I don't disagree with your general stance; I am just saying that the Church of Rome and its leaders were far more the loving maryter than you think and less the bloodthirsty conquerors. For example, it was against canon law to convert by force and was condemned time again by popes, bishops etc
And there is not a Catholic alive (including Medieval saints) that would claim to be perfect or that no leader of the Church was. They view the Church as the OT Isreal. God's chosen but fallible.
Are the critiques of the church of Rome by the secularists accurate? Sometimes, but not often. They look at history through a pure "guilt-by-association" lens. The atrocities of any king or lord who claimed to be Christian, however heathen they may have been in reality, are treated as though the Pope was personally out on the battlefield, slitting throats. Clearly, this is erroneous. So we agree on that. My critique is more to the heart of the church of Rome -- she has long tolerated and even encouraged the vicious violence of the kings she was supposed to be fearlessly preaching the Gospel to. In other words, the clergy of Rome have, for many centuries, taken the path of Ahab's prophets, telling him what he wants to hear, rather than the path of John the Baptist decrying Herod's incestuous marriage, at the hazard of his head, or Jesus denouncing the entire religious and political Establishment at the hazard of his life.
All the examples of how God's people are to relate to the carnal powers are dangerous, but the clergy of Rome has consistently chosen the cowardly path of ingratiating themselves to the carnal powers. That many of the Reformers would later fall prey to the same temptation does not excuse the church of Rome, either. It's just more evidence in the heap of evidence against the hypocrites in the church.
I see the church of Rome as a duality. There is no doubt that she has within her the Gospel -- Martin Luther and the Reformers
were Catholics! Clearly, there are believers and followers of Jesus in the church of Rome. The problem is the
pride of the church of Rome, particularly the pride of its clergy. The Roman apologist will be quick to retort, "But aren't you equally proud by setting yourself up as your own mini-pope? Why should anybody listen to random-Internet-protestant?" And that's a great question, but it sidesteps the real issue -- the real issue is that
God has manifestly applied the rod of correction to the church of Rome, not just once, but many times, and she has not yielded a single inch to his divine correction. Read the first 3 chapters of Revelation,
nobody on Earth is exempt from the Lord's rod, no matter how fancy their robes and hats. So, even if I were to convert from Protestant to Catholic, the question facing me would still be the same: Why isn't this church repenting of its sins, even in the face of blatantly obvious divine rebuke that anybody with two eyes can see, whether "Pope" or pauper?!
The problem with claiming to be the head of the worldwide church is that it proves too much. If Rome is the head of the worldwide church, it is obviously incompetent and should recuse itself from that position to someone else wise and competent unto it. Instead, Rome just doubles down in its pride and blames everyone else in the world for
its own failures, adding carnality to pride. Recanting the false claim to be the head of the church on earth (which only Jesus is, obviously), and repenting of the flagrant idolatry and blasphemy of the papacy is the
very first step that the church of Rome would have to take in order to address its manifest sins for which the Lord has beaten them severely with his shepherd's rod
for centuries, without even the first hint of repentance from them. What is the likelihood of that happening? To all human appearances, zero. This was the main critique of the Reformers (among many other similarly weighty issues) and it remains the main problem with the church of Rome 500+ years later. Stubbornness in service to God is a blessed virtue, but stubbornness, like fire, is very dangerous. When it turns against its proper use, it becomes not a blessed virtue, but the most cursed vice.
As you yourself said, the church is the Israel of the New Testament. But see the original pattern in the Old Testament. Stubbornness. Idolatry. Complete blindness and insensibility to God's
obvious rebuke. This is spoken in humility not in judgment, as I am a sinner. Nevertheless, reality is reality, and if I can see it, so can anybody else who actually looks at the facts-in-themselves, without partisanship.