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"In your dreams. Schismatics like this gambit--you schismatics, Protestants originated as johnny-come-latelys, teaching doctrines unheard of for a millennium and, when challenged about your recent innovations, you respond by telling your challengers that they are just as new (did not exist until you came into being) as you are.
Nice try, it works only if one already starts from your premises. So it will work if you are talking to yourself. As an argument toward someone who disagrees with you, it's useless. You're going to have to make a case for the validity of your premises, not merely assert them."

I am somewhat confused by your response. I don't recall saying anything about "new doctrines" in either Catholic or non-Catholic churches. What premise of mine are you talking about (this is why it helps to copy in the text of the poster that you are reponding to)??

I am not sure what you are talking about when you refer to my words as being those which are used by "schismatics". The jist of my words were I have heard that there are other non-Catholic "mainstream" Christian churches who also have concepts similar to purgatory, although they do not call it that. My point being that if what I have heard is correct, the Catholic church is not alone in it's belief of a purgatory-like place/state. In what way is that "schismatic"?? I simply said that the Catholic church does not have a corner on the purgatory market. Perhaps you misread what I wrote (or maybe I miswrote what you read!!).

My point is that the Catholic Church (like the Orthodox) understand themselves to go directly back to the Apostles--they are out of fellowship but they recognize that each goes back all the way. The claim that the Catholic Church only began in the sixteenth century when the various Protestant groups began is an effort to do an end run around the question of whether the Catholic/papal/apostolic succession Church is legitimate or not--if you can tar your opponent as discontinuous with the past, as an innovator, then you deflate the charge that you yourself are an innovator and at the same time, open the way to claim the earlier period for yourself. It's a typical Protestant gambit.

If you were unaware of this and simply assumed that the Catholic church is one denomination among many, then you unwittingly were adopting a Protestant viewpoint, one that is widespread because of the dominance of Proetestantism. So if you adopted it without realizing, now you can decide if you want to continue in it.