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Catholicism: Roman Catholicism
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While salvation by faith is the most crucial issue, in comparing Roman Catholicism with the Word of God, there are many other differences and contradictions as well. The Roman Catholic Church teaches many doctrines that are in disagreement with what the Bible declares. These include apostolic succession, worship of saints or Mary, prayer to saints or Mary, the pope / papacy, infant baptism, transubstantiation, plenary indulgences, the sacramental system, and purgatory. While Catholics claim Scriptural support for these concepts, none of these teachings have any solid foundation in the clear teaching of Scripture. These concepts are based on Catholic tradition, not the Word of God. In fact, they all clearly contradict Biblical principles.
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Catholicism is one of the largest branches of the Christian religion. The main Catholic group is the Roman Catholic Church (so named to indicate its headquarters in Rome); ... smaller Catholic groups exist, such as the Old Catholic Church, the Polish National Catholic Church, and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association. There are also some in the Anglican church, Anglo-Catholics, that consider Anglicanism to be a branch of Catholicism. Some groups call themselves Catholic but are questionably so: for instance the Liberal Catholic Church, which originated as a breakaway group from the Old Catholic Church, but incorporated so much theosophy that it had little doctrinally in common with Catholicism anymore.
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Early modern Catholicism allegedly had a stultifying effect on intellectual life, and especially on the development of science, but recent scholarship suggests that this view needs considerable revision. Intellectual historians have insisted that humanism remained a vital, dynamic intellectual movement in the seventeenth century throughout Europe, despite attempts by church authorities to refocus scholarship to support new confessional ideologies. Spanish intellectual life apparently was much more complex than historians in previous generations had thought. In Spain, humanism mixed with more traditional scholastic thought, and writers moved with considerable flexibility between methods: even Spanish inquisitorial records illustrate this reality. Something similar was largely true in Italy, especially in the age of Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680). Jesuits at the Roman College—some from Germany like Kircher, and others from elsewhere—showed considerable favor for the cosmology of Tycho Brahe (1546–1601), even though it stood in sharp contrast to the Aristotelian status quo.
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Catholicism has two main meanings. It is sometimes used to mean the Roman Catholic Church--the term is so used particularly by members of that church. But the term is ... used to describe the practices of a larger, more encompassing group of Christian denominations which view themselves as being in historical and doctrinal continuity with Catholic Christianity as it existed before the Great Schisms that separated the church universal into different communions. It is taken from the word [C]atholic, used in the sense of universal, or all-embracing.
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Roman Catholicism demands submission of the intellect and will to the doctrines taught by the Roman magisterium (the Pope and bishops). It is claimed that the Catholic Church derives its doctrines from the "sacred deposit" found in Scriptures and Sacred Tradition. However the faithful cannot verify these doctrines by referring to the original sources. The Scriptures are inaccessible because only the magisterium is able to establish the authentic meaning. Similarly the contents of Sacred Tradition can only be known through the magisterium. Roman Catholicism is mental and spiritual slavery to the Vatican.
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Roman Catholicism traces its history to the apostles, especially the Apostle Peter. St. Peter is considered the first pope, and every pope since him is regarded as his spiritual successor. This gives the leader of the church spiritual authority and provides a means for resolving disputes that could divide the church. Through trials like persecution, heresy, and the Reformation, the notion that the church leadership represents the continuation of an unbroken line from the apostles and their teachings ("apostolic succession") has contributed to the survival of Christianity.
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Roman Catholicism