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Catholicism and Christianity
Someone on Askville asked "what's the difference between Catholicism and Christianity?"
Someone else commented "Before the Reformation, Catholicism was the only Christian faith."
I had to jump in.
Er - no.
The Reformation was sparked in 1517 by Martin Luther's protest against the sale of indulgences. But the Armenian Orthodox church was founded in 301. Many other Orthodox sects also predate the Reformation.
The Virgin Mary plays a distinctly larger role in the theology and ceremonies of the Catholic Church than in many other sects.
However, the question assumes a distinction between Catholicism and Christianity which most Catholics would probably find offensive. It clearly implies that Catholicism is not Christianity, just as many Southern Baptists (for example) insist that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (AKA the Mormons) are not Christians.
In fact, it's generally the same right-wing Christians who maintain that Catholics are not Christians. This is probably at least in part because Catholicism has long been an "immigrant" faith, particularly in the south of the United States. It was a religion of outsiders, newcomers, and relatively close-knit minority groups - usually bound together (and differentiated from the general populace) by ties of alien languages and cultures. These groups were often subjected to prejudice and discrimination. For example, you may not know that both the Irish and Italians were lynched in the old West, simply for their ethnicity.
I recall reading accounts of some of those events; entire towns would turn out to hang an Irishman, or an Italian, or a Jew, and the fine ladies of the town would dip their handkerchiefs in the blood of the corpse to keep as souvenirs.
Under those circumstances, it's understandable that the Protestant majority would insist that the Catholic faith of the minority were not Christians at all.
Long-running hostilities between Protestants and Catholics dating back to the Reformation also contributed to the tendency of extreme members of both faiths to deny the validity of the "opposing" faith, of course.
It should also be noted that "Catholicism" vs. "Christianity" is a false dichotomy. Non-Catholic Christianity consists of many wildly differing sects, some of which insist that they alone represent the true faith. Southern Baptists and Unitarian Universalists are both Christian sects in theory; but they are hardly compatible.
The rigid hierarchy of the Catholic Church makes that degree of difference impossible - past a certain point, fringe Catholic views are declared heresy, and their adherents risk being excommunicated - but there is still a very wide spectrum of belief represented under the "Catholic" label, ranging from progressive quasi-Marxist clergymen in South America (South American politics being what they are, such clergy are often "disappeared" by their governments), to the extreme right-wing Catholic organization Opus Dei, which wields enormous influence in Washington D.C. and has at least one member on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Since Eastern Orthodox churches do not recognize the authority of the Pope, it would be quite a stretch indeed to classify them as Catholic! There are other theological differences as well, of course. And certainly their adherents and priests would object to being classified as Catholic
Someone else commented "Before the Reformation, Catholicism was the only Christian faith."
I had to jump in.
Er - no.
The Reformation was sparked in 1517 by Martin Luther's protest against the sale of indulgences. But the Armenian Orthodox church was founded in 301. Many other Orthodox sects also predate the Reformation.
The Virgin Mary plays a distinctly larger role in the theology and ceremonies of the Catholic Church than in many other sects.
However, the question assumes a distinction between Catholicism and Christianity which most Catholics would probably find offensive. It clearly implies that Catholicism is not Christianity, just as many Southern Baptists (for example) insist that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (AKA the Mormons) are not Christians.
In fact, it's generally the same right-wing Christians who maintain that Catholics are not Christians. This is probably at least in part because Catholicism has long been an "immigrant" faith, particularly in the south of the United States. It was a religion of outsiders, newcomers, and relatively close-knit minority groups - usually bound together (and differentiated from the general populace) by ties of alien languages and cultures. These groups were often subjected to prejudice and discrimination. For example, you may not know that both the Irish and Italians were lynched in the old West, simply for their ethnicity.
I recall reading accounts of some of those events; entire towns would turn out to hang an Irishman, or an Italian, or a Jew, and the fine ladies of the town would dip their handkerchiefs in the blood of the corpse to keep as souvenirs.
Under those circumstances, it's understandable that the Protestant majority would insist that the Catholic faith of the minority were not Christians at all.
Long-running hostilities between Protestants and Catholics dating back to the Reformation also contributed to the tendency of extreme members of both faiths to deny the validity of the "opposing" faith, of course.
It should also be noted that "Catholicism" vs. "Christianity" is a false dichotomy. Non-Catholic Christianity consists of many wildly differing sects, some of which insist that they alone represent the true faith. Southern Baptists and Unitarian Universalists are both Christian sects in theory; but they are hardly compatible.
The rigid hierarchy of the Catholic Church makes that degree of difference impossible - past a certain point, fringe Catholic views are declared heresy, and their adherents risk being excommunicated - but there is still a very wide spectrum of belief represented under the "Catholic" label, ranging from progressive quasi-Marxist clergymen in South America (South American politics being what they are, such clergy are often "disappeared" by their governments), to the extreme right-wing Catholic organization Opus Dei, which wields enormous influence in Washington D.C. and has at least one member on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Since Eastern Orthodox churches do not recognize the authority of the Pope, it would be quite a stretch indeed to classify them as Catholic! There are other theological differences as well, of course. And certainly their adherents and priests would object to being classified as Catholic