Roman Catholic Church

Along with Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism, it is one of the three major branches of Christianity. The Church holds that it is the one true church founded by Jesus Christ, that its bishops are the successors of Christ’s apostles and that the Pope is the sole successor to Saint Peter, who has primacy among the apostles. Over the course of centuries it developed an elaborate organizational structure and sophisticated theology that includes, among its distinctive positions, the veneration of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and a belief in transubstantiation, which holds that the substance of the bread and wine in the Eucharist becomes Christ’s real body and blood. The number of Roman Catholics in the world is greater than that of nearly all other religious traditions, and there are more Roman Catholics than all other Christians combined.