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As a Protestant, I agree with you that the papacy is no guarantor of doctrinal fidelity. But the core question is this: The pope is said to be the vicar of Christ – is he? Flawed historical assertions and doctrinal contradictions count as evidence against the claim, but the claim itself is true or false and should be addressed as such. (Whether this is the right forum to go deep on that question is a separate issue.)
The same is true of claims about the president of the Mormon church: Is he a true or false prophet? Having a true prophet may be useful, but that doesn’t determine whether Joseph Smith and Russell Nelson qualify. Flawed historical assertions and doctrinal contradictions count as evidence here too. And I think it’s audacious to say that the LDS score well.
What about the Mormon history of pre-Columbian America, which doesn’t jive with any historical source or archeological finds? Or the book of Abraham, whose source manuscripts turned out to be Egyptian funerary texts once we could read hieroglyphs? Or the edits to the Book of Mormon regarding the nature of the godhead? Or the doctrines which were said to be unchangeable but were nevertheless changed, like plural marriage?
I believe that the idea was to have an apostolic guidance for the church as a whole but persecution, deaths, unauthorized doctrinal changes, undue pagan influences, power grabs, a view that the Second Coming was imminent, and the gradual loss of divine revelation made the church fundamentally changed and eventually bereft of authority. Perhaps some city bishops had some legitimate authority for a while, but the connection that e.g. the Bishop of Rome would have any actual special sway over the church as a whole is highly suspect, as was especially the consolidation under Constantine. The later "sins" of the Catholic church are some evidence, but not the primary evidence. I agree that to the extent historical matters should be considered in coming to spiritual conclusions, that history both theological and otherwise are fair game for examination - though my comment was more about the theological history of the Catholics than their more political/historical acts.
Getting a little off topic I guess, but in terms of Book of Mormon history, the position has long been (and is mildly supported in-text) that the people there were simply one of many living side by side. Archeologically speaking, we simply do not have anywhere close to a comprehensive survey of all peoples who lived in Mesoamerica. Among the Maya, for example, we've only excavated about 1% of the sites and of those sites only 10% of what's there, approximately. The Book of Abraham I feel was used as a starting point for inspiration on Abrahamic writings rather than a true transliteration, though admittedly there are decent reasons to think otherwise I certainly wouldn't begrudge others for believing. A few edits to a single section don't really change anything about LDS in-text our out-of-text teachings on the Trinity. Many Old Testament prophets were polygamists, so clearly it's compatible with Christianity, yes? It's I believe a plausible or even likely reading of the history that Joseph Smith was forced into accepting plural marriage (obviously it brought nothing but trouble) as part of the "restoration of all things", i.e. re-treading parts of earlier pre-Christ Christianity as part of the doctrinal point that the gospel (Christianity broadly from Adam to now) is now in its ultimate and most complete form (though some allowance is made for new knowledge, teachings, and practices to be either restored or newly given). At least under this model of Christian history, there's far less confusion over having to litigate and reexamine each and every piece of modern practice and belief - Protestant, Catholic, or otherwise - for accuracy. Study is helpful for understanding true religious principles, and might be a rewarding activity, but it is not the cornerstone of doctrine, nor is there a need for major political activism to influence church leaders at the church-wide level.
Returning back a little bit to the original point, it's amazing to me that anyone would read the Epistles of Paul and come to any conclusion other than that there were serious doctrinal misunderstandings by new converts everywhere, on top of the rampant persecution, on top of the behavior problems, on top of the cultural difficulties popping up as many new members tried to blend their previous beliefs into the new religion. The vibe is that there's definitely a bit of a mess out there, yeah? Paul was obviously, I think everyone agrees, capable of correcting misunderstandings and offering some excellent guidance, but there were only so many people like Paul, and fewer by the year. And there's little evidence as far as I'm concerned that anyone satisfactorily took his place, much less the Bishop of Rome, though a few bishops tried to a limited extent.
It's quite obvious to me that the biggest problem is the Great Schism of 1054, where the patriarch of Rome decided he was better than the rest of the Church, based on specious reading of scripture.
Can you expound upon where the Great Schism of 1054 was Rome going off the rails? Because this is how Catholics see it:
From here, I have done some formatting because gosh that's a wall of text with names no one's heard about before.
Distilling down the barest essentials:
Patriarch of Constantinople declares, based on a document written by a local theologian, that Roman disciplines of consecrating unleavened bread and fasting on Saturday are horrible and disqualifying from being a member of the Church. They go so far as to desecrate the Eucharist in Roman churches.
Pope sends delegation that explains to the theologian how they are wrong, and that this ancient practice of the Latin Church is not disqualifying or heretical. Patriarch refuses to even see them.
Once it becomes clear that the Patriarch's side isn't going to win, he excommunicates the Pope. The papal legates excommunicate the Patriarch using the authority they have from the Pope (except at this time, unbeknownst to them, the Pope is dead so the excommunication isn't even valid on the Latin side, which was discovered shortly after).
Most of the Church didn't realize there's a permanent Schism, it slowly develops over time. The Massacre of the Latins in Constantinople in 1182 was a more significant event, with 60,000 Latins dead or sold into slavery, but the Schism probably really became permanent in the Fourth Crusade with the Sack of Constantinople.
This is the version I have always heard. Specifically, the Patriarch excommunicates the legates, not the Patriarch of Rome. Which is a crucial distinction:
From https://orthodoxwiki.org/Great_Schism#cite_note-Cross-1.
This is another major issue which... is pretty unambiguously the fault of the See of Rome.
While I'm sure there are a ton of small historical details you can quibble about, to me the overall thrust makes it pretty obvious that Rome is in the wrong. That being said, I try to be ecumenical and I do hope that the Church can become whole again one day. We'll see!
Politically or theologically?
I would say desecrating the Eucharist in 1054 and killing/expelling/enslaving all Italian Catholics in 1182 are both examples of Constantinople being in the wrong politically first.
I can't say for certain if the Papal Legates were on their best behavior or not in Constantinople. It seems like there are many sources and sides to the story, all of them undoubtedly biased.
Fortunately, what I can say is none of that matters as far as whether one should be Catholic or Orthodox. The question of if I should be Catholic or Orthodox is a theological question. Is there theological basis for Roman Primacy? I believe the answer is "Yes." I believe that the answer has been yes, and was demonstrably so even before the Synod of Chalcedon.
I would love for us to heal the schism. From Rome's perspective I don't think there's anything we'd require the other side to change, just reconfirmation of Rome's primacy. We already have many Eastern Catholic Churches that have a multiplicity of different views and practices. We see the Orthodox as having valid Holy Orders and sacraments.
If you’re interested in an Orthodox perspective that offers a grounded, non-triumphalist take on how the Orthodox view Papal primacy in the first millennium, I strongly recommend Laurent Cleenewerck’s His Broken Body. I recommend it both to Catholic and to Orthodox readers — he refuses to stump for either side, and deals frankly, and charitably, with the patristic evidence. He’s clearly someone for whom the schism is a wound, not an amputation.
I'll have to check that out. I recently read Two Paths by Michael Whelton. He presents things in a fairly detached and non-triumphalist way, but his final judgement reflects the fact that he is a Catholic who became Orthodox. A Catholic response to some of his points would be interesting to read, but another Orthodox perspective that a current Catholic recommends might also be a good way to "fact check" him.
A fair warning that, though he analyzes the patristic evidence powerfully and fairly, he also has a unique model of catholicity that he sees as the bridge between Orthodoxy and Catholicism. He at times presents this as the "Orthodox view of ecclesiology," but I'm given to understand that it's more of a minority view. But still, I found his views on ecclesiology irresistible.
And, to be clear, I am not a current Catholic, nor have I ever been received into the Catholic Church. I believed firmly in Catholicism for a long time, and the priest who worked with me was happy to receive me, but I backed away because of issues of conscience with some Catholic doctrines, and personal struggles with sin -- as well as, to be blunt, utter confusion as to what Catholicism precisely was in a post-conciliar world.
I had a similar experience with Orthodoxy -- the "intellectual evangelical convert" in my narrative wasn't a caricature, but actually myself, and my mother and my girlfriend indeed accompanied me to liturgy a few times and didn't like it. My struggles with Orthodoxy were not so much about doctrines I could not assent to, but about doctrines that were load-bearing in my Christian faith, like the principle of "faith seeking understanding", the concept of inherited fallenness and separation from God (original sin), the importance of divine justice, and the reality of Hell as a place of separation from God (and tragically suffering), being hard to reconcile with the Eastern Orthodox approach especially post-Romanides.
I would argue that both Catholicism and Orthodoxy underwent a severe and belief-altering ressourcement in the 60s, and that has brought them closer in some ways -- every time I read Catholic theologians talking about paschal mystery theology, they sound very Orthodox to me -- but also separated them, injecting polemic where there might have been agreement. While I agree with Orthodox reservations about De Trinitate and believe his works must be understood extremely carefully, I hold St. Augustine to be a great saint, and a personal patron, and the view among some Orthodox that outright denies his sanctity or experience of divine grace is unnecessary and offensive.
I do not believe the West is the author of heresies, as many of Orthodoxy's greatest writers do, and I believe reason in religion to be, not the enemy of divine illumination, but a means of illumination that opens the mind to be receptive to divine grace by teaching how truly deep "the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God" are, in the words of the apostle. I worry sincerely that Eastern Orthodoxy often collapses into a kind of quietism that does not reflect the serious philosophical and theological capacity for thought I see in the fathers of the Church.
I've tried not to present myself as a Catholic, but a "mere Christian," defending views that I believe represent Christianity at its fullness, but this often means I defend Catholic doctrine because, to be blunt, I agree with it as a matter of theology. At the very least, my goal is that Catholicism is described fairly, as I believe Catholics deserve a fair hearing and don't always get it.
But, to make a long story short, this hopefully answers @TheDag's question as well: I am a committed Chalcedonian Christian, but too rationalist, cataphatic, and "western" for Eastern Orthodoxy, too sacramental and synergistic for Protestantism, and too, well, insufficiently totalizingly Marian for Catholicism. I am a wanderer in the wilderness, or taking refuge in "the hallway," in the words of C.S. Lewis, as from a storm prepared to blow away the house built upon sand.
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