I usually concede that Catholics are Christians whether they are or not. That’s a personal matter between them and God. I am not God nor am I a pope.
The point was that you stated “Terminological consistency requires that a Protestant to be a real Christian heritic first have been a Catholic.”
There’s a difference between being a Christian heretic and a Catholic heretic. One can be labeled a heretic by the Catholic church because someone goes against the teachings of the Catholic church, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t Christians.
Christian and Catholic are not synonymous.
To be correct in terminology would be to label a Protestant who is a former Catholic not as a *Christian heretic*, but rather as a *Catholic heretic*. Protestants can be Christians too.
I am a Christian who was baptized and raised as a Catholic. Catholics can say I’m a Catholic heretic all they want, and I’ll still sleep tonight. Calling me a Christian heretic is patently untrue, but I’ll still sleep tonight because I know who I believe and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I’ve committed to Himself.
It doesn’t matter what man thinks of me. What counts is what God thinks of me.