Comparing the beliefs of Roman
Catholics & conservative Protestants

Both Catholics and conservative Protestants generally agree on some major theological matters, like the existence of angels, Mary's virgin conception; Jesus' sinless life, incarnation, crucifixion, bodily resurrection, and his imminent return of Jesus to Earth in the second coming; Heaven, Hell; the Trinity, and the deity of Jesus. They agree that his execution brought about atonement -- the potential to bridge the gulf between humanity and God caused by sin. However they disagree on how this was achieved. They partly agree about the significance of baptism, but disagree about the timing when it is normally performed. They do not agree on which books are included in the official canon of the Bible.

Perhaps the main difference between conservative Protestantism and Roman Catholicism is expressed by the "five Solas". "Sola" means "alone" in Latin. The first three Sola statements of the early Protestant movement stressed that:

There also exists a great gulf between the two groups on other matters of belief and church practice -- particularly with regard to the rapture, authority within the church, church organization, freedom of the individual, freedom of each congregation, etc.

About abortion access, homosexuality & other hot-button social policies:

The divisions are deep and long-standing. This has led to prejudice and discrimination. Hostility is particularly high in some countries in South America, where Protestants -- particularly Pentecostals -- have been taking "market share" away from the Catholic Church. Bloodshed has resulted in some areas.

In spite of these conflicts, these two wings of Christianity have been able to take joint programs in some areas. Catholics and Protestants have cooperated in North America to: restrict abortion access, oppose to equal rights and protections for gays and lesbians including same-sex marriage, oppose physician assisted suicide, and other "hot" moral and religious topics. They differ slightly in their approaches to what they regard as the two most serious social evils: homosexuality and abortion access

On matters which are not related to human sexuality, the Roman Catholic Church tends to be far more liberal than conservative Protestant denominations. Its bishops often speak out strongly on moral matters such as:

Comparison of beliefs:

Contrasts between Roman Catholic beliefs and practices with those of fundamentalist and other evangelical Christians are shown below. "...Evangelicals hold that the Catholic Church has gone beyond Scripture, adding teachings and practices that detract from or compromise the Gospel of God’s saving grace in Christ. Catholics, in turn, hold that such teaching and practices are grounded in Scripture and belong to the fullness of God’s revelation. Their rejection, Catholics say, results in a truncated and reduced understanding of the Christian reality." ₁

Any one-line list of comparisons, such as this one, is inevitably simplistic. Within Evangelical Protestantism there are often significant differences among Baptists, Calvinists, Christians of the Reform tradition, Fundamentalists, Pentecostals, etc., that cannot be explained in a few words.

Each of these theological beliefs can easily be expanded into a full essay. We plan to do this eventually, for many of these topics.

Note 1: Many people confuse the Immaculate Conception with the virgin birth. The former is a Roman Catholic belief that in about 20 BCE when Mary herself was conceived, she was without original sin. The latter is a generally held belief among all conservative and most mainline Christian denominations that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was conceived about 6 BCE. Religious liberals generally consider both to be mythical events that never happened.

Some key theological differences:

Associated essays on this site: