“Please understand, I don’t hate on Catholics.” I understand and I believe you. Many of us believing and practicing Catholics are being driven nuts by this Pope.
What kind of Protestant are you, by the way? My favorite Protestant denomination is Missouri Synod Lutheran.
I share that sentiment. My closest friend for decades is the most devout Catholic I have ever met (more than some priests and nuns I have known).
I nevertheless have problems with the Catholic Church, not only doctrinal but procedural. As a semi-professional chorister, I have sung in Catholic churches and cathedrals many times in both America and Europe (sometimes paid, usually gratis). I ceased to do so where I live because the local diocese decided that I, a celibate Christian male (and virgin, it so happens) would not be allowed to use the Men’s Room while boys who might use the facility were in the building.
I see: The Catholic Church conceals and indulges homoerotic pedophiles, gets caught for doing so for decades, refuses to adequately address the Elephant in the Sanctuary, and then punishes all men - ALL MEN, including innocent laity - instead of rooting out the rot within the clergy. That alone proves that communistic one-size-fits-all, lowest-common-denominator philosophy has overtaken the Catholic Church, quite apart from the attitude and behavior of the current Pope.
I was not about to approbate that unChristian injustice; I have refused to sing there ever since.
By the bye, I was raised in the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. Having been trained by parochial schooling and having served in church ministry, I have over the years met scores of clergy in many denominations.
I first heard of the “Misery Synod” in the back of a Paddy wagon, from a member. He said, “We’re the anti-Catholic Lutherans,” and then we both laughed out loud. Needless to say, we were fellow members of the “ecumenism of hate,” as Bergoglio calls us. I.e., pro-lifers.