I've heard this said a few times, and I wanted to go ahead and lay this to rest. The Catholic Church is not a Christian denomination. Rather, She is the Church that Jesus Christ established. AGAIN: She is the Church that Jesus Christ established.
MAJOR DIFFERENCE
I teach fractions to people who need to learn fractions. Math review--two parts to a fraction: numerator and denominator. I call the numerator the "how many" and the denominator the "of what". If you are crying right now because fractions make you need a bottle of Dramamine, that's okay. I'll be done with the example soon.
The "of what" is essential to understand especially when you are trying to add or subtract fractions. Let's try one:
1/4 + 1/7 = 2/11 (FAIL)
This epic fail of a math solution was brought to you by denominations: you gotta be talking about the same thing.
Let's move this back over to Christianity real fast before Sir Isaac Newton makes his cameo to introduce us to alchemy. First, denomination implies plurality. Since we are bringing the Catholic Church into the conversation, let's be clear that no other church (a) makes the claim She makes while also (b) having Apostolic succession, (c) visible unity, (d) the successor of St. Peter 'feeding the sheep', or (e) built all of Western civilization, developed the scientific method....
Second, since (a), (b), (c), (d), (e)...there is no other competing 'type'.
Well, aren't there denominations? Yes, there are.
There are Protestant denominations. Our Holy Father calls them 'ecclesial communities'. They just aren't Churches proper. The good thing is (well, not really good thing), there is A LOT of them! So many, that there is even a denomination called 'non-denomination'. Boo-yah! So, when someone asks, what denomination are you, you can say, "I'm non- denomination". Then everyone will immediately know that you are nothing like the 38,000 other denominations with varying church structure, view of the sacraments, marketing budget, salvation, miracles, etc. You might even go to a building that looks like this which is so non-denominational, if you know what I mean.
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| A Non-Denominational Church not to be confused with... |
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| A Southern Baptist Church |
Or you can say you are Catholic and worship at a place that looks like this...
...and everyone will pretty much know you are not of this world, er, I mean not another Christian denomination.
