“It is a fact that the Roman Catholic Church can actually trace it’s leadership (i.e. the priests and bishops) back to the apostles.”
How could these gems pass anything on except gas? If this is the spiritual heritage of the RC’s “apostolic succession”, I think I would look for something else to prove my legitimacy.
Pope Stephen VI (896-897), who had his predecessor Pope Formosus exhumed, tried, de-fingered, briefly reburied, and thrown in the Tiber.
Pope John XII (937-964), who gave land to a mistress, murdered several people, and was killed by a man who caught him in bed with his wife.
Pope Boniface VIII (1012-1024), who is lampooned in Dante’s Divine Comedy
Pope Benedict IX (1032-1044,1045,1047-1048), who “sold” the Papacy
Pope Urban VI (1378-1389), who complained that he did not hear enough screaming when Cardinals who had conspired against him were tortured.
Pope Alexander VI (1492-1503), a Borja, who was guilty of nepotism and whose unattended corpse swelled until it could barely fit in a coffin.
Pope Leo X (1513-1521), a spendthrift member of the Medici family who once spent 1/7 of his predecessors reserves on a single ceremony.
Pope Clement VII (1523-1534), also a Medici, whose power-politiking with France, Spain, and Germany got Rome sacked.
In the article above, see underlined point #1.
Excellent post, btw, B-D.
As Alamo-girl has vigorously and biblically demonstrated, it is the spiritual succession only that makes sense. Your post is definitely an illustration of why she is so right.
Calling for an historian, OP.
In terms of history, can you expand on underlined point #3 in the above article?
Don't you know that the "infallible" Church elected them to stand in the place of Christ on the earth.
Don't you know the "infallible" Church NEVER makes a mistake?
And do any of those popes even remotely resemble Peter??? Or any of the other Apostles, or disciples???
You confuse infallibility with impecability. All Popes have been sinners. Even Peter denied Christ when the going got tough. The fact that we have had some bad popes does not mean the truth of the Catholic Faith is wrong. We don't cite to Jimmy Swaggert to show that the Protestant take on Christianity is incorrect because we know the action s of individuals is not the test.
Thank you. No one speaks much about this.