A marker takes the colour of the side it landed on — blue toward the left pole,
orange toward the right. The shape says which tradition; the colour never does.
The Lutheran rail draws confessional Lutherans, the synods that still subscribe the whole Book of Concord of 1580, chiefly the Missouri and Wisconsin synods in North America; the larger Lutheran bodies, the ELCA among them, appear on this map under mainline Protestant. The Catholic rail draws the church in communion with Rome.
What they share
Christ is truly present at the altar in both. Lutherans say His body and blood are given in, with and under the bread and wine, and refuse to explain how; Catholics call it transubstantiation, the bread and wine becoming His body and blood while still looking and tasting the same. Neither calls it a symbol, and both baptise infants. Neither will commune the other, though: each admits only those who share its confession.
Both keep the shape of the Mass: confession, the sung prayers for mercy and glory, the creed and the words Christ spoke over the bread and cup all stand in their old places, under a church year that opens in Advent. The Augsburg Confession itself begins by confessing the faith of Nicaea.
Neither expects a rapture. Israel and the church are one people of God on both sides, and Augsburg Confession XVII rejected the idea of an earthly kingdom before the resurrection back in 1530.
Where they differ
Both sides below are stated the way people who hold them would state them. Landing in
the same band is not agreeing, and landing in different ones is not a verdict.
Scripture alone, and Lutherans mean something narrower than it sounds. The Formula of Concord of 1577 calls Scripture the only rule and norm by which every teaching and every teacher is judged, and in the same breath receives the ancient creeds as faithful witnesses to it. Lutherans subscribe the Book of Concord word for word, not as a second authority beside the Bible but because they hold it says exactly what the Bible says.
Catholic
rooted in Scripture and tradition
Catholics do not set Scripture against tradition; they deny that the question makes sense. Dei Verbum, the Second Vatican Council's document on revelation, says Scripture and tradition flow from the same divine wellspring, and that interpreting them authentically belongs to the church's teaching office, the pope and the bishops together. Trent said in 1546 that the gospel is preserved in written books and in unwritten traditions from the apostles.
In plain wordsBoth keep the creeds. They differ on what happens when a reader's Bible and the church's teaching seem to pull apart, and on who is entitled to settle it.
Confessional Lutheran churches do not practise tongues or prophecy, and the reason is positive rather than a denial. Augsburg Confession V holds that the Holy Spirit is given through the preached Word and the sacraments and not apart from them, so a Lutheran looking for the Spirit looks at the font, the pulpit and the altar. They pray hard for the sick and expect God to answer.
Catholic
continuationist
Catholic teaching leans the other way, which surprises people who expect Rome to be the formal one. Lumen Gentium, from the Second Vatican Council, says the Holy Spirit hands out special graces among the faithful of every rank, to be received with gratitude though never sought rashly. Charismatic renewal has been at home in Catholic parishes since it began among students at Duquesne University in 1967.
In plain wordsA Lutheran expects the Holy Spirit through the Word and the sacraments; a Catholic expects that too, and expects Him to keep handing out gifts besides.
Nothing whatever, on the Lutheran side. The Holy Spirit works faith through the Word and the sacraments, and the will before that is dead rather than neutral; that is monergism, the view that God alone brings a person to believe. Lutherans do not follow the Reformed the whole way, though: grace can still be resisted, and God chose nobody for damnation. If a person is saved it is all God's doing; if he is lost it is all his own.
Catholic
synergist-leaning
Catholics insist as firmly that nothing at the start is earned. Trent taught that justification begins with grace running ahead of anything a person does, and the Catechism calls grace the free and undeserved help God gives. But Trent also condemned the idea that the will is purely passive and cannot refuse its consent, and consent is what this axis measures.
In plain wordsBoth say God makes the first move; the Lutheran says no part of coming to faith is the person's own doing, while the Catholic says the person must consent and can withhold it.
Beyond the compass
The Compass measures six things, not everything. These differences are real and
sit outside all six.
The pope
Rome holds that the bishop of Rome is Peter's successor with authority over the whole church, and the First Vatican Council defined in 1870 that he teaches without error when he speaks solemnly on faith and morals. Lutherans reject that office outright, and it has a document of its own in the Book of Concord: the Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope.
Mary, the saints and purgatory
Catholics ask Mary and the saints to pray for them, and pray for the dead, holding that those who die in God's friendship but still need purifying are made ready for heaven. Lutherans honour the same saints and hold their faith up to be imitated, which Augsburg Confession XXI says plainly, but do not ask them for anything, because Scripture nowhere tells them to.
How they came to differ
The quarrel began over a fundraising campaign. In 1517 Martin Luther, a friar and professor of Bible at Wittenberg, wrote ninety-five short propositions against the sale of indulgences, which remitted punishment the church still required for sins already confessed. He was excommunicated in 1521 and made an outlaw by the emperor the same year.
The Lutherans were not trying to found a church. On 25 June 1530 their princes had the Augsburg Confession read aloud in German to Charles V at the imperial diet, as their answer to the charge of heresy. Rome replied with the Council of Trent, which sat from 1545 to 1563, and defined justification in 1547 and the Eucharist in 1551. The Lutherans settled their own disputes in the Formula of Concord of 1577, bound with the creeds and Luther's catechisms into the Book of Concord in 1580.
Lutherans and Catholics have been in formal conversation since the 1960s, and it has moved neither of them on who has the last word.
Walking in
A visitor who walked into a confessional Lutheran Divine Service from a Catholic Mass would recognise nearly everything: vestments, a crucifix and candles, the same old order, the same church year, bread and wine at a rail. The tells are small. The Lutherans sing more, and the hymns run to many verses. The sermon is longer and sits at the centre. No prayer names Mary or the saints, and there is no holy water at the door.
Did you know?
On 31 October 1999, Reformation Day, the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church signed a Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification in Augsburg, declaring that the old condemnations do not fall on the teaching each side sets out in it. The confessional synods drawn here are not members of that federation and did not sign.
What we read
Lutheran
The Augsburg Confession (1530)
Twenty-eight short articles: V on the Holy Spirit, IX baptism, X the Supper, XVII the last day, XXI the saints.
Lutheran
The Formula of Concord (1577)
Scripture as the only rule and norm, and conversion as God's work alone.
Lutheran
Luther's Small Catechism (1529)
A few pages written for a father to teach his household at the table, still learned by heart.
Catholic
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992)
Numbered by paragraph: 1996 to 2001 on grace, 1374 to 1376 on the Eucharist.
Catholic
The Council of Trent (1545-63)
Scripture and tradition in 1546, justification in 1547, the Eucharist in 1551.
Catholic
Dei Verbum (1965)
Vatican II on where revelation comes from; section 9 is the one both sides argue over.
