Excellent summary, Consular! I'd just like to add that the current doctrine of the Development of Dogma or Doctrine was, curiously enough, matured and expounded upon by John Henry Newman, a former priest of the Church of England, and one of the leaders, along with Edward Pusey, of the 19th century Tractarian Movement that revived some Catholic practices and beliefs in Anglicanism. It is often said that the engenderment of the Development of Dogma was a vital step for Newman himself to embrace Romanism. It was his way to harmonise late beliefs such as the Immaculate Conception or the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin with the fact that they were non-existent in the Apostolic and Patristic Church. The ingenious cop-out is to simply assert, without any proof other than the premise that the Church is infallible, that those things were "implicitly" believed and then later "defined" when the Holy Ghost saw convenient for the Roman magisterium to do so. In other words, it is necessarily true because the Church now professes it.
Exactly. The Roman Church basically justifies itself, untethered to past Apostolic beliefs. It feels itself justified to write into the minds of Fathers of the past its modern beliefs. And that's quite humorous, as the Fathers explicitly rejected many modern Roman views, and wrote against them. A favorite example is Irenaeus, who wrote 'Against Heresies' to oppose the Gnostics who clung onto an 'oral tradition on an equal level with the written scriptures', and who venerated Mary, which Irenaeus explicitly rejected.
Yes, Irenaeus was quite clear in his belief that the Scriptures contained all of the Gospel preached by the Apostles. It's supremely ironic that websites such as http://www.scripturecatholic.com/ present quotes such as this one to "prove" the late Father believed in the Roman view of tradition: We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith. For it is unlawful to assert that they preached before they possessed 'perfect knowledge,' as some do even venture to say, boasting themselves as improvers of the apostles." (Against Heresies, 3.1.1.) Ha, it actually proves the opposite! The Apostles surely preached orally, no-one disputes this, but they later committed it into writing. I remember smiling quietly the first time I saw this quote there. It directly works against their case!
Scripturecatholic is one of the most dishonest, manipulative sites on the internet, period. Example: "proofs" of Mary's Assumption to Heaven (a Gnostic myth) All of these are "it's most fitting" and "why not?" arguments. They're laughable and ridiculous. Basically they believe it because Rome tells them to. Never be afraid by seeming booms in Catholic attendance at Mass while Protestant attendance seems low. Remember that Papists go against their own will; they fear censure and excommunication and hell for not scrupulously following the days, months, and years. Never be intimidated.
Intimidated? I think those days are gone now. You just have to look at how limp-wristed most of the modern clergy is. The most likely thing to happen is to get bored or fed up with the "social justice" gospel. I know, I've lived in a Roman Catholic country my whole life. Most modern Roman Catholics go to Mass not against their will but out of habit, family or social obligations, etc., as surely as many Protestants also do. It's natural in humans to just go along with what they know.
Yes, that reminds me of a person I met who was discerning becoming a Franciscan friar. He was spiritually out of sorts one day, and I jokingly said "not thinking of becoming a Protestant, are you?" His answer was very informative: "my mother would kill me". I think that is the status of most (modern) Romanists. It really is habit and family. That is the result of the Legalist Anti-Gospel which it has slowly formed and created over the last 1500 years. Of course, insofar as Rome retains the Nicene Creed, and agrees with basics, it is never totally lost. The purpose of this thread is really to try to find out where the corruption began. Naturally it began in the garden, and from Day 1 the Church has had interior conflicts. Simon Magus legendarily split the Church and created the first heresy. There was never a pure time, but since Romanism is so monumental, we will do well do intensify our search for its origin in human pride.