Imagine October 30, 1517
For one moment, forget what happens afterward.
Walk into Western Christian Europe.
What do you encounter?
Churches centered on sacramental worship.
Bishops.
Priests.
Altars.
The Eucharist.
Baptism.
Confession.
Monasteries and religious orders.
Prayers for the dead.
Devotion to saints.
Honor given to Mary.
A liturgical calendar.
Sacred art.
Ancient creeds.
A Church claiming historical continuity with the Apostles.
Why This Matters
Whatever conclusion you eventually reach about these practices, they cannot simply be described as Catholic reactions to Protestantism.
They existed before Protestantism.
Many were already centuries old.
Some can be investigated much farther back.
That changes the question from:
Why did Catholics invent this?
to:
When did Christians begin believing or practicing this?
That question can be investigated historically.
Do Not Stop in 1517
The most interesting mistake would be walking back 500 years and stopping.
Go another 500.
Then another 500.
The Reformation vanishes from view.
But the Eucharist does not.
Baptism does not.
Bishops do not.
Arguments about Apostolic teaching do not.
Christianity is still there.