“McDonald’s does not teach a universal truth of salvation, and even their menus differ from China to India to Pakistan to New York”
McDonalds has a very, very specific book of extensive franchise rules - their universal truth. Their menus (or in your denomination, rites) do vary.
Wrong.
The Catholic Credo, Sacraments, Catechism, are all the same. Been so from Peter to this day for 20 centuries. Scripture, Sacred Tradition and Ritual.
The McDonald’s analogy is more appropriate to Protestants. Low-fare fast food theology served up with various side plates and menus. Think Billy Graham, Joel Osteen, Rev. Wright, Jim Jones, David Koresh, Moonies, and every corner street Foursquare Neighborhood Church, and every First AME, First Calvary, First Baptist, First Pentecostalist, First Methodist, First Presbyterian.......
Little wonder that America’s pre-eminent Lutheran theologian, scholar, and teacher, Rev. Richard Neuhaus who when converting to Catholicism said he finds “the fullest expression of Christ in the Catholic Church.”
So also say, the long litany of Catholic saints, martyrs, stigmatists, scholars, and theologians, and doctors of the Church including Augustine and Aquinas after whom major colleges and universities have been named around the world.