This has the aroma of a capitulation to Rome, my FRiend. What exactly would you have said for all the years prior to Moses? The truth was embedded in the smallest gathering of the world's population that ever existed (Abraham, just one?). Just a few people (not even all of Israel) were granted faith according to the Book.
Numbers have absolutely nothing to do with anything. A claim is either true or false and it sounds like you are buying into their lie that "We're number one, we're number one". What happens when the Muslims start this chant? Are we to say, "Well, Muhammad meant well and there are an awful lot of them."?
Further, even Augustine fought the false claim of Rome's preemninence...until he caved in, also. It took hundreds of years before Rome became its own self-appointed big stick. And, you are forgetting Wycliffe, Gutenberg, Tyndale and others who gave enormous evidence that the cult of Rome was not welcome, nor recognized, by hundreds of small independent gatherings around long before Luther. Rome has rewritten its own history to convince their parishoners.
I am happy you believe in "lighting candles", but that is a personal decision. This travesty of doctrinal error needs a blow torch set onto its keister. There is almost nothing left in Rome which sounds like the Gospel of Grace in Jesus Christ and I am not going to pat it on the head and imply there is. It is, as Paul wrote, born of a doctrine of demons, words much harsher than I have used but far more precise.
No capitulation, Dutch. Only “bearing with.” The evangelical model when lived in a Christian life is very powerful witness. Maybe the Roman Catholic says he saw Mary weeping from a statue, but have you grieved when your Roman Catholic friend has grieved?
Spiritual leverage is built. Not presumed. And God takes care of His own. Your choice is whether to be an effectual part of that.