Peter passed away a few years ago.
True - and yet, Jesus promised him, “until the end of time.”
Which means that Jesus must have had a plan in mind for the time after Peter’s death, right?
The reason the Church is still here is because Peter passed the authority that he had.
Pope Benedict XVI is the Successor of Peter, as we see when we look at the
line of Popes.
Now, perhaps you are thinking that someone just came up with that line of Popes very recently, and just made up a bunch of names to put in it. (I used to think that. I thought that someone was making a “scholarly guess” about who the early Popes were. I actually had no idea that we have their writings, and their diaries, and all kinds of information about them, even available in English, and that the Vatican has been keeping records about them, ever since it was the jail where the earliest Popes, including Peter, were being kept by the Roman governors. Once Christianity became legal, they simply turned the jail where they had been kept into the Church headquarters. I suppose they were trying to save on letterhead - at least they wouldn’t have to change the address.
The first person to give us a line of Popes was the Bishop Irenaeus, of Lyons, in his essay, “Against the Heresies.” He wrote that in about 180 AD, or, within the lifetime of the grandchildren of those whom Jesus dandled on His knee and blessed. (Mark 16:10-13)
St. Irenaeus:
- The blessed apostles, then, having founded and built up the Church, committed into the hands of Linus the office of the episcopate. Of this Linus, Paul makes mention in the Epistles to Timothy. To him succeeded Anacletus; and after him, in the third place from the apostles, Clement was allotted the bishopric. This man, as he had seen the blessed apostles, and had been conversant with them, might be said to have the preaching of the apostles still echoing [in his ears], and their traditions before his eyes. Nor was he alone [in this], for there were many still remaining who had received instructions from the apostles. In the time of this Clement, no small dissension having occurred among the brethren at Corinth, the Church in Rome dispatched a most powerful letter to the Corinthians, exhorting them to peace, renewing their faith, and declaring the tradition which it had lately received from the apostles, proclaiming the one God, omnipotent, the Maker of heaven and earth, the Creator of man, who brought on the deluge, and called Abraham, who led the people from the land of Egypt, spoke with Moses, set forth the law, sent the prophets, and who has prepared fire for the devil and his angels. From this document, whosoever chooses to do so, may learn that He, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, was preached by the Churches, and may also understand the tradition of the Church, since this Epistle is of older date than these men who are now propagating falsehood, and who conjure into existence another god beyond the Creator and the Maker of all existing things. To this Clement there succeeded Evaristus. Alexander followed Evaristus; then, sixth from the apostles, Sixtus was appointed; after him, Telephorus, who was gloriously martyred; then Hyginus; after him, Pius; then after him, Anicetus. Soter having succeeded Anicetus, Eleutherius does now, in the twelfth place from the apostles, hold the inheritance of the episcopate. In this order, and by this succession, the ecclesiastical tradition from the apostles, and the preaching of the truth, have come down to us. And this is most abundant proof that there is one and the same vivifying faith, which has been preserved in the Church from the apostles until now, and handed down in truth.
So, we already had the concept of the Succession of the Popes, with Peter as the first Pope, more than two centuries before we even had a New Testament.
Laneo, now it’s you who better be careful 
or you might have to add an adjective to your ID to remain a Catholic!