You're listening to Catholic Sprouts, the daily podcast for Catholic kids that strives to plant seeds of faith.

Hey there, Sprouts. Today is Monday, November 12th, 2018. This week on the Catholic Sprouts

podcast, we are going to be talking about the Catholic Church. We are going to be talking

about what's unique about the church that we belong to and what makes it the universal

Catholic Church.

So first of all, let's just talk a little bit about what the Catholic Church is.

Of course, we believe that the Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ himself.

As you likely know, we are the largest Christian denomination.

Denomination means a specific belief under the larger umbrella of Christianity.

There are lots of people that believe that Jesus is the Lord of all, but they aren't Catholic.

When you aren't Catholic, you can be something like Baptist or Lutheran or Methodist, or you could call yourself non-denominational.

As Catholics, we have lots of unique and beautiful things.

For example, no other Christian denomination has the Eucharist.

No other church has, during their service, the true presence of Jesus Christ presented to us in bread and wine, but we know that it is truly his body and blood.

So the Catholic Church is set apart in that way.

The Catholic Church is also set apart in that we are part of a larger church. Oftentimes

in the town that you live in, there might be a Baptist church or a Lutheran church, and that church is

sort of all by itself. The pastor that is in charge there, he can kind of decide what he wants to

preach on each Sunday. He can decide what the outline of their worship service looks like. This is not

the case in the Catholic Church. In the Catholic Church, every church is united with each other, and we are all united to Rome.

This is why you can go to your local parish on Sunday and hear a certain set of readings.

And then if you want to, you can leave that church and go to the next church down the road that

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