It's amazing. When I saw this thread at comment 3, I almost posted "uh-oh." If the Christian virtues we are supposed to pray for, emulate and reflect are Humility, Charity, Poverty of Spirit, Obedience, Piety, etc., some of the things said here can be interpreted as exactly the opposite.
Having no knowledge of protestant theology, I won't even attempt to comment on it. Catholic, OTOH, I'm still learning apologetics, but I'll give it a shot.
The "we're all Christians, can't we just get along" line is straight out of freemasonry, which has been condemned for teaching error for at least 250 years. It's just too, uh, soft, I guess, and based on something less than conviction. Well, and it's wrong.
In order to accept Transubstantiation, or the changing of bread and wine to the Body and Precious Blood, one must accept Apostolic Succession - that a direct line of consecrated priests has passed from Christ to us for the past 2,000 years. And it is an acceptance, as a child would accept (I think that's in the Bible someplace). What helped me understand it was seeing a priesthood ordination. Actually watching the hands be blessed and that power passed is an amazing thing. An unbroken line was before me.
Being in full communion, as I said earlier, is about not being in a state of sin. A lot of protestants say, If you believe you are saved. Well, for Catholics, if you believe, then maintenance of your salvation is up to you. We do believe that Christ passed on the power to forgive sin by breathing on the twelve and saying, "Sin you forgive is forgiven, sin you retain is retained." I know a lot of people who skip out on Confession because they think it is a man-made thing, but the Church teaches that it isn't, and to be in full Communion, you have to be free of mortal sin. There's that accept what the Church teaches thing again. As to the actions of men, we have a saying, "The road to hell is paved with the skulls of bishops." The Church is perfect, the men within it are not. That's the way it's always been.
We think of the Bible in a different light than protestants, apparently. It is one of three pillars of the Church along with the Magisterium (the teaching arm) and Sacred Tradition which tells us what scripture doesn't, but what is still part of what is taught. How scripture is interpreted is one of the things that is passed down. That's why translations have to be approved. We also use it a little differently, and, in worship it seems, a lot more. If one carries a book to Church, it's a Missal so that everything you need for Mass (or Vespers, or Matins, Lauds, any one of the Liturgy of the Hours) is in one place. Otherwise, the reading would be over before you get to the right chapter and verse. People are encouraged to read scripture at home and how they do that and how often is up to them.
As to whether things are "biblical" - not everything the Church teaches is and never has been. That doesn't mean that it's not true. Just for example take the Stations of the Cross. A good number of the Stations are not in any of the Gospels, but they have been part of Catholic teaching since the first century and the locations of all of them are identified in Jerusalem.
If fighting the early heresies was anything like these threads, it's a wonder the Church survived.
Great post!
Back then, your church just murdered the 'heretics'...That's how your church survived...