Steven Rosswurm’s book, The FBI and The Catholic Church, details the Hoover era FBI's efforts to obtain Catholic moles and informants. Remember that until after WWII and it was showed how they joined and fought en masse, Catholics were never part of the WASP mainstream in America.
The FBI's effort was somewhat of a success, in that Communism is antithetical to Catholicism. The result was a theology that made "the enemy of America became the enemy of the Church" when in fact America was the enemy of the Church. Later, the feds would bribe bishops with government grants.
After WWII, the ethnic enclaves of Poles, Italians, Irish, etc. were broken up by the importation of southern Blacks into northern cities and the "urban renewal" projects that put low income public housing projects into those ethnic neighborhoods. Catholics moved to the suburbs, and became atomized consumerist Americans.
After internal changes to the Church, the average Catholic was attending St. McSurburbia with a watered down liturgy. Many left the faith, and/or didn't raise their kids Catholic.
In short, there are far fewer Catholics today. While there is a progressive wing of Catholics today, they are fewer and diminishing, and the trads are in the process of retaking what was lost in the 1960s/1970s as the older generation dies out and their kids never joined the faith.
Is the pope a fake too? How far do you take this no true Scotsman fallacy in the Vatican?
It's not a "no true scotsman" situation. An "anti-pope" is one who has been not validly elected. It has happened several times over 2,000 years.
First, Benedict's resignation was (perhaps) not valid. Second, the rules for papal elections set by John Paul II were violated for Francis by the bargaining beforehand. And third, Francis is an manifest heretic, and heretics should lose the papacy, though there is a process for that, which hasn't been started yet. I think everyone is just waiting for him to die, because he is very old and very ill.
Papal supremacy kinda lends itself to mental gymnastics to stay afloat. It’s almost like it was a bad idea.
The alternative is 40,000+ denominations that get increasingly cucked over time.
You could argue the pope problem led to 30,000 denominations. Orthodoxy is the alternative. Keeping to the ecumenical councils, decentralized power so there’s no superbishop antipope going around. Even the Vatican says the sacraments are valid in orthodoxy.