Expert: Tom Smith - 10/10/2006

Question
hi i recently attended a baptismal and i am confused to one factor but it appears to be more confusing then you could imagine. my question to you is what is the seperation of christianity and catholicism? i understand that catholicism comes from chirstianity but i am confused to how, and why , and for most the actual seperation. please any info would be greatly appreciated.

Answer
This is a very hard question to answer in a short space, but I will try to give you an overview.

Catholicism claims top be the only true church and the only true Christianity, thus denying that all other churches are truly Christian. This is based upon a mis-interpretation of Matthew 16 in which they claim that Jesus appointed Peter as head of the Church and founded the Roman catholic church.

This is address in the following articles:

http://www.geocities.com/smithtj.geo/catholicism/matt16.html
http://www.geocities.com/smithtj.geo/catholicism/paulorpeter.pdf

In actual fact, the Roman Catholic Church started in 325 AD when Constantine brought together elements of the pagan Roman religion which was headed by Constantine as Emperor and the Church. Here is a quote describing this by Roman catholic Cardinal John Henry Newman:

"We are told in various ways by Eusebius that Constantine, in order to recommend the new religion to the heathen, transferred into it the outward ornaments to which they had been accustomed in their own. It is not necessary to go into a subject which the diligence of Protestant writers has made familiar to most of us. The use of temples, and those dedicated to the particular saints, and ornamented on occasion with branches of trees, incense, lamps, and candles; votive offerings on recovery from illness, holy water, asylums, holy days and seasons, use of calendars, proces­sions, blessings on the fields, sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure, the ring in marriage, turning to the East, images at a later date, perhaps the ecclesiastical chant and the Kyrie Eleison are all of pagan origin, and sanctified by adoption into the Church."
(Source: J. H. Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, Chapter 8.)

Interestingly, the Emperor weas called the Pontifex Maximus of the pagan Roman religion, which stands for "High Priest". Pontiff literally means bridge and a priest is a bridge between God and man, thus the priests of the pagan religion were Pontiffs and the chuef priest was the Pontifex maximum. As the pagan religion was brought into the church, the title migrated to the appointed leader of the church.

The doctrines taught by the leadership of the catholic Church and their interpretation became mandatory and as a result, the amount of deviation between the strictly Bible based faith and the catholic faith continue to grow.

More information can be found at the following links:

1) http://www.geocities.com/smithtj.geo/catholicism.html

2) http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Cults/Catholicism/

Also, the following books would be of interest on this topic:

1) Constantines Sword by James Carroll

2) Roman Catholicism by Loraine Boettner

3) Reasoning from the Scriptures with Catholics by Ron Rhodes