The more I experience life, the more I realize how important organizational structure, and God given authority, within the church is needed. God knew what He was doing.
The amount of "independent churches" who are accountable to NOBODY - outnumber Protestants.
That means that any Tom, Dick, or Scary can come along and claim to be "Christian", and say whatever they want "in the name of Jesus".
So the very things some posters accuse Catholics of (distorting the Word), are actually happening in thousands of fly-by-night scattered churches outside of the Catholic church.
It is the Magesterium that works to ensure that true doctrine is presented in the church, and only well-trained priests, and lay people serve. And even with the well-oiled "bureaucratic" structure there are many challenges to deal with.
Still, you can go to any of the millions of Catholic churches around the world, and on any given day, the Mass will be the same Mass in every country, with the exact same biblical passages, only in different languages.
Call me crazy, but I appreciate the fact that my Catholic Church does everything possible to protect the integrity of it's doctrine, despite being having the largest population of Christians.
Christian 2,199,817,400
Roman Catholics 1,121,516,000
Independents* 433,096,000
Protestants 381,811,000
Orthodox 233,146,000
Anglicans 82,586,000
*This term denotes members of Christian churches independent of historic, mainstream, organized, institutionalized, confessional, denominationalist Christianity.
The scattered Churches:
Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda, Growing in Grace Church Pastor, says he is God, and his followers believe him.
This isn't stuff that goes on in my church. Reverend Wright
“There is one God and one Christ, and one Church, and one Chair founded on Peter by the word of the Lord. It is not possible to set up another altar or for there to be another priesthood besides that one altar and that one priesthood. Whoever has gathered elsewhere is scattering.”
— St. Cyprian, Letter to his Clergy 249 AD.