Oh, the irony of that statement.
Catholicism is just as much a man made religion as any other.
But that aside, the believer does NOT follow a RELIGION, but a person.
Believers follow Jesus, not a organization or set of rules and regulations and practices that supposedly make them right before God.
FORGIVENESS and being clothed with the righteous life of Christ is the only way that one is deemed worthy to stand in God's presence.
I realize that since you are an inactive Catholic, you express your personal opinions without any facts or understanding of teachings of Jesus and His Church. May you find the Truth.
Jesus established a visible and hierarchical church
We know from elsewhere in Scripture Jesus clearly intends his church to be visible with a hierarchical structure. Take for example Matthew 16:18-19: Jesus promises to make Peter the rock upon which he will build his church, which indicates Jesus’ intention for Peter to be the visible foundation for the Church of Christ on Earth—a visible marker that identifies Jesus’ true church. Wherever the foundation is, there is the true church.
Jesus also gives Peter the keys of the kingdom (Matt. 16:19). In the Jewish tradition, the image of the keys signifies a governing role in the Davidic kingdom known as the royal steward (see Isa. 22:15-22). If Peter is a governor, then there must be a society to govern. Sounds like a visible and hierarchical church to me.
In another passage in Matthew, Jesus makes it clear the church, and not the individual, is the final court of appeal when it comes to settling disputes among Christians:
“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 18:15-18)
If Jesus doesn’t intend for there to be a visible and hierarchical governing body of officials, and the church were merely an invisible community of believers, then what sense can be made of him saying, “Take it to the church”? Furthermore, since Gentiles and tax collectors were considered outcasts, Jesus’ use of these terms for those that disobey the church signifies visible boundaries for church membership.
The language of “binding and losing” in Matthew 18:18 also signifies Jesus’ intention to constitute his church as a visible and hierarchical society. This language is familiar terminology in the Jewish tradition. It signifies both doctrinal and juridical authority. Biblical scholar Edward Sri writes:
Binding and loosing sometimes denotes teaching authority. Rabbis, for instance, were said to bind and loose when they made authoritative rulings on what was lawful and unlawful behavior and what was acceptable and unacceptable doctrine. The expression can also refer to juridical authority. By this is meant the power to accept or forbid a person’s fellowship in the community of faith, which includes the authority to excommunicate and the authority to restore to membership (Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture: The Gospel of Matthew, 210).
Notice embedded in the meaning of “binding and losing” is the idea of hierarchy and the idea of a community of believers with distinct boundaries of membership. Since Christ uses this language with reference to his apostles, it follows that Christ intends his church to be a visible society with a hierarchical structure.
So, if Jesus is not teaching in Luke 9:49-50 the invisible church doctrine common among Protestants, then what is he teaching?
Jesus established one church, the Catholic Church, and constituted it as visible and hierarchical. And because he desires all men to become members of that church, he works in the lives of those outside the Church’s visible boundaries in order to draw them into the unity his Church possesses.
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/does-being-catholic-matter
God Bless you.
given that, how does one choose a church; or does one even bother with church?