FWIW:
https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/how-do-catholics-baptists-differ
(Obligatory disclaimer: I’m neither RC nor Southern Baptist. Religiously, I try to avoid getting sucked into arguments related to dogma, except to tweak the noses of those who are a bit too obnoxious in promoting theirs as The One True Dogma. Admittedly, some of that nose-tweaking has revolved around a few Southern Baptists’ assertions that they rely on scripture rather than tradition…)
My wife is a lifelong atheist who loves engaging the Jehovah’s Witnesses and others who come to the door trying to convert her. The discussions are ridiculous because the JW will say “the Bible says this” as her justification and my wife totally dismisses anything written in the Bible. It is like a Trumpist arguing with a liberal: no common ground for any type of meaningful discussion. The JW woman keeps coming back though.
In contrast I don’t answer the door if I know it is a JW on the other side. If I do so unknowingly, I politely tell them good bye and close the door. I don’t see anything productive for either party in the discussion that would follow.
Jaspess II (who is not Catholic) and i were just recently talking about infallibility, since she asked about it. I think this is one of the sources I used to look it up a bit:
As I understand it, people often confuse it with “impeccability,” or being incapable of sinning (which is not what we believe).
But anyway. In short: Infallibility has to do with the pope being protected from error when making official pronouncements about core matters of faith. It comes in part from Christ’s pomise of the coming Spirit of Truth which will guide His followers to all truth. So we believe that the Holy Spirit protects the church from teaching error.
It doesn’t mean that we have to agree with all of his opinions, though. For example:
Yes, nor as you touched upon, does it mean the Pope can only speak truth. The Pope can absolutely say something about God, religion, etc. that is not considered infallible.
Either way, from everything I can tell, the entire dogma of “papal infallibility” is the result of a series of old men sitting around and deciding it’s going to be that way, because it was sorta like that from the last circle of old men and we liked it, so we’ll strengthen it because the Bible gave us authority to.
I don’t think this is really the issue.
It’s about: who runs the church? and who gets to decide what is true?
There are also some protestants who do not appreciate the historical reality that the roman catholic tradition tries to be consistent with scripture.
My ex had a more forceful version of your view, which is one of the reasons (although not the most important reason) we didn’t work out. As far as I can tell in this thread though, you’re sincere in asking questions and conversing, which I appreciate. 
I’m happy to rationally discuss religion and take the religious person’s views (like God existing) as a fact for the purposes of that talk. I may get a little snide when it comes to what I view as hypocrisy (such as a priest complaining about pedophilic transgender people) or laughably silly (indulgences).
However should I ever offend or seem out of line, always feel free to chime in.
I think a lot depends on just how historic you want to get.
20th century historic, I’d agree for the most part.
16th century historic, I’d have to say that there’s a reason Luther became the de facto leader of the Protestant movement.
I think one of the biggest issues on this topic is that most non-Catholics stay overly focused on the latter point and many Catholics choose to ignore it.
Forget thread drift we’ve gone completely off the rails.
Not sure what you mean by this.
:oops:
Mods, can you split this tangent off to a General thread called Random Religion Thoughts or Christian History/Theology or some other useful title?
What I mean is that the major Roman Catholic thinkers (many of whom are also major thinkers for Protestants) all tried to be consistent with the bible, at least as far as I am aware. For example, I believe that in the middle ages, you had to lecture on Biblical interpretation before you could do theology. Whether they succeeded is up for argument. But they tried. They did not simply say “tradition is what is important, scripture does not matter.”
You also had popes trying to exercise power. That was really the sticking point. Perhaps the popes were biblically justified, or perhaps not. But this is not the same as the major thinkers, both theological and spiritual.
I get it. Thanks for that.
Tangent to that: When I was on Catholic Match for a while, I participated on their forums for a while as well. It was (whatever the word for “interesting but not as a compliment” is) that the self-identified “rad trad” types not only didn’t seem to think much of the Bible while arguing for their position (mainly by just arguing), but also, one of them even went as far as to say something to the effect of “you will burn in hell if you die without being a member of the Catholic Church” (something else that we don’t believe). 
The apparent scorn for Scripture in particular was astonishing. For him I guess it was more “cherry-picked ancient aspects of Tradition that support my rad-trad worldview are what’s important, scripture does not matter.” Odd since Christ made it pretty clear that He came not to abolish but to fulfill.
Also related to that is the Christian version of the chicken/egg question: “Which came first: The Bible or The Church?” Another area in which Catholics and Protestants will have different answers.
So, another version of a Cafeteria Catholic!
Hadn’t thought of it like that, but now that you mention it, yeah basically. 
So, you’re saying it’s more of a metaphor than a simile…
I’m not sure that roman catholics and protestants would have different answers.
i think the primary difference is that roman catholics identify the “true” church with the institution, while protestants do not.
I do think there is a big disagreement about how to fill in information that is missing from scripture.
Roman catholics believe the institutional church should do it. Some protestants think there is no missing information. Others think it should be done by the local church (congregationalists and baptists), or an elected democracy (presbyterians), or bishops (Episcopalians).
Uh-huh.
Things like indulgences, the sinlessness of Mary, the perpetual virginity of Mary, the idea that priests cannot marry are things that basically have no biblical basis, and Catholic theology arguing as much appears extremely contorted. (I mean the Bible specifies that bishops should have one wife, for example.)
Even your justification for transubstantiation doesn’t pass muster with me. Christ said that the bread and wine he distributed to the disciples was his body and blood. He didn’t say that 2000 years later when Father Mike blesses some bread and wine that it will transform into his body and blood.
Now, is transubstantiation the most pressing issue facing Christians? No, not even close. Nor are any of the other items I mentioned.
And I’m not sure I’ll have the energy to get roped into a big long debate about it. Trust me when I say that I’ve heard all of the Catholic justifications for these things and have discussed them at length with a Catholic priest and found the explanations quite lacking.
Yes this teaching is currently considered heresy by the Catholic Church… I think one of the popes clarified that in the latter half of the 20th century… perhaps as part of Vatican II, I’m not certain.
However, it was commonly taught in the 1950s. Multiple priests and nuns taught precisely this to my mother (starting at least as early as age 3 which is her first specific memory of being taught this, but repeated many times throughout her childhood) explaining to her that her father was going to hell because he was not Catholic.
when discussing Bible, or even Torah in depth, inconsistencies of message, especially as applied to current practice. Stories that repeat, omit or contradict prior stories. Particularly. changes in practice over time based on the same message.
I enjoy the discussion and debate. But if looking for a substantial, concrete answer, it will always be lacking