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1. Without Catholics, Non-Catholic Christians would not exist.
That sounds obvious, but I've encountered some weirdo fundamentalist types who want to damnatio memoriae any hint of recognition that Catholics are legit Christians and want to pretend they were defiling the concept of being like Christ since day one.
First off, Catholics base everything they do on the fact Jesus told Peter he would be the rock upon which his Church was built. The early Church's first significant leader and the one Catholics consider their first Pope is Peter. All Catholic Popes can be traced back to Peter in terms of descent by process of decision by the church after Jesus made Peter the first, all Popes since are thus supposed to walk in the same footsteps as the one chosen by Christ.
With that in mind, they were the OG Church, and anyone disputing that is trying to dispute mountains of religious history backed up by lots of secular confirmation from secondary sources.
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2. Catholicism is why so much cringe was filtered out of the base all Protestants use for their beliefs.
Now, I'm not going to argue Catholics are free of cringe. I'm not 100% sure of all their beliefs nor has their history been free of cringey practices. That said, let's cover a lot of the cringe we have them to thank for filtering out.
A. Sycretism - OG Christianity was born during the time of the Roman Empire, which was polytheism friendly and a lot of the multiple religions they practiced had little problem with cross-pollinating their beliefs with each other.
Christianity (alongside Judaism) was one of the two holdouts that put a kibosh on allowing any other deities to be worshiped before God. They took a ton of heat for this, were considered disloyal for not wanting to pay homage to the official Roman deities of the time, and got heat even then for being exclusionary.
That said, they dug in their heels and managed to gut out a ton of persecution, and when the Western Empire fell, they got out of it remarkably free of corrosive cross-pollination with pagan homage.
B. Heresies - Early Christianity had to filter out a lot of weird interpretations inside the Church of the known facts. Gnosticism was an early heresy the Church beat off with a stick until it was black and blue to keep it from poisoning the well. Arianism, a common alternative take on the divinity of Jesus (which denied he was ever a mortal man in body) was a big threat early on, and the Catholics worked hard to blowtorch this belief off their adherents because it denied the truth, and they succeeded in condemning Arianism to the dustbin of history as a result.
St. Nicholas, on who Santa Claus is based, even punched out Arius for blasphemy rather than hear him utter any more poison against the Word.
Basically, while modern-day non-Catholics might want to complain about some Catholic beliefs, they still have Catholics to thank for being a guardian early on against some omega cringe leaking into Christianity.
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3. Catholics are why the Christian Church is considered a bulwark of Western Civilization.
Like them or not, they were one of the few points of stability after Western Rome fell. For those who were not Eastern Roman, they were one of the few things in very chaotic times that held together, and despite all the political changes since, they held together despite a lot of challenges, even outlasting an attempt by the Avignon anti-popes to start their own church with blackjack and hookers, if you'll pardon the crude reference.
Now, Protestants broke off from Catholics and probably don't see any irony in doing so. That said, it's worth noting Catholics have still managed to last into modern day anyway as something everyone who is Christian has to admit has been a rock of stability in the Western World even in our darkest hours.
That said, that doesn't mean everyone needs to bend the knee to them if they aren't Catholic. In fact, I would never countenance doing so unless you are Catholic, and even then, I'd only bend a knee to the Catholic Church if in doing so you honor the God who they are supposed to honor in turn. Regardless, they are the reason why the western world considers freedom of religious worship a huge deal and why it's considered a basic human right in most western societies. Granted, this came after a lot of punching each other in the face over the proper way to honor God before they agreed to disagree, but in the end, modern day believers in Christ can make their choices based on how they hashed that all out several centuries ago.
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4. Finally, Catholics Are Still Christians Once You Strip Away The Sectarianism
Now, Protestants and Catholics will likely nitpick till the end of time about where they agree and disagree, that is not going to change. They also likely believe they are the only ones doing homage to God right and the other side is doing a flawed version at best. And while they may agree to disagree on a lot, let's be honest, they would be happiest if the other side conceded and they all believe the same things.
At the same time, I honestly look at it this way. As long as we can agree Christ is the Son of God, only through the sacrifice of Christ can we be saved and brought unto Grace by the Father, and that it is incumbent on us to walk as Christ did if for no other reason to than to bring others unto following the example of Jesus for their own redemption, then at the end of the day, strictly from my POV as a someone who prefer no other term than just "Christian" to define his own faith, then I think that's all that really matters.
