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There are more Catholics than there are members of any other individual sect of Christianity.

Let me fix it for you- "there are more self identified Catholics than there are members of any other individual sect of Christianity".

The point being, obviously, is that a person who denies essential Catholic dogma or teachings is not Catholic. Consider the following:

"...fewer and fewer people who call themselves Catholic actually follow Church rules or accept Church doctrine. For example, a 1999 poll by the National Catholic Reporter shows that 77 percent believe a person can be a good Catholic without going to Mass every Sunday, 65 percent believe good Catholics can divorce and remarry, and 53 percent believe Catholics can have abortions and remain in good standing. Only 10 percent of lay religion teachers accept Church teaching on artificial birth control, according to a 2000 University of Notre Dame poll. And a New York Times poll revealed that 70 percent of Catholics age 18-44 believe the Eucharist is merely a "symbolic reminder" of Jesus."

http://www.seattlecatholic.com/article_20031208.html

Now, criticize the source if you wish, but there is no denying that there are huge numbers (? majority) of self-identified Catholics who do not believe in one or more Catholic teachings, at least in the U.S. I suspect it is the same or worse in Europe. They are not Catholics.

###"Now, criticize the source if you wish, but there is no denying that there are huge numbers (? majority) of self-identified Catholics who do not believe in one or more Catholic teachings, at least in the U.S. I suspect it is the same or worse in Europe. They are not Catholics."###

You have now defined the term "cafeteria Catholics". The saving grace is that they can go to confession and return to the Church.

There is truth in what you say about Catholics here. But we are far from alone in the "cafeteria mindset" within generic Christianity. Consider the fact (constantly referred to by James Dobson and Chuck Colson, no Catholics they!) that "over 80%" of young (under 25) American Evangelicals do not believe that there is such a thing as totally objective truth. In short, a vast majority of the next generation of Evangelicals suffers from relativism and indifferentism.

Further, I would personally contend that, since hardly any Protestant Christian has any real problem with divorce and remarriage anymore, even in trivial circumstances, that there is specific evidence that they all have deviated from the Faith, at least in this instance. According to James 2:10, that fact alone is sufficient to suppose that such people have placed themselves in grave danger.

We live in precarious times. I'd even go so far as to say that it is possible that what we are witnessing here is the "early stage" of the Great Apostasy foretold, though I certainly leave myself open to suppose that may be a premature assessment! At any rate, inconsistency and a spirit of pick-and-choose acceptance of teaching are symptoms infecting the vast majority of Christians of any stripe today, especially in the western, "developed" world.