Since many of our members are former RCCs, can you please tell me how certain divisive RCC practices (i.e.; mariolatry, excessive veneration of saints, apparitions, etc.) detracted from your life as a Christian or even the RCCs you've known? I've had RCC apologists tell me that you cannot argue these are not from God because they have no detrimental effect on their practitioners, and actually produce holier people than most Protestants, which proves the RCC is superior to other churches and that Protestants are counterfeits. What do you think?
I mean you can see it from the real-life consequences, where the Roman Catholics are not holier than anybody else around them... meanwhile we all know evangelicals who, as low-church as they may be (and I don't like it) nevertheless exhbit marks of sincere faith, repentance, and earnest naivete which aims at holiness... I don't know a single earnestly naive catholic!
Mariolotry? We ask Our Blessed mother to intercede for us , and we offer an unbloody sacrifice to God alone.
There's different brands of Catholics out there, just as there are different flavors of any other group of people. You'd be wrong to try and gauge the "holiness" of a faith by those people who don't seem to be trying at all, as numerous as they may be. Consider the different churches that John wrote to in Revelation. Some were doing as God wanted them, others weren't, and others fell in the middle. Within John's own lifetime, the Church already had some rather "unholy" characters. On the other hand, She had some great models of holiness. The Church is filled with all kinds. Some of us are faithfully living out God's word, and others are "cheating on their spouse (the church) while remaining inside their home". Regardless, I wouldn't necessarily be using our numerous apparitions and miracles as proof that we're "superior". That's not a word that should be in one's apologetic vocabulary. A Church is either right, or it's wrong. Don't go looking around for "signs" and ignore your theology.
I would use the term error or heterodoxy rather than heresy. I would say the only real issue I can think of is how the Roman church needs to use more teaching/authority to combat folk Catholicism which I think uses what could be otherwise harmless or even beneficial practices can devolve into really injurious stuff (ex. Marian maximalism, the promises of the brown scapular, etc...)
i think that it is hateful and insulting to call the RCC a heresy i would never call the C of E heretic