Catholicism- A Living Faith

Catholics and Christians.
It's odd at first glance that the distinction exists- but exist it does. Most people are unconscious they use it, but use it they do.
If a person calls themselves a Christian, or is referred to AS a Christian, then unconsciously we know that they are not a Catholic.
Catholic refer to themselves, and are referred to as Catholics.

I do it myself. I remember angrily crossing out the 'Christian' box on the 2001 census and writing CATHOLIC in large letters.

What is more interesting is that if I was to say to people I was a Christian in a social setting, they would laugh in disbelief. When I tell them I'm Catholic, they are mildly surprised, especially when I tell them, I do still take mass, but they can believe it. People ARE dimly aware, I think, that religion is a very different thing to Catholics.

But Catholics ARE Christians aren't they?
Catholics and Protestants worship the same God, believe Jesus to be his son, follow his teachings and read the same bible?

You see, already in that last sentence, there's one falsehood- we DON'T read the same bible. Ours contains books not in the King James version. Ours is slightly bigger.

Catholicism and Protestantism are different faiths, founded on different premises. It's easy to ignore this in an English speaking country, because the Anglican church has always posed as Protestant whilst retaining much Catholic teaching and symbolism. It has succeeded for a long time in masking the incompatibility of the two positions.

The incompatibility rests on what we as Catholics believe to be the route to salvation and what a Protestant believes.
The rest, transubstantiation, apostolic succession, etc DO represent irreconcilable differences, but they do so for the underlying reason behind them.

Protestants believe, ultimately, salvation comes through the Bible, and the Bible alone. It is the unerring word of God, and some would insist on its literal truth. I have witnessed Christian discussion groups and much has centred on reading and interpreting Bible passages.

This is the difference. I have been fortunate to have been able to consider myself a friend to more than one priest. Oh, neither of them thought I was a Saint- they'd heard my confession, but Catholicism is like that. The Sinner and the Saint are on the same road- It's just the sinner will take longer. He's showing willing, and he WILL get there. That's an important part of Catholicism. There's no Damascene conversions, no feeling the Holy spirit within you, none of that stuff that Bible Christians adore. The journey starts at birth and ends at death- it's a personal one. Being a sinner doesn't make me a bad Catholic, because like the prodigal son, I keep coming back and saying sorry.

One of the priests I knew well was a Cambridge Physics graduate- so as you can imagine, I used to enjoy our little discussions. Like me, he believed firmly that Religion and Science were one. But he was also VERY theologically Orthodox. It was through him I really got to understand my faith.

Firstly, he reminded me that Judaism is a religion of a book. Islam is a religion of a book. Protestantism is a religion of a book. Catholicism isn't.



To Catholics, the Bible is USEFUL, but bits of it patently aren't true in the literal sense and no Catholic has a problem with that.

Catholicism is a religion based on the premise that Jesus Christ founded, in 33AD, a community of Apostles to spread the word of God.

Now the implications of that are significant, and to a Protestant, sinister.

Because, we as Catholics, ultimately accept that God's word can change. Just as Christ's Death wiped out the commandments of the Old Testament and established a New Law, we as Catholics are in the position that WE BELIEVE IF THE CHURCH DECREES THAT THE LAW HAS CHANGED AND THAT THAT IS THE WILL OF GOD, we accept that.

Because we believe it to be the SAME community of apostles Jesus founded. To us, Christ's message was not one frozen in time. He founded a living, breathing community, which strives continuously to understand God. Catholics seeking to understand God, turn as much to St Augustine, St Jerome and St Thomas Aquinas as they do the Bible.

To Catholics, the Old Testament represents a superseded message, superseded by the New. It helps us understand the New, but so too, do many other things. A Catholic can with some ease, look at other faiths and creeds and say; they too, contain a piece of the puzzle. We don't think they are messages as complete as ours, but we can look at them, and sometimes they can add to our worldview.



We believe that at all times we are told what we should know, but after all, at one time, that was that God made the world in seven days.
And we know that wasn't so.

God will always tell us truth, but not, perhaps, the whole truth. And as we change, his message changes. That is one thing the Bible makes clear.

Ultimately, our Faith comes down to one chilling premise. And my priest friend shocked me when he posed it.
'But really, what is the only thing we CAN be sure of?'
I was stumped.
'That he will never lie?'

My priest friend squinted.
'We can be sure he will always tell us what is necessary for our salvation. We can be sure he wants us to redeem ourselves.'
Though we can't say FOR SURE what that means.

And that's it. That is the Catholic Faith at it's most blunt.

It is the belief that You and I, all of us, can be redeemed, through sharing Mass and making our peace with God.
We believe that our Church is God's living, breathing message.

As long as we are listening.