Singapore Expats

I had a discussion with a colleague in work, she is getting married this year to a Catholic Dude , she is buddhist I am assuming , and the topic got on to Catholics and Christians.

In her mind they are they are not the same thing, and she was very confused when I said that Catholics are Christians.

She is getting married in a church as well , they must be quite liberal here in Singapore as I am pretty sure that if you are not a christened/baptised person you cannot get married in a Catholic church elsewhere in the world.

I base this belief on when I went to be godfather for a friend of mines son, the priest in Ireland would only agree to allow this as I am Christened.

Fundamentalist Christians would say that Catholicism is not a Christian faith. The infallibilty of the Pope, "thy shalt have no other Gods before me", and all that.

Catholics believe you must be baptised by a Catholic priest to be saved AND that if you refuse to accept the authority of the Catholic Church you cannot be accepted into Heaven.

This isn't usually discussed as it leads to disharmony. But it is their beliefs.

Catholics here also tend to say they are not Christians but Catholics. I know, I'm married to one. After 30 years I've given up on trying to explain it to her. Neither side wants to acknowledge a distant relationship with the other. And bring up the parallels between Catholicism and Islam and watch the fur fly!

sundaymorningstaple wrote:Catholics here also tend to say they are not Christians but Catholics. I know, I'm married to one. After 30 years I've given up on trying to explain it to her. Neither side wants to acknowledge a distant relationship with the other. And bring up the parallels between Catholicism and Islam and watch the fur fly!

I know its not the font of all knowledge but Wikipedia ........

"The Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination with over 1.1 billion members, over half of all Christians worldwide"

Every Catholic is a Christian but not every Christian is a Catholic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity

x9200 wrote:Every Catholic is a Christian but not every Christian is a Catholic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity

+1

x9200 wrote:Every Catholic is a Christian but not every Christian is a Catholic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity

So where does the disconnect here come from.

I am still very surprised that the girl in office believes catholics are not christians and her catholic husband to be is of the same belief

Barnsley wrote:

x9200 wrote:Every Catholic is a Christian but not every Christian is a Catholic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity

So where does the disconnect here come from.

I am still very surprised that the girl in office believes catholics are not christians and her catholic husband to be is of the same belief

The disconnect happens after Reformation initiated by Martin Luther and the successive Reformists such as John Calvin and Huldrych Zwingli. As a result, it gave rise to Protestantism. Essentially all are still Christians but each believed in different doctrines.

Not sure if many people understand this.

Barnsley wrote:

x9200 wrote:Every Catholic is a Christian but not every Christian is a Catholic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity

So where does the disconnect here come from.

I am still very surprised that the girl in office believes catholics are not christians and her catholic husband to be is of the same belief

No idea but formally I am a Catholic myself and have no doubts it is a denomination of Christianity. Besides, just following the etymology, Christians are the followers of Christ and as far as I know for all the denominations there is only one Christ.

Barnsley wrote:I had a discussion with a colleague in work, she is getting married this year to a Catholic Dude , she is buddhist I am assuming , and the topic got on to Catholics and Christians.

In her mind they are they are not the same thing, and she was very confused when I said that Catholics are Christians.

She is getting married in a church as well , they must be quite liberal here in Singapore as I am pretty sure that if you are not a christened/baptised person you cannot get married in a Catholic church elsewhere in the world.

I base this belief on when I went to be godfather for a friend of mines son, the priest in Ireland would only agree to allow this as I am Christened.

You said she's getting married in "a church." Is it a Catholic church or is it a non-denominal or unitarian church? If in a Catholic church, have they made marital arrangements and spoke with a priest?

I'm Catholic, but admittedly non-practicing. From what I understand, the Catholic church will marry a Catholic and non-Catholic if they say they'll raise their kids Catholic. Also, to get married in the church, they'll have to go through pre-marital classes and it's a pretty drawn-out process from what I've heard from family members. At least that's how it's done in the USA, but I think Catholicism would be the same worldwide.

I agree with the statement that Catholics are Christians but not all Christians are Catholic. Christian is a large umbrella and includes Baptists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists, other Protestant faiths, etc. It seems most Catholics and Episcopalians don't call themselves Christians, though, because those who identify themselves solely as "Christians" sometimes have a reputation for being "bible thumpers" and those people annoy them as much as they would annoy nonbelievers. Now, that's not to say all Christians are "bible thumpers" because many are not. It's just a few that make a lot of noise ("Are you saved?" "The bible says ....")

This confusion exists mainly in the heads of Indonesians, because they have been told from early age on about the "five religions of Indonesia" - one of which every Indonesian must be member of (by law!):
Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and Catholicism
(All others, incl. Atheism, are illegal!)
In Indonesia, apparently, Catholicism isn't Chrstian.

The recent "Christians" are more like charismatics/born-again Christians that co-opted the label just "Christian" to distance themselves from all the formal groups that have branched off (Catholics, Protestants, Lutherians, etc). This is what most people know now when people say they are Christian (these are the known Bible-thumpers, aside from the Baptists).

And yes, Catholicism is a subset of Christianity.

From my experience, some people in Singapore can't even be bothered knowing what other faiths other Singaporeans profess outside the banner of whatever the gahmen says. I once inadvertently let my knowledge of Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism out and I was suddenly a freakin' theologian.

I also consider Catholicism as a subset of Christianity. Here is an interesting graphic showing different branches over the years. [ http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... update.png ] .

I guess that when people had differing opinions on readings of scripture, they decided to break away and a new denomination emerged. The interesting question is can we define a solid crossing beyond which we consider the new denomination to be a different religion ? (then does this mean that religions are only human constructs)

Following the tree from the picture a few steps backward, do you group the Abrahamic religions (Christianity/Islam/Judaism) together ? Maybe even group with other religions into monotheism (as against polytheism) ?

rdueej wrote:then does this mean that religions are only human constructs

Yes.

If you think about it, an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent entity will find all this trivial and petty. Even if you don't want to think about that, think about the size of our planet compared to our solar system, then our galaxy, then to the rest of the universe.

We terrans are pretty insignificant to the rest of the cosmos. Makes condemning one another* in the name of the same god look really silly as the rest of the cosmos chugs along.

*Catholics vs Protestants, Muslims vs Christians, Sunnis vs Shiites, Jews vs Christians, Muslims vs Jews--and those are just the Abrahamic religions

christians are born again christians...that's my understanding. There are also differences in some practices.

i agree with the parallelism of Islam and Christianity.