What's the difference between Anglo and Roman Catholicism?

Answer 1

This is a nickname for the most extreme elements of the High Church faction in the Church of England, which corresponds to the Episcopalians in America. Typically, Anglo-Catholics have attached much importance to ritual and to the priesthood, which is seen as the 'officer caste', as it were. They have tended to imitate the Roman Catholics, but they don't give allegiance to the Pope.

Answer 2

As an Anglo catholic and former roman catholic, I can answer this.

Roman Catholics believe that the Pope is the head of the whole church.

Anglo Catholics have a variety of views on the pope. The most common is that he is a patriarch and the "first among equals" among bishops of the church. Anglo catholics do not believe (mostly) in papal infallibility or the Ecumenical Councils after the Seventh. Many Anglo catholics believe in what the later councils said but do not believe that they were valid councils because the church was divided after the seventh.

Our customs differ a bit -- for example our priests and bishops can marry and be married.

Other than different customs, different views on authority of the pope and different beliefs about later ecumenical councils, differences are much on a theological level.

Answer 3

Anglo-Catholic is how some High Church Anglicans and Episcopalians style themselves. Regardless of how they style themselves, they are still a protestant denomination, but with pretensions to being Catholic. They style their services on the Catholic Mass, wear Catholic vestments, and call their ministers priests. However, Pope Leo XIII in Apostolicae Curae, issued in 1896 declared all Anglican ordinations to be "absolutely null and utterly void".

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There is no "Roman Catholic" that is an epiteth first used extensively in England after the protestant revolt to refer to the Catholic Church, it is never used by the official Catholic Church. The Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ on the apostles as the first bishops and St. Peter, and his successors as His first Vicar on earth. The Catholic Church remains the only Church founded by Jesus Christ to ensure men's salvation and will remain so until the end of the world.