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Catholicism

The Catholic religion has an estimated 900,000,000 followers or Roman Catholics. Catholicism is (claimed to be) founded by the apostle Peter in Jerusalem according to many Christian experts, yet the term "Catholic Church" was introduced by St. Ignatius (a Syrian bishop) in about 10 A.D.. The Catholic Church is the oldest institution in the Western world.

Catholicism is now the faith, practice, or system of Roman Catholic Christianity. The Catholic church is the largest of three major divisions of Christianity, with the other two being the Protestant and Eastern Orthodox churches.

The headquarters of the Catholic church is the Vatican in Rome, Italy. The Vatican headed by the Pope.

By the middle of the first century A.D., the Catholic Church was centered in Rome of the Roman Empire. In 312, Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and helped make it become the official religion of the Roman Empire.

The governments of Church and State were mixed, until the early Middle Ages. With the separation of Church and State, the papacy or establishment of pope as head of the Catholic Church went into effect.

In 1854, the Roman Catholic church started to teach that the conception of the Virgin Mary, circa 20 B.C., was without sin as is referred to as the "Immaculate Conception".

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