The Catholic Church, led by the Pope, is the largest Christian body and traces itself back to the apostle Peter.
Catholic1054grew out of The early, undivided Church
The Catholic Church includes the Latin Church and Eastern Catholic churches in communion with the bishop of Rome. The year 1054 marks a conventional date for the East-West schism, not the Catholic Church's beginning. Catholics trace the papacy to Peter. The Council of Trent (1545–63) affirmed the Catholic biblical canon. The Second Vatican Council (1962–65) provided for wider use of vernacular languages in the Latin liturgy.
The Catholic Church is the largest body of Christians in the world, led by the Pope, the bishop of Rome. Catholics believe their Church goes back without a break to Jesus and the apostle Peter.
In the Gospel Jesus tells Peter, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and gives him the keys of the kingdom 30; Catholic teaching reads that promise as the founding of the papacy, with the bishops of Rome as Peter's successors 7,2. Irenaeus, writing about the year 180, already listed the bishops of Rome from Peter's day to his own and said that every church must agree with the church of Rome 9, and Ignatius of Antioch, about 110, is the first writer to use the words Catholic Church, meaning the whole Church wherever Christ is 10. Rome and Constantinople shared communion for much of the first millennium, but divisions involving the Church of the East and the Oriental Orthodox churches had already developed after the fifth-century councils 13. The story of that undivided Church is told on the page for the early Church.
The date on the tree, 1054, is the year the legates of Pope Leo IX and the Patriarch of Constantinople excommunicated each other, the moment historians take as the parting of the Catholic West from the Orthodox East, though the estrangement had grown over centuries and was not felt as final at the time 14,13. Those excommunications were lifted by Paul VI and Athenagoras in 1965 15. The Church of the West went on to shape the medieval world: Benedict's monasteries, Gregory the Great's missions, the universities and Thomas Aquinas, the cathedrals 23,24,26. When the Reformation split the West in the sixteenth century, the Council of Trent, from 1545 to 1563, answered it: it fixed the canon of Scripture at seventy-three books, reformed the training of priests, and defined the Church's teaching on justification and the sacraments 6,8. Four centuries later the Second Vatican Council, from 1962 to 1965, called by John XXIII, renewed the liturgy in the languages people speak, opened the Church to dialogue with other Christians and other faiths, and set out the Church's understanding of itself in Lumen Gentium 2,4,5,28.
Catholics believe what the Nicene Creed says about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and they believe that Jesus gave his Church seven sacraments, above all the Eucharist, in which the bread and wine become his body and blood. They honour Mary and the saints and ask for their prayers.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, issued by John Paul II in 1992, sets the whole faith out in four parts: the Creed, the sacraments, life in Christ, and prayer 1,32. Its centre is the Eucharist, which Lumen Gentium calls the source and summit of the Christian life: Catholics believe that at the words This is my body the bread and wine truly become the body and blood of Christ 2,31,1. The other sacraments are baptism, confirmation, penance, the anointing of the sick, holy orders and marriage 1,11. Catholics hold that God's revelation comes through Scripture and Tradition together, handed on and interpreted by the bishops in union with the Pope, whose teaching office serves the word of God rather than standing above it 3.
Mary is honoured as the Mother of God, conceived without sin and taken body and soul into heaven, and the saints are asked to pray for the living as friends would 1,2. The Church teaches that salvation is God's free gift, received in faith and lived out in love and good works, a teaching Trent defined against the Reformers and one that Catholics and Lutherans have since found they can state together in large part 8,5. Catholic social teaching holds that every human life has a dignity no state or market may override, from conception to natural death 1,11.
Worship and practice
Catholics go to Mass, usually on Sunday. The priest reads from the Bible and preaches, then consecrates bread and wine, and the people receive Communion. Catholics also pray the rosary, go to confession, and keep the year with Advent, Lent and Easter.
The Mass has two halves, the Liturgy of the Word, with readings from the Old Testament, the Psalms, the Letters and the Gospels on a three-year cycle, and the Liturgy of the Eucharist 4,1. Until the 1960s it was said in Latin almost everywhere; Sacrosanctum Concilium allowed the people's languages, and today Mass is offered in every major tongue, with the Latin form still permitted 4. Catholics are asked to attend Mass every Sunday and holy day, to confess serious sins to a priest at least once a year, and to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday 1. Beyond the Mass, Catholic prayer is the rosary, the Liturgy of the Hours prayed by clergy and religious, devotion to the saints, and pilgrimage to places like Rome, Lourdes and Guadalupe 11.
Scripture and Bible translations
The Catholic Bible has seventy-three books, seven more in the Old Testament than Protestant Bibles have. For fifteen hundred years Catholics read it in Jerome's Latin, the Vulgate. Today they read it in their own languages, and the Roman lectionary selects passages on a three-year Sunday cycle and a two-year weekday cycle, rather than reading the whole Bible 34.
Trent's fourth session, in 1546, listed the canon, with Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch and the two books of Maccabees among the books, and declared the Vulgate the authentic Latin text 6,8. Dei Verbum in 1965 urged all the faithful to read Scripture often and asked for translations from the original languages, made if possible together with other Christians 3. The first Catholic Bible in English was the Douay-Rheims, translated from the Vulgate between 1582 and 1610 and revised by Bishop Challoner in the eighteenth century 33. Read here: the Douay-Rheims 1899, the Bible English-speaking Catholics prayed with for three centuries, with all seventy-three books, and the WEB Catholic Edition, a modern public-domain text in the Catholic order. The versions guide has today's approved translations, the NABRE, the ESV-CE and the NRSV-CE among them.
Liturgical status
In the United States, the Roman Catholic lectionary is based on the New American Bible tradition. England and Wales began using the ESV Catholic Edition with the Abbey Psalms and Canticles in Advent 2024.
Approved study
The US bishops list the NABRE, the NRSV Catholic Edition and Updated Edition, the Good News Translation and other texts as approved for private prayer and study. This approval list does not measure their relative popularity.
Old Catholic
The Old Catholic churches of the Union of Utrecht, separate from Rome since 1870 over papal infallibility, read the ordinary Catholic Bibles of their languages: the Einheitsübersetzung in German, the Willibrord translation in Dutch.
These passages illustrate themes discussed in this profile; they are not a survey of members' favorite verses. Each is quoted from the Douay-Rheims 1899 and links to its chapter. You can explore the text for study or personal reflection; memorization is optional.
And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.
Thou art Peter. The verse carved in letters six feet high around the dome of St Peter's, and the one Catholics read as the founding of the papacy.
And whilst they were at supper, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke: and gave to his disciples, and said: Take ye, and eat. This is my body. And taking the chalice, he gave thanks, and gave to them, saying: Drink ye all of this. For this is my blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins.
This is my body. The words of the Last Supper that the priest repeats at every Mass, and that Catholics take at their plainest.
But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.
The pillar and ground of the truth. Paul's description of the Church, and the reason Catholics look to the Church, not only to the individual reader, to interpret Scripture.
And Mary said: My soul doth magnify the Lord. And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid; for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
The Magnificat, Mary's song, prayed every evening in the Liturgy of the Hours. All generations shall call me blessed is why Catholics do.
Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.
The great commission, and the promise that closes Matthew's Gospel: I am with you all days. The Church reads it as a promise to itself.
People
Peterdied about 64 The fisherman from Galilee whom Jesus named the rock, martyred in Rome under Nero; Catholics count him the first bishop of Rome and the first pope.22
Benedict of Nursiaabout 480 to 547 Wrote the Rule that shaped Western monasticism, with its balance of prayer and work, and founded Monte Cassino.23
Gregory the Greatabout 540 to 604 The pope who sent Augustine to convert the English, wrote the Pastoral Rule for bishops, and gave his name to Gregorian chant.24
Francis of Assisi1181 or 1182 to 1226 The merchant's son who gave everything away, founded the Franciscans, and preached to the poor and to the birds; the present pope's predecessor took his name.25
Thomas Aquinas1225 to 1274 The Dominican whose Summa Theologiae brought Aristotle and the faith together and remains the Church's most studied theology.26
Teresa of Ávila1515 to 1582 Reformer of the Carmelites and writer on prayer, the first woman named a Doctor of the Church.27
John XXIII1881 to 1963 The elderly pope expected to change nothing, who called the Second Vatican Council and opened the Church's windows.28
Today
There are about 1.4 billion Catholics, roughly one person in six on earth and about half of all Christians. Most live in Latin America, Africa and Asia now, not in Europe. The Pope today is Leo XIV, the first from the United States.
The Vatican's statistics for 2023 report about 1.406 billion baptized Catholics 35, with the fastest growth in Africa, and it runs the largest network of schools, hospitals and charities of any single body on earth 19. Pew puts Christians of every kind at 2.3 billion in 2020 20, and 19 percent of adults in the United States are Catholic 21. Leo XIV, born Robert Prevost in Chicago, was elected in May 2025 after the death of Francis 29. Since the Second Vatican Council the Catholic Church has been in formal dialogue with the Orthodox, the Anglicans, the Lutherans and others, and it works with the World Council of Churches without being a member 5,12.
The Church has also spoken formally about its own past. In the Day of Pardon liturgy of March 2000, John Paul II asked forgiveness for sins committed in the service of truth, for the wounds to Christian unity, for contempt shown toward the Jewish people, and for wrongs against women, the poor and other peoples 16. In 1992 he acknowledged as an error the 1633 condemnation of Galileo for teaching that the earth moves 17,18.
Words to know
sacrament
A sacred act Christians believe carries God's grace, such as baptism and communion. Traditions count and understand them differently.
council
A gathering of bishops to settle what the Church teaches. The first, at Nicaea in 325, gave the Church its creed.
canon
The list of books a community counts as Scripture. Jewish, Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox canons overlap almost entirely and differ at the edges.
deuterocanon
The books Catholic and Orthodox Bibles include in the Old Testament that Protestant Bibles leave out, such as Tobit and the Maccabees. Protestants call them the Apocrypha.
liturgy
The set form of a service: its prayers, readings and actions in their usual order. The Orthodox call their main service the Divine Liturgy.
lectionary
A fixed schedule of Bible readings for worship through the year, used in Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran and many other churches.
schism
A formal parting between churches. The Great Schism of 1054 divided Catholic West from Orthodox East.
bishop
The leader of the Christians of a city or region, who ordains priests and teaches the faith. Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and some Lutheran and Methodist churches keep bishops.
Easter
The Christian feast of the resurrection of Jesus, the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring, the centre of the church year; the Orthodox usually keep it on a later Sunday because they reckon it by the Julian calendar.
The forty days of fasting and prayer before Easter, modelled on Jesus' forty days in the wilderness, kept from Ash Wednesday in the West and from Clean Monday in the East; it ends in Holy Week.
Who is the Pope, and why does he matter to Catholics?
The bishop of Rome, whom Catholics hold to be the successor of Peter, the apostle Jesus called the rock 30,7. Lumen Gentium describes him as the visible source of the unity of the bishops and of the whole Church; he does not rule alone but with the bishops, and his teaching is held to be free from error only when he defines a matter of faith or morals for the whole Church 2.
What happens at Mass?
Readings from the Bible and a homily, then the Eucharistic prayer, in which the priest repeats Jesus' words over bread and wine, and Communion. Catholics believe Christ is truly present in the consecrated bread and wine, and the Mass is the centre of Catholic life 4,1.
Do Catholics worship Mary?
No. Worship belongs to God alone. Catholics honour Mary as the Mother of God and the first disciple, and ask for her prayers as they would ask a friend's; the Catechism and Lumen Gentium both draw the line carefully between the worship given to God and the honour given to Mary and the saints 1,2.
Why do Catholic Bibles have more books?
Catholic Bibles keep seven books of the Old Testament, and parts of Daniel and Esther, that were in the Greek Bible of the early Church but not in the Hebrew canon. Trent confirmed them in 1546; the Reformers set them apart as Apocrypha 6,3. Catholic and Protestant Bibles share the same twenty-seven-book New Testament.
Is the Catholic Church the same as the Roman Catholic Church?
Nearly all Catholics belong to the Latin, or Roman, Church, but twenty-three Eastern Catholic churches, the Maronites, Ukrainian Greek Catholics, Syro-Malabar Christians and others, are in full communion with the Pope while keeping their own liturgies and traditions. Together they make up the Catholic Church 13,12.
Sources
Numbered references link the account above to its sources. These include the tradition's own documents and outside reference works. The review status below distinguishes source checking from completed member and scholarly review.
BibleVerse. “Catholic Church: where they came from, what they hold, and the Bible they read.” bibleverse.site, version 2026-09-09, https://bibleverse.site/denominations/catholic/
Awaiting review by a member of the tradition. First published 2026-09-06; last changed 2026-09-09. Years before the common era are written BC, and later years plainly, as the site's Christian pages do.
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