Early Elizabethan England: The difference between Catholics and Protestants

hi there guys welcome back to the history teacher we're still in Elizabeth in England and we're still in 1558 this time however we're having a look at the religious problems that Elizabeth had in order to understand these religious problems it's really important that we know the differences between Catholics and Protestants and the reasons behind them so we're going to go over those differences today and my next video will then cover problems that happen as a consequence of that probably the biggest cause of contention in the reform particularly in England is the authority of the Pope so Catholics believe that the pope is the Vicor of Christ and Vicor in this case means substitute so basically the pope is Jesus's substitute on Earth while Jesus isn't here so he speaks for Jesus in other words everything he says must be right it's infallible it can't be wrong because it comes directly from God Protestants on the other hand believe that nobody is infallible everybody gets things wrong everybody commits sins they believe that they can only look to the word of God as they see it in the Bible for their Spiritual Authority so they don't look to the pope for their understanding of the Bible the most important thing that Catholics believe which is different from what Protestants believe is they believe in the mass Catholics believe that when they take the bread and wine of communion something called transubstantiation takes place and that is the actual turning of the bread and the wine into the body and blood of Christ only a priest can make this happen because a priest is directly linked to God the priest is a little bit above other human beings God has put him here for a reason so the Catholic priest is able to perform this miracle Protestants on the other hand don't believe that the clergy who is giving the service is above anybody else they don't believe and this is the really crucial difference is they don't believe in transubstantiation they believe that the act of taking the Bread and Wine in communion is purely symbolic another really key difference between Catholics and Protestants are the services and the languages they're held in all Catholic services are held in Latin the mass is sung in Latin the hymn are often sung in Latin and much of the Bible verse is read in Latin on the other hand Protestants believe that it's really important that the word of God is given in the language that people can understand so in England all our Protestant services are delivered in English the Bible is read in English prayers are said in English and hymns are sung in English another thing you should know is that Catholics have the most insanely wonderful beautiful churches there's Gold Leaf everywhere the altars are beautifully decorated you'll see stories from the Bible in stained glass and images of Saints All Around beautiful intricate decorations all the way through Protestants on the other hand have quite plain churches they don't believe that any decoration is needed because it detracts from the way that you can worship God you'll find that the interior of Protestant churches is really quite plain and on the outside they don't look like anything special they look more like a meeting Hall than what we kind of think of as being a church they also believe that having any kind of images in the church are false Idols which is one of of the Ten Commandments that thou shalt not worship false idols and they believe that by having these images they are creating false Idols in the Catholic Church your sins can be forgiven by going to your priest and telling him your confession telling him the things you have done wrong then the priest because he's special is able to give you a punishment and help you achieve forgiveness however in protestantism you can only receive Absolution you can only be forgiven for your sins by praying directly to God and God will forgive you directly so another big difference is that Protestants believe that the Bible is the word of God It's the final Authority if you want to know how you should behave in any given situation or advice on a particular topic then the Bible is the place you should go Catholics on the other hand although they believe that the Bible is really important it's not the be all and end all they look to the Catholic church and the pope to interpret it for them and they Ed the Catholic traditions of praying to Saints the idea of purgatory and the worship of Mary while they don't have any basis in scripture they come from the tradition of the Catholic church and this is a key point for them all Christians are concerned with the issue of what happens to you after you die all Christians believe that you can go to heaven however each group has a different way of getting there so Protestants believe that if you believe in God you can go straight to heaven that's it you have to have faith and that's enough for you to get into heaven Catholics on the other hand believe that you have to do good works you have to follow the seven sacraments the seven sacraments are baptism confirmation the eukar IST tenance the anointing of the sick holy orders and matrimony I.E marriage so they believe if you follow these this doctrine of the seven sacraments and do good works in your life then you will get to go to heaven so you've got to understand that during the chudah period the all of these things are really really important to the average person everybody believes in God and everybody believes that you can only get to heaven through your belief in God and that goes for Catholics and Protestants in a way it's a little bit like Wi-Fi today we we all have our mobile phones and our iPads and our PC and we can connect to the internet we can connect to YouTube you're watching me right now talking to you over the internet and we're using uh little invisible signals that are being sent through the air which Mak stuff happen on your computer or on your phone now we've been told that this is Wi-Fi that's making these things happen and we're in the same situation really as your Che the people they have been told that the sun rises in the morning lightning struck the barn down the road all of these things happen because of God so we have no real evidence that Wi-Fi is causing these things to happen on our phones as far as we know there's a little black box in the corner that we look at and it's blinking lights and we know that our Wi-Fi is working so a cheah person they see that they prayed and their Sun got better and so as far as they're concerned that is God's direct intervention causing that to happen Okay so that's everything for today thank you so much for joining me and thank you for watching as usual my contacts my Twitter and email are in in the description I'd love it if you left me some comments and let me know kinds of things you want me to talk about and in the meantime I hope you have a nice week and I'll see you all next time