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What’s so different about Catholicism?

Growing up, I had a neighborhood friend named Patrick. Patrick went to private Catholic school, attended mass on Saturday nights, and crossed himself before meals.

Tuesday, Chris Castaldo, pastor and author of the new book “Holy Ground,” spoke in the lecture “Confessions of a Former Catholic.” To coincide with the speaking event, The Chimes presents part one of a series focusing on various denominations and religious sects and the inherent differences that may not be talked about often on campus.
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Growing up, I had a neighborhood friend named Patrick. Patrick went to private Catholic school, attended mass on Saturday nights, and crossed himself before meals. I never understood what was so different about Patrick’s Catholic beliefs and my Protestant ones, but I always wondered if it had anything to do with him being better at basketball than me.

Patrick eventually moved across town and we lost touch as many childhood friends do, but in the time since then I have come to find out the differences in our beliefs are rather significant ones.

Profs lay out the debate

Patrick and I would agree with many of the same doctrinal statements, to be sure, but very significant differences now come to mind in how we view certain aspects of our faith. While all the differences cannot be outlined in this article, the two weightiest issues will get some attention.

These are, as Professor Erik Thoennes says, “the ultimate authority of the Bible over church tradition” and the doctrine of “justification by grace alone through faith in Christ alone as a finished work.”

Catholics have a different Bible than Protestants. Our New Testaments are identical, but the Catholic Bible contains added books in the Old Testament known as the apocryphal (hidden) writings, or Apocrypha for short. These writings were not found in the original Hebrew Scriptures, but were added with the translation of the Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint) in the third century A.D. The apocryphal writings were considered to be canonical and authoritative until the Reformation in the sixteenth century when their legitimacy was called into question. Protestants reasoned that because these writings were not a part of the original Hebrew Scriptures, Jesus would not have viewed them as authoritative, thus removing them from the canon of Scripture.

Furthermore, the Roman Catholic Church claims sole authority in the interpretation of Scripture. In other words, only the teaching office of the Roman Catholic Church (consisting of the Pope and bishops) can determine the true and correct interpretation of Scripture. The implication of this belief is that laypeople cannot interpret the Bible for themselves and must look to church authority for a proper understanding.

The third and most significant difference found in Catholicism concerns the authority of Scripture. In the Middle Ages, a change occurred in which the Catholic Church began to view sources other than the Bible to hold authoritative truth. In addition to Scripture, church tradition and the magisterium (teaching office) came to be viewed as authoritative. This meant that Scripture was no longer sufficient for understanding salvation and becoming like Jesus. This area is a major area of disagreement by those who rejected Catholicism and the one out of which the famous phrase “sola scriptura,” Latin for by scripture alone, arose.

Professor Scott Yoshikawa notes that when other aspects of Christian life are given the same authority as Scripture “the floodgates are opened wide to allow for error-ridden human opinion to rush in and possibly drown out what is true and right.” This does not mean Protestants have it all correct, but they choose to cling to the authority of Scripture alone.

These differences in Scriptural beliefs have some weighty implications concerning salvation and other aspects of Christian life, namely, the ever-important doctrine of justification. The Catholic view of justification is wholly different from that of the Protestant, as the Catholic Church does not view justification as a final, secure declaration by God, but as an ongoing process that can increase or decrease in relation to the inward holiness of the person. This is to say that a person’s good works must outweigh his or her bad works in order to obtain salvation. It’s a difference that determines how a person may enter heaven and gain eternal life, and as such, is a foundational difference.

Living together, sharing in common

Patrick and I lived in different houses, but shared a common street. We were neighbors and friends and I’m glad our differing beliefs did not mean the end of a relationship. In spite of the differences Protestants have with Catholics, they still have much in common. I hope we will let our commonalities lead us to love and serve our Catholic friends while allowing our differences to cultivate humility and sober mindedness.

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