Protestant and Catholic difference

cooeedownunder · Apr 7, 2009

It was suggested I post this here after I posted a similar post in the Historical forum which became a bit muddled in relation to the original purpose of the post.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=137408

My two MCs are a wealthy female English Protestant who has been born in England, and an Australian born male Irish Catholic whose parents were both political prisioners sent during the first fleets. The story is set in Australia around 1820 - 1840 - At this time there was an Anglican church in the town and it took many years after for the Catholic church to be built -The Catholic Church was the second built in Australia and is today considered the oldest Catholic church today . The majority of the town were Irish Catholics and the wealthier were mainly English or Scottish Protestants.

My male Irish fellow has been raised by his stepfather who is a Scottish Protestant and during this time his Irish stepson would have been forced to attend Protestant scriptures while having a devoutly Irish Catholic mother being the only person to provide him Catholic guidance.

I am wanting to know how Protestants would have viewed Catholics and how Catholics would have viewed Protestants. I am interested in how we would have precieved each other, and why we were very divided for many years, still maybe I guess.

An it has also dawned on me that this Church was an Anglican Church which then makes me wonder what the difference is with an Anglicans and Protestants. I understand that the differences are probably varied there so but the Anglican Church was set up by the English governement and the minister English born.

I myself am a Catholic but have very little understanding of the Protestant religion apart from some of the differences I have learnt the past few days.

Deleted member 42 · Apr 7, 2009

cooeedownunder said:
An it has also dawned on me that this Church was an Anglican Church which then makes me wonder what the difference is with an Anglicans and Protestants.

The Anglican church is frequently described as the Episcopalian church in the U. S.

Both names refer to a Protestant church. The church was born when Henry VIII created an independent English church; the differences between Anglican and Roman Catholic widened with the passage of time, but there are a very strong similarities, particularly early on in history.

cooeedownunder · Apr 7, 2009

Medievalist said:
The Anglican church is frequently described as the Episcopalian church in the U. S.

Both names refer to a Protestant church. The church was born when Henry VIII created an independent English church; the differences between Anglican and Roman Catholic widened with the passage of time, but there are a very strong similarities, particularly early on in history.

I know this might sound stupid but I gather you mean Anglican churches are attended by Protestants - why the two different names for the same thing or have I missed the point?

Deleted member 42 · Apr 7, 2009

cooeedownunder said:
I know this might sound stupid but I gather you mean Anglican churches are attended by Protestants - why the two different names for the same thing or have I missed the point?

There's a really big group called Christian.

At a minimum (I'm trying to not be controversial here, and looking at this genetically, historically, rather than philosophically or theologically. Wars have been fought over this.)

Christian consists of two sub-groups; Catholic and Protestant.

Catholic can be sub-divided into Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Russian Orthodox, etc.

Protestant can be divided into a variety of sub groups.

Anglican/Episocopalian
Presbyterian
Lutheran
Methodist
Baptist

Etc. etc. etc. There are many many more Protestant denominations, and many of those have further doctrinal sub-groups. The fact that I've not listed a group means, probably, I couldn't spell it.

cooeedownunder · Apr 7, 2009

Now I have managed to get my head around it, I think. lolol -

All Protestants (or just some?) broke away from Catholics and formed many sub groups with Anglicans coming from the ancient Church of England when Henry decided the Church of England was subject to him not the pope? So this Church of England would have been Roman Catholic up until that time?

Another thought is would they have called themselves Anglican's or Protestants?

Deleted member 42 · Apr 7, 2009

cooeedownunder said:
Now I have managed to get my head around it, I think. lolol -

All Protestants (or just some?) broke away from Catholics and formed many sub groups with Anglicans coming from the ancient Church of England when Henry decided the Church of England was subject to him not the pope? So this Church of England would have been Roman Catholic up until that time?

Another thought is would they have called themselves Anglican's or Protestants?

Oh dear. The name Protestant means, crudely put, that they "protested" certain aspects of Catholocism. Protestant churches, all of them, broke away from the Roman Catholic Church during the Reformation of the fifteenth century. Martin Luther sort of started the ball officially rolling. Other people / names to look up are John Calvin, John Wesley . . . Zwingeli.

There was no Church of England until Henry VIII, for various reasons, including that he wanted a new wife, created the Church of England. Previously the Archbishop of Canterbury reported to the Pope, not to Henry.

Henry VIII created the English church as a separate entity c. 1533-34. He broke away from the authority of Rome/Pope, and made himself the head of the church in England. He essentially usurped the power of the pope, by seceding from the Roman Catholic church.

cooeedownunder · Apr 7, 2009

Medievalist said:
Oh dear. The name Protestant means, crudely put, that they "protested" certain aspects of Catholocism. Protestant churches, all of them, broke away from the Roman Catholic Church during the Reformation of the fifteenth century. Martin Luther sort of started the ball officially rolling. Other people / names to look up are John Calvin, John Wesley . . . Zwingeli. .

Yipeeeee! Now I have it. :ROFL:

Thanks for your patience. I can see it should not have been that hard. I can't believe I just spent a day trying to understand the difference between a Protestant and Anglican. I must eat more vegemite in the mornings.

Thank you also for the names - some were mentioned on the other post so I might go and read some more.

I am thinking I should have picked a town with no churches.

Have a great night.

Tocotin · Apr 8, 2009

Medievalist said:
Christian consists of two sub-groups; Catholic and Protestant.

Catholic can be sub-divided into Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Russian Orthodox, etc.

I'm sorry, have to disagree here. Orthodox churches are by no means subgroups of Catholic, unless by Orthodox you mean Eastern Catholic churches which share rites/traditions with Orthodox churches, but recognize the authority of the Pope.

Eastern Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church became separated after the Great Schism of 11th century, and their leaders excommunicated each other.

mamaesme · Apr 8, 2009

Oh goodie, this required Christian heritage class DOES has it's uses (besides sleeping).

The reformation took place all over the world, but England's reformation was the most conservative. Henry VIII simply replaced the head of the church (Rome) with the monarchy. This schism happened because he wanted to get a divorce and the Pope wouldn't allow it.

Pre-Anne Boleyn, Henry was a devout Catholic and even renounced Martin Luther and was awarded the title of "Defender of the Faith". When he decided that he couldn't get a son by his wife, Katherine of Aragon (who was aunt to the Holy Roman Emperor and a VERY devout Catholic), Henry asked for an anullment/divorce. Rome wouldn't give it to him.

The Boleyn's took it into their own hands. Anne and her family described the power he could have (and said was always his) if he seperated from the church. In the end, he did.

The English Reformation continued with the destruction of monastaries and killing/exiling anyone who didn't believe that Henry was the head of the Church. Edward followed in his father's footsteps, Mary destroyed all things Protestant, and Elizabeth had the via media (the middle way) but was still protestant. The religious climate of the country followed their monarches affiliation.

Now, on to your main question. Angelicans and Protestants....

This site is more eloquent than I could ever be.

cooeedownunder · Apr 8, 2009

mamaesme said:
Oh goodie, this required Christian heritage class DOES has it's uses (besides sleeping).

The reformation took place all over the world, but England's reformation was the most conservative. Henry VIII simply replaced the head of the church (Rome) with the monarchy. This schism happened because he wanted to get a divorce and the Pope wouldn't allow it.

Pre-Anne Boleyn, Henry was a devout Catholic and even renounced Martin Luther and was awarded the title of "Defender of the Faith". When he decided that he couldn't get a son by his wife, Katherine of Aragon (who was aunt to the Holy Roman Emperor and a VERY devout Catholic), Henry asked for an anullment/divorce. Rome wouldn't give it to him.

The Boleyn's took it into their own hands. Anne and her family described the power he could have (and said was always his) if he seperated from the church. In the end, he did.

The English Reformation continued with the destruction of monastaries and killing/exiling anyone who didn't believe that Henry was the head of the Church. Edward followed in his father's footsteps, Mary destroyed all things Protestant, and Elizabeth had the via media (the middle way) but was still protestant. The religious climate of the country followed their monarches affiliation.

Now, on to your main question. Angelicans and Protestants....

This site is more eloquent than I could ever be.

Thanks for the link. I found a document from the 1800s that has addressed my original question to a degree. It has a great deal of documents republished regard Protestants and this was one was very useful for explaining the differences in intereptating the Bible.

http://anglicanhistory.org/neale/prots.html

cooeedownunder · Apr 8, 2009

Tocotin said:
I'm sorry, have to disagree here. Orthodox churches are by no means subgroups of Catholic, unless by Orthodox you mean Eastern Catholic churches which share rites/traditions with Orthodox churches, but recognize the authority of the Pope.

Eastern Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church became separated after the Great Schism of 11th century, and their leaders excommunicated each other.

My guess is Medievalist was just giving me the bare bones to get me on my way.

matdonna · Apr 8, 2009

You probably don't need to know anything about Eastern Orthodoxy for purposes of your book, Sharon-- a quick check on Orthodox Wiki shows the Greeks didn't start immigrating till the mid- 1800s, the Arabs till late 1800s, and I suspect the Russians didn't come till after the revolution.

But for the record, from the Eastern Orthodox point of view, it is definitely misleading to divide things into Catholic/Protestant, and lump the EO in with the Catholic. It would be just as easy (and just as misleading) to divide things into East/West, and lump the Catholics in with the Protestants.

More important for your purposes would be what kind of Protestants you are talking about. A Scot would probably be a Presbyterian of some stripe.

Anglicans are Protestants, but that doesn't mean they would have gotten on with the Presbyterians at the time & place of your novel. But they would probably have gotten on better together than either of them would have done with the Catholics.

which means, lots of opportunity for conflict in your story!

cooeedownunder · Apr 8, 2009

matdonna said:
You probably don't need to know anything about Eastern Orthodoxy for purposes of your book, Sharon-- a quick check on Orthodox Wiki shows the Greeks didn't start immigrating till the mid- 1800s, the Arabs till late 1800s, and I suspect the Russians didn't come till after the revolution.

But for the record, from the Eastern Orthodox point of view, it is definitely misleading to divide things into Catholic/Protestant, and lump the EO in with the Catholic. It would be just as easy (and just as misleading) to divide things into East/West, and lump the Catholics in with the Protestants.

More important for your purposes would be what kind of Protestants you are talking about. A Scot would probably be a Presbyterian of some stripe.

Anglicans are Protestants, but that doesn't mean they would have gotten on with the Presbyterians at the time & place of your novel. But they would probably have gotten on better together than either of them would have done with the Catholics.

which means, lots of opportunity for conflict in your story!

Yes, I think the Scottish fellow would have been a Presyterian and yes, I can see a great potential for conflict - I just need to finish it now.

backslashbaby · Apr 8, 2009

If it's any help, my Irish Catholic friends (in the ROI) believe that my Scots-Irish ancestors from the time period you are using would have been Presbyterian. There is some family evidence that they were Anglican, but it was much more common back then for them to have been Presbytarian (if they were wealthy Scots from Ireland).

I can't help but note the relationship in folks' minds back then between Protestant usually equalling Wealthy Landowner and Catholic usually equalling poorer countryfolk or peasant. There were stereotypes and hate galore. The landowners' rights and abuses fueled the Irish perception of them. Many Irish lived in mud huts, and from the writings of the time in London papers, you would think that you were reading a National Geographic article about a very primitive culture*.

Don't even get me started on The Hunger (1845).

My point is, cultural inequities and attitudes were also split along the same religious lines - how much of the conflict between individuals was truly religious, and how much was cultural/political? Food for thought, anyway. Good luck!

*Edit - Certainly there were mud huts, but I doubt the objectivity of the British papers back then!

cooeedownunder · Apr 9, 2009

backslashbaby said:
My point is, cultural inequities and attitudes were also split along the same religious lines - how much of the conflict between individuals was truly religious, and how much was cultural/political? Food for thought, anyway. Good luck!

Thanks for all your thoughts and I think your above statement relates to my time, especially here where many Catholics would have had no official religous treachings for many years. At this time our society here was clearly divided into different social classes.

Protestant and Catholic difference

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