“so you accept Jerome as a Christian, even though he taught baptismal regeneration, the Real Presence in the Eucharist, the sacrifice of the mass, apostolic succession, infant baptism, the papacy, prayers for the dead????”
I accept many Catholics as Christians, since we are not saved by perfect theology, but by faith in Jesus. I doubt Jerome accepted papal supremacy, real presence meant different things to different users of the phrase, and didn’t always mean transubstantiation - a word that didn’t exist when Jerome was alive.
I have prayed for dead people, trusting that the God who knows the future before it happens will hear my prayer that someone might have repented before their death. I don’t know my father’s state when he died, so I don’t mind praying that God might have moved his heart prior to his death.
The sacrifice of the mass originally was a sacrifice of thanksgiving, which is where the word Eucharist comes from. I have no problem celebrating the Eucharist, but it is NOT a perpetual sacrifice of Jesus Christ - as clearly taught in Hebrews. We do it “in remembrance”, not as an actual sacrifice, and I’m not sure when that error entered Catholic theology.
I do not accept baptismal regeneration, but I’m not saved by denying it.
read Jerome and you will see he believed all those. if baptismal regeneration was good enough for Saul ( Paul ) in Acts 22:16, it is good enough for me.