Were Catholics formed first or christians?

Answer 1

Christians came first. The Catholic church did not exist until quite some centuries later.

If you mean Protestants who they call themselves Christians, then the Catholics were formed first.

Answer 2

Roman Catholic AnswerActually, the question makes no sense, as Catholic is just the description of universal Christianity. They are two words describing the same thing. The word Catholic has been used to describe the Christian Church since the first century. Your confusion may come from the fact that protestants and other heretics who have only existed since the sixteenth century - a full 1,500 hundred years after Our Blessed Lord established the Catholic Church and promised that it would last until the end of the world - protestants have hijacked the word "Christian" and decided that it applies to themselves. This may be true in individual cases. An individual may be a Christian (and thus a member of the Catholic Church) if they have been validly baptised and believe in the Nicene Creed in its traditional interpretation. Others are just using the word incorrectly. Another answerThe title Catholic was self-applied by Christians in the second or third century. It meant "universal," and it was intended to mean those Christians who were part of the larger fellowship of Christians that extended throughout the Roman world. It is likely that the name was originally intended to distinguish between this group and the "Marcionites," since these two groups of Christians were not in fellowship with each other. So in this sense, the identifier "Christian" came before "Catholic." Catholic was also later used to distinguish between the so-called "universal" Church and others like the Manicheans.

Protestants would normally refer to Catholics as Roman Catholics. Certainly, Protestants can be considered to be a breakaway from the Roman Catholic Church, and this is embedded in their name "Protestant," since it indicates that were protesting against what they considered to be the abuses and wrong doctrines of the Catholic Church. Indeed, most Catholics today would accept that there were abuses at the time of Luther's protest, and would not now support the selling of indulgences, which was a particular source of offense at the time.