Hi tkc,
Catholicism is the form of religious orthodoxy which won the debates in the early church, once people began to realise they believed different things from one another and wanted a standard model. These debates ran for maybe three or four hundred years, until the Barbarians arrived and made nuanced debate a little tricky.
During the formative period, the church held various councils and decided the Trinitarian version of Christianity made the most sense, with Jesus having the same substance as God (ie he was God just like the Father was God), rather than being of like substance (ie he was a very good man) - or other variations on the theme. This was when the Athanasian Creed was written and when St Augustine wrote his Confessions.
In time, the Eastern (Greek) part of the Roman Empire split from the Western (Latin) part, and Christianity had its first big schism. So it was that there was a Greek (and Russian) orthodoxy, and a Western catholic version of Christianity as well. Both of these may lay claim to being original types of the same religion. The Pope was the big cheese in the Western half and retained various powers, including the ability to tax everyone (called Peter's Pence), approve or ban books and run ecclesiastical courts.
Protestantism came more than a thousand years after the Western Roman Empire fell, at the other end of the Middle Ages. It took hold in Northern Europe, which had been having arguments with the church for centuries - the church was rich in those days and owned a bunch of land. So there were more than merely religious arguments in play. Finally, the various rulers and their peoples decided they'd had enough and split from Rome.
Modern American churches seem to be offshoots of Protestantism and offshoots of offshoots, and entrepreneurial organisations under cover of religious preaching and suchlike. I keep meaning to start a church myself as I quite fancy the speeches and the money.
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