Why are you Catholic and not Anglican or vice and versa?

[Upcycled]

These two religions are pretty similar aren't they?
Why did you chose one over the other?

I was brought up Catholic, but after a few years of not going to church I went with CofE; mostly because I couldn't agree with many of the RC's views on abortion, remarriage, women priests.

well you do not choose, you go along with whatever your parents do really.
besides as cingolimana said, c of e is catholic, just not Roman Catholic, it distinctly says in the Nicene creed.

Christened at a High church so it's a
Church of England with a catholic ethos.

So when people asks me if I am Catholic I can say yes even though I am attending CofE?

well you can but they won't 'get it' unless they are reciting the Nicene Creed every Sunday.
Many Anglican churches are 'Anglo Catholic' and tbh you would be hard pushed to tell the difference in the service, incense burners the lot.
Wasn't there the Oxford Movement and Cardinal Newman who tried to bring the two branches closer?

Upcycled I think say what you feel is right for you. I am very much a liberal catholic though I have a deep love of Our Lady, I haven't lived the life of a true catholic. However I would say C of E is not Catholic am happy to stand corrected.

"I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.

Who, for us men for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.

And I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

my italics

We said the Nicene creed in the Lutheran church as well :)

I was baptized a Lutheran but didn't know it until I asked when I was 10 or so. I wanted to know if I could go to religion class like some of my friends. I hadn't ever been to a church service before that. I remained with the Lutheran church, was confirmed, etc.

But now, married to very Catholic DH, we attend Catholic church every week and our children will be baptized Catholic. I fought against baptizing DS for years because I was horrified by the scandals. But now...I don't know. Something's different. I don't know if it's the renewed charitable spirit brought by the new Pope or what, but I feel a new energy in the church that I really like and want the DC to be a part of.

cingolimama the Church of England is not considered part of the Catholic church by Catholics. Those that broke away from the church and called themselves The Church of England call Catholics "Roman Catholics" because they did not want to accept the Pope's authority in matters of faith. The C of E also does not believe in many of the Sacraments and fundamentals of the Catholic faith regarding the Eucharist. That is why Catholic and Orthdox accept each others Eucharist as valid but neither accept the C of E's.

The C of E is moving further away from the Catholic church in belief and that is why many C of E members who called themselves Anglo-Catholics asked Rome in the last 10 years to please accept them as groups into the Catholic church. The request was finally granted by Pope Benedict when he created the Ordinariates. The Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham is for England and Wales. Vicars who want to be Catholic priests have to fulfill the normal requirements and if they are able to are ordained. So far about 80 C of E vicars have become Catholic priests through the Ordinariate since about 2011.

All very interesting.
I just want to have Jesus as my guide and light.
My Dh says he is his own church.
And he is so much more tolerant and generous and charitable and "good" than me. I have been looking for somewhere to belong to for years now (20 or so) hoping to one place to another.

But I am the kind who needs to being in a community or group and participate otherwise I don't focus.

I will stick with saying I am a Christian and attend what I fancy and not to be afraid to change my mind.

Is it ok or too volatile?

You always have complete freedom in Christ.

I was brought up RC and now attend a C of E church because:

I do not believe in transubstantiation;

I was damaged by an RC upbringing including the emphasis on hell and original sin;

and by the subhuman status of females;

and because the things above, and some others, I consider to be being treated as tantamount to a child by a patriarchal church (not ethically or morally adult, subtle and complicated but I know what I mean because I feel stunted morally by RC teaching);

and because this is very important to me as a mother, because I must be an adult, I absolutely have to be spiritually whole and complete, and have authority and agency, because I have an important job to do in my children's lives and I must be my best and biggest self to do it.

This is a very sad thing for my parents but for terrible reasons because although they talk about things like apostolic succession and so on, they have an intense identification as RC for cultural reasons that are not a million miles away from sectarianism

Plenty high church Anglicans hold to transubstantiation and venerate the BV

But it is not compulsory is it? It's not 'if you don't believe this you are out'.

I find the C of E quite intriguing as it appears to have so many variations under one umberella. An observation as an outsider it that this is an amazing thing to be able to accommodate and to enable people to find a form of worship that feels right for them. Does this have any effect on how people see them selves as C of E is do they identify with C of E first and then their own branch first or the other way round? I am not asking to be provocative, I am just genuinely interested and I hope nobody minds me asking.

The Catholic church also holds an eclectic mix of people under it's roof and ordinary practising Catholics are often far more liberal than realised (this leads to the accusations of cherry picking) but there are certain aspects that seem to hold all Catholics together, transubstantiation, celebrating the sacraments, etc.

Ultimately I don't suppose it's matters as we are all Christians and the important thing is how we live our lives in the outside world.

I am a Christian not a denomination. I attend whichever church seems friendliest, best children's activities, most practically active in the community, my style of worship etc. the official 'name' doesn't bother me.

sashh No. I'm fairly well up the candle and neither are important to me although I understand that others find it so.

Really sorry not to have read the whole thread closely, but I did pick up on a mention of divorce. My experience of the Roman Catholic church and divorce is that they will nullify first marriages and allow a second marriage provided you fulfil certain criteria. It is a long process, but actually wasn't difficult as such. The criteria on which they'll allow annulment are quite specific, though. My first marriage has been annulled on the basis that I was not in a position spiritually/emotionally to understand the concept of commitment at the time that I contracted the marriage - the marriage was made for very damaged reasons. It meant discussing a fair bit of emotional baggage, and be warned: it's not a counselling/therapy session, it's more like giving evidence, though not in a court setting. Infidelity is not a reason to annul a marriage. A classic shotgun marriage (being forced to wed because you're e.g. pregnant, though that kind of thing obviously did rather go out with the ark) would get a sympathetic hearing for an annulment.
If you feel that your first marriage was made in all good faith with an understanding of what you were doing then my recollection is that they won't annul it.
It took well over a year, and involved an awful lot of paperwork. They will also ask you if you can make a financial contribution to the cost of annulment - a piece of information that immediately invites cynical comment, but in practice it's a few hundred pounds which clearly represents a payment towards the salaries of the administrators, canon lawyers etc. who all have to work, and are rightly paid a salary, to get you your annulment.
If I can tell you anything else about the process, do pm me - there may be other nuggets I can dig up from memory if you've got specific questions.

^ well yes catholic with a small c essentially

When I did my C of E confirmation lessons as a teenager I was taught that the word "catholic" meant universal/worldwide which is why it is in the Nicene creed talking of an all-embracing church.

I am now Catholic capital C, I found that it seemed truer to what I believed/how I wanted to live. Yes there are challenging issues but I think that the current Pope seems to really be a little more in touch with "normal" life and maybe the huge beast that is the Church may gradually adjust attitudes without losing sight of its core beliefs/traditions.

I went through the whole annulment process like steptoe above before I could be received fully into the Church - it is an absolute soul searching process, asking questions about things that you really don't want to answer, and can take a long time to complete (mine was about 2 years) as quite often the tribunal meetings are only once every one or 2 months. I had to have a long interview with our local priest who agreed that I had a genuine reason, then I had to provide 3 character witnesses who knew me when I first married who had to be interviewed by different priests local to them. The whole lot was sent to a tribunal in another diocese (so there was no chance of the person reviewing it knowing me or of me influencing anyone) to be reviewed, presented and decided upon. After the decision by them, it gets sent to Westminster to be checked for any anomalies before becoming official.

Is there prejudice between Roman Catholic and CofE?

What do you mean by prejudice? Most sensible people on either side won't be 'funny' about other people's beliefs. But each tend to think they have got it right and the others have got it wrong, sort of by definition since they are members of one and not the other!

I think it depends where you are, Upcycled. I live in Glasgow and there has, historically, been strong Catholic-Protestant antipathy. I'm Catholic and have witnessed this stuff in very uncomfortable proximity, from both sides. But tbh, it's a lot more to do with football than religion these days and most decent people of either persuasion want nothing to do with the conflicts.

Upcycled as the history of the British Isles is of the C of E being created in rejection of the Catholic church that created certain dynamics over the centuries. Until the Roman Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 Catholics had their civil rights severely restricted, they could not vote, be lawyers or MPs for example - they also had to pay special taxes and it was difficult for them to purchase land or property. As a result Catholics had disappeared from public life to a certain extent.

In 1850 the Catholic hierachy, bishops and dioceses were reestablished in England and the Catholic community gradually built up again, building churches and schools and being involved in social justice.

There can be holdovers from this history, but any truly practicing Christian would hopefully be open and loving to their brothers and sisters in other churches. The fundamentals of the faith are shared by Catholics and the C of E - who Jesus is, the reason and purpose of his life, death and resurrection.