How Many Kinds Of Catholics Are There?

A Look At The Various Divisions Within The Catholic & Orthodox Churches

 
Officially, according to the Catholic Church there are 23 different types of Catholic “Christians”. What most call Roman Catholic are actually Latin Rite Catholic while branches of the Eastern Orthodox churches make up of the rest of the 22. Yet supposedly there is one solitary Catholic Church. There are hundreds of Catholic factions (after all, any organization of sufficient size will have political infighting).
 
Sedevacantists are people who deny the validity of the current pope as well as the Second Vatican Council.
 
Conclavists are (most often) sedevacatists who have gone so far as to say, “since VAII was heresy, the bishops who supported it are heretics … and… heretics are incapable of properly electing a pope… therefore, there is no pope and the See is vacant.” Because Conclavists believe the position of pope is vacant, they have set up their own conclaves to elect their own popes. There are over a dozen conclaves spread throughout the world.
 
There are quite a few different liturgical and spiritual groups inside the Catholic Church. Most commonly, you will find Byzantine and other Eastern groups who closely resemble the Orthodox in both practice and theological expressions, but there are other, smaller sub-organizations in the Church (such as the Ambrosian Rite (which is largely liturgical) and the Anglican Ordinariate (which is only a few years old and closely resembles the ways of the Anglican Church)). Depending how you subdivide it, you could even argue that every major order (or even every abbey) can be considered a subset with its own customs, beliefs, and traditions. For that matter, even within a diocese, you will find different parishes behave different ways.
 
Jesuits are a religious order, like the Franciscans, Dominicans, or Benedictines. These groups are all under the “See of Rome” (i.e. the pope_. Opus Dei is something called a “Personal Prelature” meaning it has its own group of bishops and is not restricted to a diocese. They are relatively autonomous (and enjoy some freedom religious orders don’t), but they are still under the Pope. These religious orders are rightly called Catholic secret societies and have no place in the true Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. They are more like mafia groups within a criminal organization and I say that because the Vatican uses those societies and their members to infiltrate many secular and religious organizations worldwide, including political parties and seminaries. That infiltration is for the purpose of gaining power, control and wealth.
 
SOURCE: https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/8333/how-many-kinds-of-catholics-are-there. Note: this article was originally written by a Catholic on a discussion forum. Some minor editing has been performed to add some conciseness and additional clarity.
 

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