How can the first christians be Catholics? The bible never taught that the early church believed in purgatory, prayed to saints, or deified the virgin Mary. Mary needed Jesus just as much as everyone else on earth. The early church never prayed to a God still hanging on the Cross, so how can the first christians be catholics? Then is was stated the Latter-Day saints were also christians, this is so far from the truth a christian believes that Jesus is God very God. Everything he did on the cross finished the work and there was no need for a man Joseph Smith to fix a fallen church.