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Stepping back and TRYING to look at this objectively and analytically (I’m an analyst by training) I would say Mr. Barrett classified Catholics and Protestants major heading through its dogma. Hence there are some (non-Roman) Catholics not included under the “Catholic” category probably because their dogma didn’t match that of Roman Catholics. Once the dogma was established and the major classifications defined, I believe Mr. Barrett defined denominations based upon the rites of the church.

The Catholic Church seems to have a much larger and defined set of dogma and a limited set of rites. IMO you see yourselves as not having denominations because everyone follows the large set of dogma and only deviates in minor places through the rites. These are trivial to you and do not affect your core dogma which is substantial. Consequently you see yourselves as one church.

Meanwhile, you Catholics level charges at us Protestants as saying we have no dogma and think we have 400,000 independent denominations floating around in the cosmos. Protestants just have a very limited set of dogmas and a much broader set of rites. The careful analysis presented in this report shows that Mr. Barrett was able to classify only 21 denominations as Protestant (verses 12 for the Catholic Church).

The argument as I see it is that Catholics bristle at the thought of having denominations since all the churches follow the core dogma which is substantial. On the other hand, we Protestants have found a teensy-weensy technicality and, of course, we’re exploiting it. :O)

From an analytical standpoint this to me is interesting. When the Catholics put down something like sola scriptura this riles us Protestants because you’re treading on a Protestant dogma. Hence, we go bonkers and put aside our different rites and go into combat mode. Since you Catholics have many dogmas there are lots of things us Protestants can do to drive you crazy. Baptism seems to be one of these issues since it is viewed in the Catholic Church as a dogma but in the Protestant church as a rite.