Why did many Protestants distrust Roman Catholics in the early 1800s?

Answer 1

Most Protestant denominations do not believe in Apostolic Succession, with the notable exceptions such as Anglicanism (Episcopalianism) & Lutheranism.

In addition most do not believe in the Literal Presence Of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament & do not believe in honouring the Virgin Mary & the Saints.

Answer 2

Henry VIII split from Rome to marry Anne Bolyn. His son Edward became king when he died and was a strict Protestant who crushed several Catholic uprisings and knocked out the stained glass windows in Catholic churchs to replace them with plain glass.

When Edward died, Henry's eldest daughter Mary I became queen. She was a Catholic, and burned hundreds of Protestants at the stake. She was also married to Philip, the King of Spain who was disliked because the spanish had many wealthy colonies in America.

When Elizabeth I came to the throne, the country became Protestant again. Philip made attempts to marry her, but she refused, as she probably had a poor view of married life. She'd seen her father get through five of his six wives, her cousin Mary, Queen of scots, had seen two husbands die and Philip himself was a love rat, had rarely seen her half sister (Mary I) and only wanted to marry her for power, like he had with Mary.

Protestant England and Catholic Spain had an intense rivalry over America's riches, which reached its climax at the Spanish Armada.

I think that's all ^^.

Answer 3

Contrary to popular belief, the name Protestant did not come from a protest against the Catholic Church, it was a protest from German princes against their ruler: The Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, so the basic distrust of anything Catholic does not stem from there, but from the confrontational process leading up to Reformation and also from the Catholic Church response against it in the form of the Counter-Reformation and the creation of the Jesuit Order. Stories about catholic political plots, sex scandals and abuses (some real, some imaginary) abounded in Lutheran literature and played an important part in the justification for expropriating Monasteries and catholic property by the Church of England.

The political intentions of many Popes in Medieval and Renaissance times were also some of the most feared aspects of the Catholic Church in the minds of many Protestant churches. A distrust that has continued many centuries later, after the last politically influential Pope died during the Renaissance. In the United States, for example, many feared the influence of the Pope as a political actor, which is one of the reasons why the U.S. did not have a Catholic president until John Kennedy in the 1960s. Even then, many felt that if elected, a Catholic POTUS would be taking orders from the Pope.

Catholic infamy and political Papism as an inherent part of the Catholic Church became a popular literary theme during Reformation times and the genre extended well beyond the Victorian Era. Most of it continues today in many protestant countries in the form of an assortment of different black legends and a general distrust of anything Catholic.