The Name of Love
Far Right Nutjob
"Reject one of the core doctrines of Christianity" that only Protestants have ever believed.Well, if you're willing to reject that Christ removed any need for intermediaries between God and man, and thus reject one of the core doctrines of Christianity, I guess there's no point in trying to argue what failures within Christianity enabled the cultural rise of atheism in the West.
Meanwhile, at the early Christians...
[The Shepherd said:] "But those who are weak and slothful in prayer hesitate to ask anything from the Lord; but the Lord is full of compassion, and gives without fail to all who ask him. But you, [Hermas,] having been strengthened by the holy angel [you saw], and having obtained from him such intercession, and not being slothful, why do you not ask understanding of the Lord, and receive it from him?" [Hermas of Rome, The Shepherd 3:5:4 (A.D. 80)].
In this way is [the true Christian] always pure for prayer. He also prays in the society of angels, as being already of angelic rank, and he is never out of their holy keeping; and though he pray alone, he has the choir of the saints standing with him [in prayer] [St. Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies 7:12 (c. A.D. 207)].
[During the Eucharistic Prayer] we commemorate those who have already fallen asleep: first, the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, that in their prayers and supplications God would receive our petition [St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 23:9 (c. A.D. 350)].
For the souls of the pious dead are not separated from the Church, which even now is the kingdom of Christ; otherwise there would be no remembrance made of them at the altar of God in the partaking of the body of Christ, nor would it do any good in danger to run to baptism, that we might not pass from this life without it; nor to reconciliation, if by penitence or a bad conscience anyone may be severed from his body [St. Augustine of Hippo, City of God 20:9 (c. A.D. 419)].
These can be multiplied manifold, but I think you get the point.