Presbyterian vs Catholic: Every Real Difference, Compared

Presbyterians are not Roman Catholics. They are Protestants of the Reformed tradition, though their Westminster Confession still speaks of “the catholic or universal church.” Presbyterians and Catholics share the Nicene Creed and disagree about who decides what it means. Almost every other difference follows from that one.

The short version

Where the name comes from

“Presbyterian” is a description of church government, not of a doctrine. It comes from the Greek presbyteros, elder — the word the New Testament uses for the men appointed to lead local congregations.

The claim is that this is the pattern in Acts and the epistles: a church led by a plurality of elders rather than by a single bishop. So a Presbyterian congregation is governed by a session of elders. Sessions send representatives to a presbytery, presbyteries to a synod or general assembly. Authority moves upward through elected courts, and no individual holds it alone.

The Catholic structure runs the other way, and rests on a different reading of the same texts. Bishops stand in an unbroken succession from the apostles, the Bishop of Rome holds the office given to Peter in Matthew 16:18-19, and teaching authority — the magisterium — belongs to the bishops in communion with him.

Both sides are reading the New Testament. They are not reading it the same way, and neither structure is an accident of history.

Where each tradition came from

The Catholic Church traces its continuity to the apostolic community and has existed under that name for the whole of Christian history in the West.

Presbyterianism is Reformed, which means it descends from the reformation in Switzerland rather than in Germany. John Calvin’s Geneva supplied the theology; John Knox carried it to Scotland, where the Reformation Parliament of 1560 adopted the Scots Confession and the Church of Scotland took its Presbyterian form.

The defining document came later: the Westminster Confession of Faith, drawn up in London in the 1640s and completed in 1646, with its Larger and Shorter Catechisms. It remains the standard for most Presbyterian churches, though usually as a subordinate standard — subordinate, that is, to Scripture.

The Catholic equivalent is not a single document but a body: the councils, above all Trent (1545-63) and the two Vatican councils, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church published in 1992.

Authority: the difference everything else comes from

Presbyterians hold to sola scriptura. Scripture is the only infallible rule of faith and practice. Creeds and confessions are valued, sometimes very highly, but they are answerable to the Bible and can in principle be revised.

Catholics hold that the apostolic deposit reaches us through Scripture and Sacred Tradition together, and that the living teaching office is what authentically interprets it. Vatican II’s Dei Verbum puts the three in a relationship rather than a hierarchy: Scripture, Tradition and magisterium, none standing without the others.

The practical difference is visible whenever a new question arises. A Presbyterian body debates it in assembly and argues from the text. A Catholic answer comes from the magisterium and is binding.

The Bible itself

The two traditions do not use the same Old Testament.

Catholic Bibles contain 46 Old Testament books, including Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and 1 and 2 Maccabees, plus longer forms of Daniel and Esther. These were in the Greek Old Testament the early church used, and the Council of Trent affirmed them as canonical in 1546.

Protestant Bibles contain 39, following the Hebrew canon. The Westminster Confession (1.3) says “the books commonly called Apocrypha” are no part of the canon of Scripture and carry no authority in the church.

Both agree on the 27 books of the New Testament.

The Lord’s Supper

This is the sharpest doctrinal difference and the most often misdescribed.

Catholic teaching is transubstantiation: at the consecration the substance of the bread and wine becomes the body and blood of Christ, while the appearances remain. The Mass is understood as the same sacrifice as Calvary, made present rather than repeated.

The Reformed position is not the memorial view, though it is constantly mistaken for it. Calvin held that Christ is truly present and truly received in the Supper — but spiritually, by the Holy Spirit, through faith, with the believer lifted to Christ rather than Christ brought down into the elements. The Westminster Confession says the elements remain truly and only bread and wine while worthy receivers really and indeed receive Christ.

So: both traditions say something real happens. They disagree about what.

One consequence follows directly. A Presbyterian is not admitted to communion at a Catholic Mass, because sharing the Eucharist is understood to express a unity of faith that does not yet exist. Most Presbyterian churches, by contrast, practise an open table.

Rome’s reason is a judgement about ministry. Vatican II’s decree on ecumenism holds that the Protestant communities have not kept “the proper reality of the eucharistic mystery in its fullness, especially because of the absence of the sacrament of Orders” (Unitatis Redintegratio 22), and in 2000 Dominus Iesus (17) called such bodies “ecclesial communities” rather than Churches in the proper sense, while holding that their baptised members are “in a certain communion, albeit imperfect, with the Church.”

Baptism, where the two agree

Both baptise infants, and for related reasons — the covenant sign given to households, and the conviction that grace precedes response.

And the Catholic Church recognises Presbyterian baptism as valid, provided it was performed with water in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. A Presbyterian received into the Catholic Church is not baptised again.

In the United States the recognition is also in writing. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops approved a Common Agreement on Mutual Recognition of Baptism in November 2010, and four Reformed churches had ratified it by 2011: the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Christian Reformed Church in North America, the Reformed Church in America and the United Church of Christ. Their representatives signed it together in January 2013.

That is not a small thing. On the sacrament that makes a Christian, the two traditions recognise each other’s work.

Salvation

The Reformation fought here, and the ground has shifted more than most people realise.

The Presbyterian position is justification by faith alone: Christ’s righteousness imputed — credited — to the believer, received by faith, with good works as the fruit of salvation rather than a contribution to it. The Westminster Confession also teaches election: God’s choice of those who will be saved, which is the doctrine most often used to caricature the tradition and is treated within it as a ground of comfort rather than of fear.

The Catholic position is justification by grace through faith, in which grace is infused rather than imputed, and in which the believer genuinely cooperates. Sacraments are means of that grace. Merit exists, but as the fruit of grace already given.

Then, in 1999, something unexpected. Catholics and Lutherans signed the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification at Augsburg, stating a shared understanding of justification by grace through faith and declaring that the sixteenth-century condemnations no longer apply to the teaching each now presents. Methodists associated themselves with it in 2006. On 5 July 2017, at Wittenberg, the World Communion of Reformed Churches — the body most Presbyterian denominations belong to — became the fourth party to the declaration, adding its own statement linking justification to justice.

That does not dissolve the difference. It does mean the two traditions have jointly said, in writing, that the quarrel as it was fought in the sixteenth century is not the quarrel they are having now.

Clergy

Catholic priests in the Latin Church are celibate, as a discipline rather than a doctrine — Eastern Catholic churches ordain married men, and the rule has changed before. Ordination is restricted to men, which the Church teaches it has no authority to alter.

Presbyterian ministers marry as a matter of course. Whether women are ordained depends on the church. The Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., a forerunner of today’s PC(USA), ordained its first woman minister in 1956, and the Church of Scotland opened ordination to women in 1968. More conservative Presbyterian denominations, such as the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC), do not, and the disagreement is live within the tradition.

There is also a difference in kind. A Catholic priest is ordained to a sacramental office; a Presbyterian minister is a teaching elder, serving alongside ruling elders who are not clergy and who carry real governing authority.

Mary, the saints and prayer

Catholics venerate Mary and the saints and ask for their intercession, on the understanding that those in heaven are alive in Christ and can pray for the living. Two Marian doctrines were defined comparatively recently: the Immaculate Conception in 1854 and the Assumption in 1950.

Presbyterians honour Mary — the Westminster tradition affirms the virgin birth and the creeds without reservation — but do not pray to her or to the saints, holding that Scripture directs prayer to God through Christ alone. Purgatory and indulgences are likewise rejected.

Worship

A Mass is ordered around the Eucharist, follows the liturgical year, and is substantially the same wherever it is celebrated.

A Presbyterian service is ordered around the preaching of the word, with communion celebrated less frequently in most congregations — monthly or quarterly in many, though weekly communion has become more common. Historically the tradition followed the regulative principle: only what Scripture positively warrants belongs in worship, which is why some Presbyterian churches sang only psalms and used no instruments. Most no longer hold that line.

What both hold

It is worth listing, because the differences take up more room than the agreements and give a misleading impression.

One God in three persons. Jesus Christ fully God and fully man, crucified, bodily raised, ascended, returning. Scripture as the word of God. The forgiveness of sins by grace. The resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. The Nicene Creed, said by both without amendment except on one ancient clause about the Spirit’s procession, which divides East from West rather than these two.

Both baptise in the name of the Trinity. The Catholic Church recognises Presbyterian baptism, and Catholic baptism is recognised in most Presbyterian churches.

Frequently asked

Are Presbyterians Protestant?

Yes. Presbyterianism is part of the Reformed branch of the Reformation, descending from Calvin’s Geneva and Knox’s Scotland.

Do Presbyterians and Catholics worship the same God?

Both confess the God of the Nicene Creed — one God in three persons. The disagreements are about authority, the sacraments and the mechanics of salvation, not about the identity of God.

Can a Presbyterian take communion at a Catholic Mass?

Ordinarily no. Catholic teaching treats sharing the Eucharist as an expression of a unity of faith and church order that is not yet present. Most Presbyterian churches practise an open table in the other direction.

Do Presbyterians believe in predestination?

The Westminster Confession teaches election, and the tradition presents it as a ground of assurance rather than of fear. How strongly it is emphasised varies a great deal between denominations and pulpits.

Is Presbyterian baptism valid in the Catholic Church?

Yes, when performed with water in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Someone received into the Catholic Church from a Presbyterian congregation is not rebaptised.

How many books are in each Bible?

Catholic Bibles contain 73 books, Protestant Bibles 66. The difference is in the Old Testament; the 27 books of the New Testament are common to both.

Related reading

• Episcopal vs Catholic: The Real Differences, Compared
• Presbyterian vs Baptist: Infant Baptism, Elders and Congregations Compared
• PCUSA vs PCA: Which Presbyterian Church is Right for You?