Catholic and Protestant 1

Comparison and Contrast of Catholic Mass and Protestant Service

On Easter Sunday, I attended two church services; one a Catholic Mass at All Saints

Catholic Church and the other a non-denominational Protestant service at New City Fellowship.

Throughout my life, I have attended various Protestant churches on a regular basis which share

significant similarities with New City Fellowship; therefore, I recognize outright that I have

explicit bias in regards to the Roman Catholic Church. To the best of my ability, in this paper I

will view both services without prejudice, but residual bias is inevitable. Having grown up in a

Protestant church, I am well-versed in the significant theological differences that exist between

Protestants and Catholics. After attending a Catholic and Protestant service back-to-back, I was

not most impressed with explicitly stated theological differences; instead, I found the social and

liturgical differences to be most striking.

The first discrepancy that I noticed between the two churches was the social dynamics of

each church. Although the Catholic Mass was packed full and the service had not yet started, no

one was speaking with each other. With at least five hundred attendees, I was surprised at how

quiet the congregation was while there was no organized activity and no directive for silence to

be maintained. On the other hand, New City Fellowship was filled with noise and conversation

before the service, even though it only boasts somewhere over a hundred congregants. Before the

Catholic Mass, I knew that I wanted to note the differences in social dynamics, but I did not want

my existing relationships within New City Fellowship to contrast with the lack of ties I have to

All Saints Catholic Church to create a false dichotomy regarding the social atmosphere of each

church. Considering that mass began at 7:30 A.M., I wondered if fatigue hindered the

congregants from talking and if there might be more interaction after the service; however, this

was not the case. When the service ended around 8:30 A.M., the attendees quickly left the church
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without interaction that I observed. I only saw family groups talking amongst themselves as they

left. On the other hand, attendees of New City Fellowship lingered until they were asked to leave

the building and even then, continued their conversations outside the church. Even though I

expected many attendees were visitors like myself and may not have friends in the congregation,

I expected to see some individuals talking before or after the service.

The demographic variation between the two churches was noteworthy and resulted in

greater participation from specific age groups in each church. All Saints Catholic Church had

significant representation from every age group, with the emerging adult presence slightly

lacking. At New City Fellowship, emerging adults made up a significant portion of the

congregation, but the adult population dwindled significantly after the age of approximately

forty. The members who helped run the service were generally representative of the

demographics in each church, with emerging adults assisting the most at New City Fellowship

and adults at All Saints Catholic Church. However, the adults at All Saints Catholic Church who

served all appeared to be fifty or older, even though there was a significant portion of thirty- to

forty-year-olds in attendance. However, according to the Pew Research Center, these

observations were not representative of a pattern in American churches; Catholic and Protestant

churches in America have identical percentages of age groups.

During the two services, I noticed a difference in the level and type of congregant

participation. Although everyone was invited to sing in both church services, fewer people sang

during the Mass and with less enthusiasm than at New City Fellowship. While congregant

participation was much more frequent throughout the Catholic Mass, it was much more scripted.

Throughout the Mass, there were multiple corporate responses, such as “Amen,” “Lord, hear our

prayer,” and “And with your spirit,” but these were rarely announced. I only remember the
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prayer leader instructing the congregation to respond with “Lord, hear our prayer,” but there

were many other responses that were given automatically and in unison. At New City

Fellowship, there were few times of corporate response, but they were well-announced. When a

passage of Scripture was to be read aloud corporately, the pastor announced it. There were also

reactions of laughter and sorrow throughout the Protestant sermon that flowed naturally, whereas

no one appeared to interact emotionally with the Mass.

At both churches, the sermons did not vary extensively; they both discussed the death and

resurrection of Jesus Christ and how it affects the hearer. Both preachers began with a Bible

reference and expounded upon it. New City Fellowship’s pastor was more animated and

conversational than All Saints Catholic Church’s priest, but the variation in tone could be due to

mere individual differences between the preachers. One significant difference, however, was that

New City Fellowship discussed how Jesus came to provide a pathway to Heaven, but All Saints

Catholic Church did not mention Heaven. Aside from the failure to mention Heaven, New City

Fellowship and All Saints Catholic Church’s theology as stated in the sermon did not seem to be

at odds.

While the stated theology in the sermons did not expressly oppose each other, the liturgy

of the services revealed different emphases that pointed to theological and cultural differences

between the two churches. At All Saints Catholic Church, the priest entered as part of the

ceremony with a procession of people dressed in robes, holding a golden Bible high in the air. At

one point, three altar boys and an altar girl bowed to the priest and followed pre-selected steps to

complete the ceremony. In contrast, there was no entrance ceremony at New City Fellowship,

and the pastor looked like any other congregant. Such differences in presentation of authority

signal greater power distance within the Catholic Church. Research by Aurelian-Petrus, Brăilean,
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and Arsene in twenty-six European countries supports this finding. They discovered a link

between higher power distance indexes and a majority Catholic population, whereas largely

Protestant countries had low power distance indexes.

Both services had communion, but the way they served it revealed theological differences

between the Catholic and Protestant churches. In each service, congregants filed in a procession

to receive communion, but at All Saints Catholic Church, only bread was served. According to

the Catholic Church, both the bread and the wine fully become the body and blood of Jesus

Christ, whereas most Protestants view communion as a symbolic practice. In order to avoid any

of the wine being spilled and degrading the body and blood of Christ, Catholics reserve the wine

for the priest and give the congregants only a wafer as their communion. After communion was

administered in New City Fellowship, any leftover bread and wine was taken away quietly.

However, in All Saints Catholic Church, the leftover bread and wine was collected

ceremoniously and presented to the priest. The priest performed a ceremony over the leftovers

and then a robed congregant placed the remainders in a gold box at the back of the stage. Once

again, this difference in practice originated from varying views of communion, with the

Catholics believing that the leftover body and blood of Christ should be disposed of in a specific

manner.

In the Catholic and Protestant churches, the most impressive differences were not in the

stated theology during the service; rather, the liturgy and social dynamics of each service

demonstrated the theological differences. The fact that the demonstrated differences were greater

than the stated differences surprised me, since I had been instructed from a young age on the

theological differences between Protestants and Catholics. I often think of theology as a

statement, but this experience challenged me to also view theology as ideas demonstrated
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through practices. Attending another church service in which there was as greater displayed

power distance reaffirmed my belief that I do not appreciate the values represented in large

power distances. Throughout the Catholic service, I found myself taking offense at the way the

priest was revered because I believe so strongly in the benefits of maintaining a low power

distance. With concerted effort, I worked to remember that different cultural values are not

inherently better or worse but present their own benefits and drawbacks. In my future work as a

counselor, I will need to be acutely aware of this bias and not project my values on my clients.
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References

Aurelian-Petrus, P., Brăilean, T., & Arsene, M. (2012). Religious freedom indexes, cultural

dimensions and welfare in Europe, EDULEARN12, Barcelona, Spain, July 2012.

Religious landscape study: Age distribution. Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. (2014).

http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/age-distribution/.