Evangelicals don’t care that they’re wrong. And they believe that the Catholic Church has wandered too far from the ‘original church’ to a point where it’s no longer actually worshiping god, but has been twisted by the devil. So they ‘return’ to how their idea of what ‘the original church’ is instead. They recognize, however that their worship is actually nothing like the original church and despite not having proper biblical support, believe they are actually worshiping the right way. It’s one of the many contradictions they actively hold highly.

This was my experience with evangelicals, which I’m rather sure is rather more expansive than most as I’ve lived all over the country attending several evangelical churches in each place, grew up VERY active with Billy graham ministries and focus on the family, spent my first 4 years of school in the evangelical home school system known as A.C.E., ‘interned’ for teen mania ministries which brought together evangelicals from around the world, all of whom conformed quite directly to this experience, and attended a Christian university where a pre-req was to do an academic deep dive into Christianity which is, unsurprisingly, the catalyst for what got me out… I of course spent more time learning about the evolution of evangelicalism than I did the rest of the denominations as I was continually having my world rocked by how little sense any of the general beliefs actually make and was desperately grasping for anything to settle my worldview back down.

Evangelicals are stupid, they know it, and they revel in their ignorance (faith of a child bullshit taken so far out of any semblance of context).

preying to merry though, pretty common. funny though i was raised catholic but my mothers side are Irish protestant and i remember talking about the differences with my aunt, she said, you go to merry, we go to the man himself.

Catholics weren't the original church. That claim of theirs basically hinges on the claim that Peter started the Papal succession which is bullshit also, when Peter came to Rome James was already Bishop in Jerusalem. Coptics are also definitely contenders, tracing themselves back to Mark. That was all before the New Testament was written, the newest parts date to as late as 100CE.

...and that's organisationally. When it comes to rites and theology the Orthodox Churches and Coptics have a much better claim at being original, Rome forming its doctrine to serve the unity of state and governance of the people as they were essentially the ministry of religion. And thus arguably the last remnant of the administration of the Roman Empire, I'll give them that.

As to idolatry: Protestants deny that there's a distinction between dulia and latria, consider it a rhetorical justification ex post, "We're doing that stuff but as we can't be idolaters we must now make up new terms to explain how it's not actually idolatry". That's, mind you, Calvin and Luther, not the current bunch of nutjob US evangelicals I doubt those have ever considered anything about theology.