BLOG POST | Hey Deacon!

No. Catholicism is Christianity, and Christianity is Catholicism. Protestants divide into denominations, not Catholics.
 

A Catholic is a Christian who subscribes to the teachings of the Catholic Church and regularly participates in the sacraments of the same Church. When a Catholic stops doing these things, he moves away from Catholicism. Some Catholics boast of rejecting certain Church teachings. These are sometimes called “Cafeteria Catholics,” but they’re really just dissidents who are moving toward a Protestant mindset.  In contrast, a Protestant is a Christian who subscribes to core Catholic teachings (Trinity, Incarnation, Bible, etc.), but rejects many of the Catholic Church’s other teachings (Pope, Hierarchy, Mary, Saints, Sacraments, Purgatory, etc.).
 

Yes. The Catholic Church is a unity of 24 different churches, each having their own rite and form of practice. The Roman Church, the largest of them all, has multiple rites, uses, and forms within itself. There are many ways of being Catholic, but all Catholics are in union with the Pope and believe the same things.
 

No. Some are in irregular status, but they are still Catholic, such as the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) which rejects the validity of Vatican II and the authority of all popes since Vatican II.

No. Some are schismatics, which means they have left communion with the Pope, and some have gone off to create an entirely new version of Christianity, but these are rare and obscure groups.

No. We Catholics are citizens of the countries in which we reside. Being Catholic does not give us dual citizenship with the Vatican city-state.

No. We Catholics are citizens of the countries in which we reside. That means our civil loyalties are tied to our countries. We have no civil loyalties to the Vatican or to our local diocese or parish. We do, however, have religious loyalties to our Church, our diocese (Bishop) and our parish (Pastor), just as any other Christian has religious loyalties to his denomination and church. But we are no more torn in civil loyalties than a Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, or any other Christian would be.