i wrote this in another thread, but it belongs in here as well...
Romans Catholicism is not Christianity. Roman Catholicism may claim to be Christianity, but it masks itself with many other doctrines and beliefs as well, such as praying to the dead and for the dead, penance, indulgences, buying your way out of purgatory, purgatory itself, the infallibility of the Pope, claiming the Bible is a dead language (i kid you not, read about the decisions of the 1st Council of Trent), transubstantiation, immaculate conception, assumption of Mary, importance of the Rosary, importance of relics and artifacts, not to mention works based salvation...
to top it all of, they've even made up their own version of the Ten Commandments... look up the Biblical Ten Commandments verses the Roman Catholic Ten Commandments. what you may see is quite disturbing, and eye-opening.
the Word of God says "even a little leaven leavens the whole lump"... the smallest man-made doctrine can lead a person way off into a false religion... originally, it started with Rome making Christianity as the national religion of it's time, and giving the Arch Bishops national power... after all, the Bible does say "the lust for money is the root of all evil"...
so, is Roman Catholicism a viable part of Christianity? absolutely not. it re-writes, distorts, twists, and degrades the Word into a works based gospel with people "buying their way" out of hell, and letting them think praying to the pope or Mary is going to keep them saved. When i worked at my church, i had a man come up to me with a heavy heart, and needed desperate counseling about his state of salvation and of his brother. He grew up in a Catholic home, but was struggling with his faith. I remember him telling me how a good friend of his died, and how he said while his friend was not perfect, he always went to his Catholic church, and left a rose on the ground in front of a statue of Mary. when he died, his church told him that when he stood before Jesus, He said "no", but Mary came over to Jesus, and told Him "this man brought me flowers ever day of his believing life", and on the basis of the flowers- and not faith- he would enter heaven.
this is what Catholic churches teach today, and I'm supposed to believe that as a born-again believer, im supposed to say "it's okay to let people believe this"?
*facepalm*