With the most centralized government in Christendom, the Roman Catholic Church has accomplished a work almost unbelievable in scope. The Roman Catholic Church first came into prominence when it emerged as the only power in Europe strong enough to rule after the fall of Rome in A.D. 410. Blessed with capable leaders, the Church became a steadying influence in an area overrun by barbarian hordes. One of its great theologians, St. Augustine, enhanced the Church's prestige, "laid its theological and philosophical structure, and gave the Papacy its finest justification and defense. He left it strong enough to give crowns or deny them to Europe's kings."
Truly the Church's growth from the start has been phenomenal. It has been in the forefront of every population shift. Long before Columbus discovered America, the Catholics had a diocese in Greenland, established in 1125. When Columbus finally did venture to America, a bishop of Catholic Spain was with him. The first permanent parish in America--St. Augustine, Florida, in 1565--was started by Catholics.
Along with most other Christians, Roman Catholics believe in God as the supreme Being who made all things; in the Trinity; in a literal heaven and hell; in sin, the forgiveness of sins, the incarnation, the Church, the Holy Spirit; the redemption of the soul; in the communion of saints, judgment, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.

Great Churches of America, Kenneth J. Holland