There is a problem with the Catholic church if Peter was the first pope…
Yeah! You need to get your info straight!
- Peter was married, no pope’s(or priests) can be.today Not a problem since we have some Married priests today: See this thread on it. forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=43272
- Peter never taught he was infallible(pope’s didn’t even teach this till the 1800’s) Wrong…you don’t undertsnd how this works and it far predates your date. Again I find you making up history to suit your attacks, Shame on ya! See Acts 15
- Peter never lived in a palace, nor accepted praise from men. You don’t EVEN wanna go there …with all the N-C preachers that have got the HUGE churches and have airconditioned doghouses and limos and such. Besides…that Vatican is not just the Papal residence…a whole lot more! It administers the workings of the church of a billion believers.
- Peter is not the “Vicar of Christ”, that is the Holy Spirit. And just where is that phrase used for the Holy Spirit in the Bible? And as usual you misconstrue anything Catholic in order to make an opening for another of your biased attacks. (You could just give it up y’know.)
- Has to be corrected by Paul, can you imagine a cardinal or priest correcting the “infallible” pope???
It was not a matter of faith and morals… and being human, many popes have been corrected by others, St Catherine of Siena is a good example.
- Peter was imprisoned for speaking the Gospel, something that could never happen to a pope today
Oh but you’re all too wrong. Peter was indeed imprisoned…John Paul II was shot.
- Peter taught that all believers are priests, not a select few. John Paul II and the Catechism teach the same thing…however the concept of presbyters goes all the way back to the NT and if you read Ignatius of Antioch’s letter to the Smyrneam church you find that he tells them “or whomever the bishop appoints” That is priests today and was then.
- Peter wrote that believers are kept by the power of God, pope’s have taught we are kept by sacraments(works). Sacraments are not works… they are simply expressions of grace. The Bible is a sacramental in strict point of fact. You are weird… the sacraments are outward signs of spiritual realities… like baptism as a prize winning example…like the mud that Jesus made with His own spit to heal the Blind man. and like the touch of Christ’s hand for so many healings or his words.
There are many other inconsistencies regarding papal succession. There were at times two popes, sometimes none. The only clear “first” pope that can be traced is in the forth century, when pagan rome suddenly was absorbed into “Christianity”. Hence the first Roman pope was Really? Show us **from an unbiased source **that there really was a return to paganism in the 4th century! You can’t do it because it didn’t happen!
I know because I researched it…did you? NO…you took some preacher’s word for it in some book! If we went back to paganism under Constantine then why did Julian the Apostate persecute the church
less than 50 years later because it
wasn’t pagan?
Fact of history, not some trumped up bunk that you use as ammo against our most holy faith.
Pope Constantine I (306 — 337). This would be absolutely laughable if it wasn’t so biased and untrue and proves my whole case against you that you are using biased
anti-Catholic sources!
Here is a list of the actual popes during the years you specify:
Marcellus
Eusebius,
Melchiades,
Sylvester
See anyone name Constantine in there? That’s taken from a simple Catholic dictionary by Fr. John Hardon S.J. You can get a copy at any Barnes & Noble.
Luke 17:9 Doth he thank that servant, for doing the things which he commanded him? 10 I think not. So you also, when you shall have done all these things that are commanded you, say: We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which we ought to do.