You are correct. Some of them did not agree with others. Those differences got ironed out in Councils of the Catholic Church when they met to discuss those difference. Usually heresies were involved if my memory serves me correctly.
Well put, MD. thanks for your post.
I'm a convert, and when old friends who are non-Catholics discover I'm now a Catholic, they almost always are surprised and say something like: "Never thought you'd be Catholic, it's so structured" or "so strict" or "authoritarian". I tell them that all churches have to have walls some where or they wouldn't be different from another - and the Catholic Church's walls are the farthest out of any; it's the biggest Church.
I've belonged or attended most all the major Protestant Churches and now I can sometimes see them as taking a piece of the Church, one room maybe, and making it the whole thing.
The Church keeps us from going off on the wrong path, but gives a lot room to explore.