Yo El wrote:
AnneOleson wrote:
Catholicism is Christian.
I don't hear Catholics calling themselves Christians. They say 'I'm a Catholic'. But what is a Catholic? I have no idea.
Catholicism is a branch of Christianity. Christianity has many different denominations and subdivisions under it. In the forth century, the Roman empire adopted Christianity as its state religion. The state worked to foster the union of many of the different early sects within Christianity into a central religious organization and common doctrine, centered around the Christian sect in Rome. Thus, as a result, the Bible was written and Catholicism emerged as the main faction of Christianity. Following the fall of the Roman Empire, disputes over the use of icons and the power roles of the pope vs. the Byzantine emperor led to a schism, in which the eastern part of the church split to become Orthodox Christianity. Later in the sixteenth century, religious disputes over indulgences, the Eucharist, how human behavior in life effected ones fait in the after life, and various other doctrinal issues, caused various segments to split off from the catholic church and form the beginning of the Protestant denominations.