>>17861266Let's take your word for it and say Jesus literally meant "This guy Peter here is supreme ruler of the Church while I'm away, he's totally in charge and all of you should follow his orders."
Alright then. So I'm just supposed to accept without question some guy in Romes claim to be Peters successor? Peter wasn't Bishop of Rome (No one even claimed that he was for 100's of years). No where in that passage does Jesus say anything about Peter's authority coming from being a bishop, much less the Bishop of one particular Italian geographic location on the other side of the Mediterranean that they were not present at, nor ever mentioned during this conversation. Then there's the fact for being some institution supposedly implemented by Jesus himself at the foundation of the Church, it did not exist for centuries. No one followed the Bishop of Romes orders in the West at first (They deferred to Milan originally) No one followed the Popes orders in the East at any time since the foundation of the church, The Bishop of Rome himself bowed to the Emperor in Milan, then Ravenna, and then later in Constantinople as his superior for hundreds of years, and was in fact appointed to his position by them, not the other way around. So I'm just supposed to believe some Medieval degenerate who wanted to use Charlemagne as a cudgel against the Byzantines when he says "Actually I just remembered Romes local bishop was the supreme authority in Christianity this whole time."? It's transparently false.
