Compare two churches

The Catholic Church teaches that in the Eucharist “the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.” The substance of the bread and wine changes while their appearance remains, and that change is what the Church calls transubstantiation.

Baptists call the Supper “a symbolic act of obedience” in which members “memorialize the death of the Redeemer and anticipate His second coming,” and each church chooses how often.

For Catholics, “Justification is conferred in Baptism, the sacrament of faith,” and it “conforms us to the righteousness of God, who makes us inwardly just.” That grace can be lost: mortal sin “results in the loss of charity and the privation of sanctifying grace.”

For Baptists, justification is “God’s gracious and full acquittal” of sinners “who repent and believe in Christ,” received by faith, and baptism follows as its sign.

Catholic teaching holds that Mary is truly the Mother of God and ever-virgin. Two further teachings were defined by popes: the Immaculate Conception in 1854, that she was kept free from original sin from her conception, and the Assumption in 1950, that she “was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory.”

Baptists honor Mary as the mother of Jesus, who, in the words of their confession, was “born of the virgin Mary.” They do not pray to her or to the saints.

Catholics hold that the apostolic deposit reaches us through Scripture and Tradition together, authentically interpreted by the bishops in communion with the Pope.

Baptists write confessions of faith but keep them below Scripture. A 1925 statement, reprinted in the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, says “the sole authority for faith and practice among Baptists is the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Confessions are only guides in interpretation, having no authority over the conscience.”