[dumah]

Some Protestants hold that Catholicism is not a sect of Christianity due to a number of beliefs, such as the different requirements for salvation.

I don’t know how common this belief is in the US but I personally have encountered a number of people that believe this.

[netdevnet]

Interesting, I have never heard of that. Which is funny because Catholicism is far older than Protestantism

[WorkerBee28474]

They were one and the same until some people protested against the Catholic church telling people they could buy their way into Heaven - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninety-five_Theses

[shsbdksn]

The sale of indulgences didn't work quite like that. The Catholic Church, like the Orthodox, has free confession which is the stairway to heaven.

The sale of indulgences was a charitable donation done to mitigate the penalties of Purgatory.

Abuses were committed, but the telling of the protestants is quite fantastic. It was not, for example, a get-of-Hell sale