As a simple explanation, the nature of the dispute between Protestants and Catholics can be illustrated by what we do with the creeds and councils. For the Catholic, the Nicene Creed is a definitive dogmatic declaration from the Church founded by Christ, concerning the nature of God and His work in the world.
The definition of Chalcedon more specifically focuses on Christology: the hypostatic union, the two natures--divine and human--united in the divine Person Jesus Christ. Again, for the Catholic, these definitions must be true, because God in Christ is protecting the Church which declares them. Likewise, the Holy Spirit takes from what belongs to Christ, and declares it to us, to paraphrase John's Gospel.
For the Protestant, the conclusions of these Councils are deemed true, and explicitly taught in the Scriptures. Since the Catholic Church believes everything she teaches is taught in the Scriptures, we have no cause to disagree. However, as we have argued for about 5 centuries now, there is nothing in the methodology of Sola Scriptura that leads necessarily--or even with reasonable confidence--to the orthodox dogmas. The blessed inconsistency of holding the orthodox dogmas in spite of the individuating chaos of the principle itself invites one to consider a return to the Catholic Church.
On another hand, Sola Scriptura subtly presumes that Catholic dogmas must be false, at least in their particularity. Think about it: An alternate methodology that led to the same conclusions wouldn't explain or justify new ecclesial bodies--let's call them churches, to keep it simple--proclaiming distinct dogmas. That is, the methodology creates new dogmas to justify its existence, but also as the fruit of the individuating principle.
To state it more positively though, no sensible person would accept a dogma from an authority he or she believed to be in error. The whole Catholic methodology is destroyed by any notion of dogmatic error. Dogmatically, the Church cannot err, from the Catholic position.
I still don't know how we have anything recognizably Christian, if--as the Protestant theologies would have it--every church or ecclesial body is subject to error. It can't actually protect people from errors rooted in our individuality without divine infallibility. Our imperfect humanity is actually the root of the problem, not our individuality as such.
The acceptance of Catholic dogma is inextricably linked with Catholic authority. No one is fully Catholic until they accept both authority and dogma, and to accept the dogma because the authority is vouchsafed by God Himself.
One bit of good news is that large swaths of dogma are shared between Christians. Large portions of Christian philosophy and ethics are not linked per se, to Catholic authority. We could probably re-claim the benefits of Christendom, if we remained committed to both the pursuit of truth, and the freedom of the conscience.
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