Actually, no I’m not a protestant. I’ve read Trail of Blood and think it’s probably generally true, but more than that I’ve read the Bible. Jesus said he’d preserve His church. If there were no churches paralleling the Catholic domination than that makes Jesus a liar.
The Trail of Blood is a load of hooey. Your denomination does not date back to the days of Christ, and the Catholic Church has not been at work suppressing the supposed truth of your particular sect of Protestant Christianity.
I’ve encountered too many people who buy into this Trail of Blood nonsense, and it provides convenient cover for their beliefs, as it insists that the Catholic Church battled against the true faith, then destroyed all the evidence. Thus, you’re able to duck out of actually addressing real history, since it’s supposedly unreliable and slanted toward Catholicism. How conveeeenient!
First off, for purposes of clarification, the Catholic Church is not a 'denomination'. It is the only Church founded by Jesus Christ. According to Scripture, Christ wanted us to be one (John 17:22-23). We are all as a Church to be of one mind and to think the same (Philippians 2:2; Romans 15:5). There is only to be one "faith" (Ephesians 4:3-6), not many. For the Church is Christ's Body and Christ only had one Body, not many. Also, since the Church is Christ's Bride (Ephesians 5:29), can Christ be married to more than one wife (essentially a spiritual form of the the sin of polygamy)? No, Christ can only have one wife (i.e., one Church, not many).
I’ve read the Bible.
Then you realize that before there was a Bible, there was the Catholic Church founded by Jesus Christ. And you also realize that, according to the Bible Itself, the Church is the "pillar of truth" (1 Timothy 3:15), not the Bible. Can there be more than one interpretation of the Bible? No. The word "truth" is used several times in the New Testament. However, the plural version of the word "truth" never appears in Scripture. Therefore, there can only be one Truth. Early christians did not have the Bible. The Bible as a whole was not compiled until the late 4th century and then it was compiled by a Catholic saint (St. Jerome) at the request of a Catholic pope (St. Damasus I). There are still remote communities today that speak a language into which the Bible has yet to be translated. There are also illiterate people in the world who cannot read the Bible. Like the early christians, they are still taught through "oral" teachings by the Church, not by writings.
To suggest that Jesus is a liar is an outright falsehood.