapture. The divisions are deep and long-standing. This has led to prejudice and discrimination. Hostility is particularly high in some countries in South America, where Protestants -- particularly Pentecostals -- have been taking "market share" away from the Catholic Church. Bloodshed has resulted in some countries. These conflicts have sometimes made it difficult for Catholics and Protestants to mount joint programs in North America to fight for causes on which they both agree.

However, recent years have seen some social problems in which both Roman Catholics and conservative Protestants have cooperated. Generally speaking, they have attempted to preserve certain social traditions intact. They have been opposed by liberal religious groups, feminists, gays, lesbians, and some scientists, therapists, medical personnel etc. who have promoted change in society. Most cooperative efforts are related to human sexuality: restricting abortion access, maintenance of special rights for heterosexuals, opposing pornography, etc.

On matters which are not related to human sexuality, the Roman Catholic Church tends to be far more liberal than conservative Protestant denominations. Its bishops often speak out on moral matters such as:

	Elimination of the death sentence,
	The elimination of poverty,
	Provision of low cost health care,
	Social injustices that have arisen from uncontrolled capitalism,
	Unjust wars,
	Health insurance
	etc. ₉

Comparison of beliefs:

Contrasts between Roman Catholic and Evangelical Christians beliefs are shown below. "...Evangelicals hold that the Catholic Church has gone beyond Scripture, adding teachings and practices that detract from or compromise the Gospel of God’s saving grace in Christ. Catholics, in turn, hold that such teaching and practices are grounded in Scripture and belong to the fullness of God’s revelation. Their rejection, Catholics say, results in a truncated and reduced understanding of the Christian reality." ₁

Any one-line list of comparisons, such as this one, is inevitably simplistic. Within Evangelical Protestantism there are often significant differences among Baptist, Calvinists, Christians of the Reform tradition, Fundamentalists, Pentecostals, etc., that cannot be explained in a few words.

Each of these theological beliefs can easily be expanded into a full essay. We plan to do this eventually, for many of these topics.

Theological Belief	Roman Catholic Church	Conservative Protestants
Apostolic succession	Believe in the Apostolic succession: ordinations traceable back to St. Peter.	Concept rejected as historically invalid; It simply didn't happen.
Authority within the church	Vested in the hierarchy of the church.	Within the believer (soul freedom).
Baptism, significance of	Sacrament which regenerates and justifies.	Testimony of a prior regeneration.
Baptism, timing	Usually done in infancy.	Usually done later in life after person is "born again."
Bible, status of	Historically teaches that the original writings by Bible authors are inerrant. This is being debated.	The original writings of the authors of the Bible are inerrant.
Change of beliefs, practices	Debate sometimes forbidden.	Free discussion allowed.
Church, structure	Hierarchical.	Democratic.
Clergy, selection of	Appointed; all male; almost all unmarried.	Elected; mostly male; single or married.
Hell	More than a physical place, hell is a state of being involving "the pain, frustration and emptiness of life without God."	A real physical place of eternal torture.
Immaculate Conception of Mary, circa 20 BCE. (Note 1) [See also, virgin birth, below]	Required belief.	Denied.
Infallibility of the Pope	Required belief in matters of religious doctrine and faith.	Denied.
Limbo	A place in Hell for infants who die before being baptized, and for Old Testament saints. _6,7 Concept is not officially taught.₈	Existence denied.
Lord's supper/Eucharist	A sacrifice. Christ's body and blood are physically present and are consumed by believers.	Memorial meal. Christ's body and blood are present symbolically only.
Mary's status	Mary's status is below Jesus', but above that of the saints. Some regard Mary as co-redemptrix with Jesus; this is not currently church teaching.	The Virgin Mary plays a relatively minor role. Only trust in Jesus saves a person.
Non-Christian religions	Have some value for the truth that they contain.	Many Fundamentalists consider them worthless, dangerous and demon-led.
Prayer	To God. Also may ask Mary or a saint to intercede on their behalf.	To God only.
Purgatory	A state of being in which souls are cleansed by purifying punishments before they can enter heaven.	Does not exist.
Sacraments	The means of grace.	The symbols of grace.
Salvation, achieving	Dependent on faith, works and sacraments.	Dependent on faith only.
Salvation, losing	Is lost when a responsible person commits a mortal sin. It can be regained through repentance and the sacrament of confession.	Usually, once a person is saved, they cannot lose their salvation.
Statues, venerating	Frequent veneration of statues and images as symbolic of the individual saints.	Considered idolatry.
Truth	Found in scripture, as interpreted by the church. Also found in church tradition.	Found in scripture, as interpreted by the individual.
Virgin birth (actually virgin conception; circa 5 BCE)	Required belief.	Nearly universal belief.
Visibility of the Church	The hierarchy of the Church, including the laity, plus the Church's Spirit, referred to as the "Spotless Bride of Christ."	Invisible fellowship of all believers

Note 1: Many people confuse the immaculate conception with the virgin birth. The former is a Roman Catholic belief that in about 20 BCE when Mary herself was conceived, she was without original sin. The latter is a generally held belief among all conservative and most mainline Christian denominations that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was conceived about 6 BCE. Religious liberals generally consider both to be mythical concepts.

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A key difference - Justification:

An individual is "justified" when "they are brought into right standing and into a right relationship with" God. ₃ Of all of the many points of disagreement between Roman Catholic and Evangelical Protestant belief, the mechanism by which a person becomes "justified" is perhaps the most important. Lutherans "refer to justification as 'the chief doctrine upon which the church stands or falls'." ₃

The "classical reformed view of Calvin and Luther" teaches that there are two steps to salvation: ₂

Each individual is hopelessly lost in sin. He/she is at enmity with God. She/he can't even understand the gospel message; it appears as foolishness to them. Thus, the Holy Spirit must first intervene and change that person's heart, so that they can begin to understand the gospel message, and develop a faith in Jesus. This is termed "regeneration" or "rebirth."
When the individual uses their newfound faith to trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior and repents of past sins, they are "justified." This is commonly referred to as being "saved." Salvation is a once-and-for-all change. ₃Once a person is saved, they remain saved forever. Even if the person commits a dreadful sin in the future, their salvation remains intact.

The Roman Catholic position is more complex:

Each infant is hopelessly lost in sin. In the pasts, the church taught that infants are indwelled by demonic spirits that must first be exorcised.
The infant is baptized, by spreading water over its face or by total immersion. By this sacrament, regeneration and justification is automatically granted to the infant.
When the person attains the age where they are responsible for their actions, and commits their first mortal sin, then the justification that they obtained at baptism is destroyed.
Through the sacrament of Penance (confession), if they have faith, they can have justification restored.
Steps 3 and 4 are often repeated many times during their life.

Both Evangelicals and Roman Catholics believe in grace ("the free and unmerited assistance or favor or energy or saving presence of God in his dealings with humanity..."). ₄ But Evangelicals view grace as a direct action by and from God; Catholics view grace as originating from God, but flowing through the conduit of the sacraments. Evangelicals see salvation and justification as one-time events; Catholics look upon them as being repeatedly lost and potentially regained through the church's sacraments.

Associated essay on this site:

"Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification" between the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church.

References:

Taken from "Evangelicals and Catholics Together," an ecumenical statement. It is reprinted in K.A. Fournier, W.D. Watkins, "A House United," Navpress, Colorado Springs CO (1994), P. 337-349. This book is out of print but might be obtained through Amazon.com.The statement is also available online at the second half of: http://www.bible.org/docs/theology/eccles/romanca/romca-04.htm
"Irreconcilable Differences: Catholics, Evangelicals, and the New Quest for Unity," transcription of a television broadcast, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, (1995) . See: http://www.biblebb.com/files/ECTDOC.TXT
G.A. Mather & L.A. Nichols, "Dictionary of Cults, Sects, Religions and the Occult," Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, (1993), Page 171.
Rosemary Goring, "The Wordsworth Dictionary of Beliefs and Religions," Wordsworth, Ware, UK, (1995), Page 197.
"Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification," between the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation, approved by the ILWF on 1998-JUN-16. See: http://www.tcsn.net/fbchurch/fbcdecla.htm
Brother Francis, "The dogma of faith defended against right-wing liberals," (1974) This essay describes the traditional Roman Catholic belief in linbo. See: http://www.catholicism.org/pages/faithdog.htm
"Limbo" at: http://associate.com/ministry_files/The_Reading_Room/
"The Catholic FAQ: Salvation and Grace," at: http://www.newadvent.org/faq/faq024.htm
"Topics," United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, at: http://www.nccbuscc.org:8765/ Click on "Social Justice" topics.

Copyright � 1997 to 2003 incl., by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Latest update: 2003-SEP-16
Author: B.A. Robinson