Pope Francis condemned the “very strong, organised, reactionary attitude” in the US church and said Catholic doctrine allows for change over time.
Pope Francis has blasted the “backwardness” of some conservatives in the US Catholic Church, saying they have replaced faith with ideology and that a correct understanding of Catholic doctrine allows for change over time.
Francis’ comments were an acknowledgment of the divisions in the US Catholic Church, which has been split between progressives and conservatives who long found support in the doctrinaire papacies of St John Paul II and Benedict XVI, particularly on issues of abortion and same-sex marriage.
I had a Catholic coworker who said some of her Catholic relatives were becoming “Christians”, which turned out to mean Evangelicals.
in the US they refer to Protestants as “Christians”, mainstream Christianity is made up of Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants
Right—my point is that my coworker (like the previously-mentioned Baptist) was implying that Catholics were distinct from Christians, in spite of being Catholic herself.
I was raised Catholic and the distinction was always made between Catholics and Christians. I didn’t really understand that Catholics were a subtype of Christians until someone pointed it out to me when I was a teenager - I just thought Christians was a catch-all term for non-Catholics that believed in jesus.