Unfortunately, you do no understand Catholicism or the the Bible.
Protestants find it easier to draw up straw men about what Catholics believe than to address the scriptural underpinnings of Catholic/Orthodox theology.
I don’t believe in papal bulls as you put it.
The more I looked at how the earliest Christians studied and understood the scriptures, as well as how they lived, the more I discovered that the Protestant “Reformation” was a myth.
The earliest Christians believed a distinction exists between the priesthood of all believers as St. Peter wrote echoing Moses in Exodus 19.6. Yet the Old Covenant established a ministerial priesthood.
http://www.philvaz.com/apologetics/a31.htm
http://www.holytrinitymission.org/books/english/priesthood_voulgaris.htm#_Toc74193650
http://www.copticchurch.net/topics/thecopticchurch/sacraments/7_priesthood.html
If you don’t trust men, then you shouldn’t trust St. Paul or the other apostles. Show me the verse where St. Paul claims divine inspiration for his writings?
Do you reject 2 Thessalonians 2:15 and 2 Thessalonians 3:6?
How do you know that your sect reads the Bible properly?
How do I know “my sect” reads the bible correctly?
I do not assume they do.
I believe we must work out our own salvation with fear and trembling (not relying on a priestly class) - see Phil 2:12-13
Likewise I believe we should prove all things, searching the scriptures ourselves (rather than relying on others) Act 17:11 says the Bereans were more noble than others (early christians) because they did not accept what Paul said just because he was Paul, rather they searched the scriptures to see if what he said were true!
In other words, THEY DID NOT TRUST PAUL — they checked to see if what he said were TRUE!
If they were complemented for such actions, why would someone who is lesser than Paul (being maybe at best a successor, a “Pope”), be trusted any more than Paul was?
There is no benefit in being an “early Christian” in terms of a better argument. Early followers got things wrong, too, and were chastised for it. Early just means they were early. That does not indicate they were more correct, more Godly than today.
But how can we be sure we can find the way? Don’t people need to be told, or led by “men of God”?
Let’s see what God says about the knowledge of God....
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
WE are WITHOUT EXCUSE. No one can say “I didn’t know” or “The Pope did this or that wrong”, or “I was in a bad church”, or whatever-— God himself (through the agency of the Holy Spirit) lets us know what is right or wrong.
The islander who never saw a bible know the difference between good and evil. The problem is not that man does not know, it’s that he does not embrace the light.
IF we are serious, we will study our bible, and God will continue to enlighten us with wisdom, and the knowledge of God, and salvation.
I am walking with God. I am not perfect. But I place my faith in Jesus, not some Protestant TV preacher or Pope in a Popemobile.