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Church in the UK

What is the difference between the Church of England and the Catholic Church?

The Church of England is the established church of England, Protestant in doctrine, with the King as its Supreme Governor and the Archbishop of Canterbury as its senior bishop. The Catholic Church is worldwide and led by the Pope. They share the creeds and most of the Christian faith, and differ over authority, the sacraments, who may be a priest and who may receive communion.

By Simon Gilbert · Published

Where they came from

Until the 1530s there was one church in England, in communion with Rome. Henry VIII broke with the Pope, and under Elizabeth I the Church of England settled into the form it has broadly kept since: it retained bishops, cathedrals, parishes and much of the old pattern of worship, while adopting Protestant teaching on the Bible and on how a person is put right with God. Catholics who stayed loyal to Rome were a persecuted minority for the next two and a half centuries. They were allowed back into public life in 1829, their bishops were restored in 1850, and immigration from Ireland and later from Poland and elsewhere has made the Catholic Church one of the largest churches in the country.

At a glance

  • Who leads it. The Church of England has the King as its Supreme Governor and the Archbishop of Canterbury as its senior bishop, and its rules are made by an elected body called the General Synod. The Catholic Church is led by the Pope, with the bishops of England and Wales, and separately of Scotland, running the dioceses here.
  • Where authority lies. The Church of England appeals to Scripture, tradition and reason, with the Bible as the final test, and treats the Thirty-nine Articles and the Book of Common Prayer as its historic standards. The Catholic Church holds that Scripture and the Church’s tradition together carry God’s truth, interpreted by the Church’s teaching office under the Pope.
  • Sacraments. The Catholic Church recognises seven. The Church of England names two, baptism and Holy Communion, as sacraments commanded by Jesus, and keeps the other five as church rites.
  • Communion. Catholics believe the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. The Church of England affirms that Christ is truly present but allows a range of views on how.
  • Clergy. Church of England priests may marry, and women have been ordained as priests since 1994 and as bishops since 2014. Catholic priests are men and, with a few exceptions such as married former Anglican clergy, unmarried.
  • Confession. Catholics confess their sins to a priest, and are expected to do so at least once a year if they have sinned seriously. The Church of England offers private confession but does not require it; its own summary is “all may, none must, some should”.
  • Mary and the saints. Catholics honour Mary and ask her and the saints to pray for them. Church of England practice varies widely, from churches that do much the same to churches that pray to God alone.
  • Variety. Church of England congregations range from Anglo-Catholic, with incense and vestments, to evangelical, with a band and no robes at all. Catholic worship is more uniform, because every parish uses the same text of the Mass.

What is the same

A great deal. Both churches say the same creeds, worship the one God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, believe that Jesus died for our sins and rose bodily from the dead, read the same Bible, pray the Lord’s Prayer, baptise with water in the name of the Trinity and recognise each other’s baptisms. Both keep Christmas, Lent, Easter and the other seasons of the church year, and a visitor could follow a Church of England communion service and a Catholic Mass and find the same shape in each. The two churches have been in formal dialogue with each other since 1970, and their leaders pray together in public. Jesus prayed for exactly this.

Not for these only do I pray, but for those also who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that you sent me.

John 17:20–21

What to expect if you visit

In both you will be welcome, and nobody will ask you to do anything. The main difference comes at Communion. In a Catholic church, Holy Communion is for Catholics, and visitors who are not Catholic are invited to come forward for a blessing instead, with their arms crossed over their chest, or to stay in their seat. In the Church of England, baptised Christians who receive communion in their own church are normally welcome to receive, and anyone else can come forward for a blessing. No one checks, and no one will think less of you for staying where you are.

Which should I go to?

Visit both and see. The author of this site is a Catholic and says so on the about page, but the aim here is to describe, not to recruit. The differences above are real and worth understanding, but the two churches agree about the things that matter most, and either will help you find out who Jesus is.

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