What is the difference between Catholic and protestant chuches?

Answer 1

Catholic AnswerTechnically speaking, Jesus Christ only established one Church, and promised that it would be One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, until the end of the world. So we can really talk about protestant "churches". The protestant ecclesial communities are those who protested some, or many, teachings of Christ maintained by the Church. In protesting them, they broke away, and denied some or all of the teachings of Christ. In the process, they lost Apostolic Succession, true Sacraments, and most of the means of grace that Jesus left His Church.

The difference between the Catholic and the Protestant boil down, so to speak, to an either/or vs. a Both/and attitude.

AnswerTo the Protestant: The Bible Alone is all that is needed if it ain't there - it ain't Christian and it, the Bible, is the only thing you need for Salvation. Either you use the Bible, the Word of God, or man-made traditions.

To the Catholic: it is both the Bible (a Catholic Tradition) and the Traditions of the Apostles. Part of Tradition is the Bible which the Catholic Church wrote, and put together in the fifth century. There was no New Testament for the first generation or two of Christians as it wasn't written yet. And at there point there were dozens if not hundreds of books all claiming to be the Gospel, it was for several hundred years after this that the Pope and the Bishops decided which books would be in the New Testament. For the protestants to claim it must be in the Bible is completely disingenuous as the Bible is part of the teaching of the Catholic Church.

As a source of doctrine, the Catholic Church relies upon divinely guaranteed tradition, not upon merely human tradition. This divine tradition is the teaching of Christ, given orally to the Apostles and handed down in the Church, although not written in the pages of the New Testament. - Radio Replies vol. 1 sec. 584.

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Catholic AnswerThe Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit in the first century to bring God to the people and the people to God. The protestant "churches" were founded by individuals sixteenth centuries after Christ according to their own personal beliefs.

Catholics believe that God the Son became incarnate in a human body through the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Virgin Mary to save mankind from their sins. He established His Church and appointed Apostles (Bishops) and Peter (Pope) to guide that Church on earth and He guaranteed to be with It until the end of time. Catholics believe that you only have one choice in life: to love and serve the Lord, or to reject Him and be separated from Him forever in Hell. Every other choice you have in life comes down to that, is this following Jesus or rejecting Him.

Protestants reject Christ because they reject His Body: the Church. They believe that they are their own little Pope and that they can decide how to follow Jesus themselves. Thus they fragment into many "denominations" as they decide how they want to follow God, ignoring what He, Himself has said, and interpreting for themselves what is right or wrong. Thus they believe that they have more choices than following God or not, they believe that they have the choice to decide HOW they are going to follow God.