Are Christians and Protestants the same?

Answer 1

maybe...

Sort of. Both groups are Christian and share many beliefs. Catholics believe in many traditions that are not Biblically based. Protestants are quite diverse and don't even agree amongst themselves what is "correct" and what is not.

The Anglican (or Episcopal) Church tries to be a bit of both, while being not quite either.

Roman Catholic AnswerNo. Christianity was started by Our Blessed Lord on St. Peter (See St. Matthew 16:17-19) who promised that there would be one Church (one fold) and one shepherd and that He would be with It until the end of time. He sent the Holy Spirit to guide it into all truth. Protestants (as of last count, some 33,000 different "denominations") are a heresy that was started in the sixteenth century by people who disagreed with what Our Blessed Lord teaches in His Church. Thus they separated from the Mystical Body of Christ, the "one fold with one shepherd" and started their own religions that worship the way they want. Aside from some superficial similarities like both use the words "Christian", "salvation", etc. they are completely different, and define these words completely differently.

Answer 2

Great heavens, no. Catholicism was formed by Our Blessed Lord, Jesus Christ on the apostle Peter (see St. Matthew 16:17-19). It is His mystical Body and He guaranteed that it would be here until the end of the world, that it would be One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. He send the Holy Spirit to guide it and guarantee it, and put Peter and his successors over it as His Vicars on earth.

The protestant "faith" was formed by Catholic heretics in the sixteenth century who did not want to live up to the moral standard that Our Blessed Lord preached to us and continues to preach through His Church, so they left and started their own "churches" that would be more forgiving of their personal sins. Henry VIII and Martin Luther are two outstanding examples of men who founded churches because of their personal sins and weaknesses.

Answer 3

It's just Catholic, not Roman Catholic. Roman is an epithet first commonly used in England after the protestant revolt to describe the Catholic Church. It is never used by the official Catholic Church. Thus a Roman Catholic is just the name that people who speak English are wont to call Catholics, but, yes, they are the same thing. Even though many English speaking Catholics will call themselves Roman Catholic, historically, it is not really a nice epithet.

Answer 4

All Catholics are Christians. A Christian church is one that believes in Christ and follows him. There are many different Christian churches - Catholic, Congregational, Methodist, Episcopalian, Lutheran, etc. So there are many different Christian religions, and Catholic is one of them; all these churches believe in God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Roman Catholic AnswerNo, Catholicism are Christians. Many other people call themselves Christians, and there may be some truth in what they say, if they are baptized and profess the Nicene Creed in its original meaning. That said, the words are used in modern language to denote two different things by "Christians" who are not Catholics. This is an example of what the Holy Father laments as relativism.

from A Catholic Dictionary, edited by Donald Attwater, Second edition, revised 1957

Christian

A name first given to the followers of our Lord at Antioch (Acts xi, 26). Since the rise of Protestantism the name has been used in so many different senses as to have become almost meaningless: it may indicate a Catholic or a Unitarian, or even be applied to an infidel who displays some virtue which is associated with Christ. It may reasonably be applied to the members of all the ancient churches, whether in communion with the Holy See, or not, and to those Protestants who profess, explicitly or implicitly, the Nicaean creed in its traditional interpretation. The Church puts no definite official meaning on the word, as she does on Catholic.

Christianity

is the religion of, the body of faith and morals taught by, the Catholic Church of Christ. The word may be properly extended to include the religious systems of the dissident Eastern -churches and of some Protestant bodies. The current popular use of the word in an ethical, subjective sense, is to be deplored: it is stripping it of all objective or historical connotations.

Catholic

I. The word is derived from Greek and simply means universal. In combination with the word "church" it essentially merely indicates one of the marks of the Church, and was so used by St. Ignatius at the beginning of the 2nd century; but in the course of history it has come to be the distinguishing epithet of the Church of Christ and his faith: under other circumstances its place might have been taken by "apostolic" or "one." The use of the word in this distinguishing way became current and common in England only from the middle of the 16th century. In some mediaeval translations of the Creed unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam is rendered "one holy apostolic church general."

ii. A Catholic is any person who, having been baptized, does not adhere to a non-Catholic religion or perform any act with the intention or effect of excluding himself from the Church. A "good Catholic" is one who practises his religion to the best of his ability.

iii. Catholics normally call themselves Catholics without qualification, and are distinguished by the name alike in West and East; except for a body of High Anglicans, no other Christians use the name as a distinguishing title. But Catholics of the Byzantine rite sometimes calls themselves Greek Catholics, Chaldeans are so called, and Maronites always refer to themselves simply as Maronites - they avoid the name Catholic for the good reason that there is no such thing as a Maronite who is not a Catholic, and because in Syria the epithet particularly designates a Catholic Melkite.

iv. As an adjective, Catholic in this special sense should only be used of subjects of which Catholicity is predicable, e.g., a man as man, a church, building, or catechism. To speak of a Catholic artist or grocer, Catholic poetry or truth is inaccurate and misleading: an artist or grocer who is a Catholic is a Catholic as a man (and this without reference to whether he paints only ecclesiastical pictures or supplies cheese only to the clergy); poetry may deal with a Catholic theme or be written by a poet who is a Catholic, but is not by that fact anything but poetry; truth is truth and it is improper to call the truth about the Catholic Church, Catholic truth; (cf., Catholic arithmetic, a Wesleyan judge, Quaker music, and, particularly, Catholic culture).

Answer 5

No. Some Christians are Protestants but not all. Catholics for example state that they are Christians but they are not Protestants.