This is What Catholics Believe...

The chief teachings of the Catholic church are: 

1. God's objective existence
2. God's interest in individual human beings, who can enter into relations with God (through prayer)
3. the Trinity
4. the divinity of Jesus
5. the immortality of the soul of each human being, each one being accountable at death for his or her actions in life, with the award of heaven or hell 
6. the resurrection of the dead; the historicity of the Gospels;
7. the divine commission of the church
8. the Roman Catholic Church stresses that since the members, living and dead, share in each other's merits, the Virgin Mary and other saints and the dead in purgatory are never forgotten

To belong to the church one must accept as factually true the gospel of Jesus as handed down in tradition and as interpreted by the bishops in union with the pope. Fundamental in this divine tradition is the Bible , its text determined and disseminated by the church. Adherents must also accept the church as possessing the fullness of revelation, and the church, according to the Roman Catholic catechism, is the only Christian body that is one, holy, catholic [universal], and apostolic.

The doctrine of apostolic succession is one of the keystones of the Catholic faith; it holds that the pope (the vicar of Christ) and the bishops have in varying degrees the spiritual authority Jesus assigned to his apostles. The voice of the pope, either alone or in conjunction with his bishops in council, is regarded as infallible when speaking on matters of faith and morals taught in common with the bishops (see infallibility ). Many features of the traditional teaching (dogma) have been analyzed and restated, by the councils and by great theologians (see council, ecumenical ; creed ; Thomas Aquinas, Saint ; Trent, Council of ; Vatican Council, First ; Vatican Council, Second ).   SOURCE:  The Roman Catholic Church