Perhaps it all went over your head: All the accounts on scripture, tradition, and revelation. All the authorities cited by the early Church fathers on the Eucharist. All what they indeed believed to be true as did Aquinas and Augustine. All the sheer absurdity that flows from the heresy of the myriad brands of Protestantism have been conveniently ignored as not being proof enough for you. Yet this was all good enough for Henry Newman and Richard Neuhaus and countless others.
And now when the ridiculous nature of your argument is exposed as to how you may as well open up your own “Protestant” church and follow an Al Sharpton; Jeremiah Wright; David Koresh; Joel Osteen; or a Robert Schuller or Billy Graham; or simply chart your own (Daniel 1212) doctrine, you have no clue by way of a response and indeed it is unanswerable, except to brand them all as “rants.” How convenient but yet so typical of low-information Christian adherents to whatever flavoring of Protestantism they choose to believe in.
"Boston pastor praised by Cardinal O’Malley puts Holy Family on par with homosexual couples"
Seems the Roman Church has loads to talk about within their walls. Seems these 35,000 ProtestANT "sects" are the least of your worries. Something Cicero said comes to mind that the RCs should consider:
"“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.” ---Cicero
Matthew 7:
3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
So your answer is that the basis for your assurance of truth is by examination of the above? That is good to know, as for RCs their basis for assurance of Truth is the church with its (conditionally!) infallible magisterium, as fallible human reasoning cannot provide assurance and results in disagreements.
But since it seems you claim to have assurance by objectively examining the evidence, then we can discuss the merits of the evidence, without having to defend Rome.
Thus, unless you want to recant from reasoning like an evangelical, the first question has to do with the rank of evidence. Would you say Scripture must be the supreme authority since it alone is wholly inspired of God?
All the sheer absurdity that flows from...
I would agree that it is absurd to render implicit trust to men who presume infallibility, as well as to invoke uninspired men who did also. I can find them in cults.
you may as well open up your own “Protestant” church and follow an Al Sharpton;
You sure have a fondness for logical fallacies, supposing that since there are quacks who also dissent from an entity that presumes of itself more than is written, based upon the premise of historical descent and stewardship of Scripture, then all who do so must be the same.
There was another certain church who also did so, following an itinerant preacher who was rejected by a valid magisterium, but who established his claims upon persuasive Scriptural substantiation, though this resulted in divisions. It comes as no surprise that you must reject that also as being invalid, based upon your premise, and instead follow a cultic model. Which is defended as if it were a god.
I will leave you to it if you continue to evidence you so desire.