Catholics actually ARE different from the “other protestants” you mention because our Rule of Faith is actually different. The more people we convince that the Church is the authoritative interpreter of scripture, the greater unity we have. Now, do a lot of people in our own pews need to be convinced of this? Yes, which is one of many things I do as a priest. (But, I’ll be bold and point out that one of the reasons there are so many “Bad Catholics” (a term I use only because its an argument that many here make against the Church) in our Churches is because they have been influenced by the protestant notion that they have the right to make their own opinions about God and the human person apart from the Rule of Faith).
Spot on! The Catholic “rule of faith” is the triad: Scripture-Tradition-Magisterium, where the elements thereof are understood to mutually interdependent, and where the function of the third is to interpret authoritatively the “Word of God” transmitted to us jointly by the first two. Protestants always either pit one of the three against the others, or endeavor simply to eliminate the second and/or third. But I’ve never found such strategies any more plausible historically than theologically.
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