Ah, hell, I know, if that mean old Catholic Columbus had not discovered the New World, some protestant would have a couple hundred years later. The point of the matter is and something you can’t get around is, all the great early exployers were Catholic, and they founded the majority of the great cities of North America.
The Catholics could never have created a United States, and they didn’t, but there are about 20 Catholics nations starting a few miles from South of my house, Catholics did create those.