The Catholic Church believes that the position of the Pope is supreme - he is the bishop of bishops, in that all other bishops answer to him as Christ’s vicar. Certainly he acts for ‘accord’ with the use of Council, but he is akin to a prince, rather than the president of a democracy.
To this ends, the examples from history shows that the early church did not view the Bishop of Rome as such. Acts 15 shows a council presided over by James.
The issue with Pope St. Victor shows Victor being only an authority over the church in Rome (and its surrounds). This is because the notion in the early church was that each and every church headed by a bishop is equal… and ‘catholic’ (noted and quoted earlier).
Church councils gave the See of the New Rome the same rights that the Old Rome held. The Council of Chalcedon said…“FOLLOWING in all things the decisions of the holy Fathers, and acknowledging the canon, which has been just read, of the One Hundred and Fifty Bishops beloved-of-God (who assembled in the imperial city of Constantinople, which is New Rome, in the time of the Emperor Theodosius of happy memory), we also do enact and decree the same things concerning the privileges of the most holy Church of Constantinople, which is New Rome. For the Fathers rightly granted privileges to the throne of old Rome, because it was the royal city. And the One Hundred and Fifty most religious Bishops, actuated by the same consideration, gave equal privileges (isa presbeia) to the most holy throne of New Rome, justly judging that the city which is honoured with the Sovereignty and the Senate, and enjoys equal privileges with the old imperial Rome, should in ecclesiastical matters also be magnified as she is, and rank next after her; so that, in the Pontic, the Asian, and the Thracian dioceses, the metropolitans only and such bishops also of the Dioceses aforesaid as are among the barbarians, should be ordained by the aforesaid most holy throne of the most holy Church of Constantinople; every metropolitan of the aforesaid dioceses, together with the bishops of his province, ordaining his own provincial bishops, as has been declared by the divine canons; but that, as has been above said, the metropolitans of the aforesaid Dioceses should be ordained by the archbishop of Constantinople, after the proper elections have been held according to custom and have been reported to him.” [1]
The second Ecumenical Council had earlier also stated that the same rights of the See of Old Rome to that of the New Rome. And that “…although it conceded that Rome was the first see of Christendom, it implied that Roman primacy depended on the city’s secular standing”.[2]
The Jesuit historian Leo Davis says “Though the canon was not directed against Rome, no notice was taken of the claim of its bishop to primacy among bishops based on his succession from Peter…” [3]
John, Patriarch of Constantinople, added the following sentence: “I hold the most holy Church of the old and the new Rome to be one. I define the see of the Apostle Peter and this of the imperial city to be the one see.” In doing this, he was recalling the fact that canon 28 of the Council of Constantinople declared that the Sees of Roman and Constantinople were equal."[4]
So, not only were other individuals declared by the church to be the ‘eqaul of the Apostles’, but other churches were declared to be the ‘equal of Rome’. There is nothing about Petrine supremecy associated with Rome, other than the just-so, that it is, because it is, because it is.
Notes.
[1]
ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-14/Npnf2-14-105.htm#P5349_1101598
[2] Chadwick, H, “The Early Church”, quoted in Whelton, pp51-52.
[3] Davis, L. D., (1983), “The First Ecumenical Councils (325-787): Their History and Theology”, (Michael Glazier Books; Collegeville, Minnesota), p128.
[4] Whelton, pp81-82.
Where on Earth are you getting that from those passages? In fact, are you aware of how a Pope is selected in the first place? Not familiar with the term “sede vacante”, eh?