When was the catholic church founded and by whom

Introduction and the Church in Britain

The Roman Catholic Church

The Catholic Church is the oldest institution in the western world. It can trace its history back almost 2000 years.

Today there are more than a billion Catholics in the world, spread across all five continents with particular concentrations in southern Europe, the United States, the Philippines and the countries of Central and South America.

What binds this diverse group of people together is their faith in Jesus Christ and their obedience to the papacy.

Catholics believe that the Pope, based in Rome, is the successor to Saint Peter whom Christ appointed as the first head of His church.

He therefore stands in what Catholicism calls the apostolic succession, an unbroken line back to Peter and has supreme authority. Popes can speak infallibly on matters of faith and morals but in practice do so rarely.

The Catholic Church in Britain

In Britain, Catholics suffered a long period of persecution following Henry VIII's break with the papacy in the 1530s and were sometimes regarded as servants of a foreign power - p

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