There's no evidence whatsoever that ANY of the Apostles were appointed on the basis of merit: certainly not Peter, an impetuous man whose failings are all there in the honest chronicle of Scripture. Yet his threefold denial of Christ, so plainly and painfully recounted in the Gospel, culminated in his threefold reassertion of his love of Christ, and then Jesus' threefold commissioning of him to his new vocation as shepherd of Christ's whole flock: "Feed my lambs, Feed my lambs, Feed my sheep." (John 21:15)
This doesn't make Peter impeccable. It does make his chief shepherd of the flock after the Lord ascends on high. Correction he still needs, as do we all; sometimes a face-to-face confrontation he needs; but he is shepherd nevertheless, and thus will not (even despite his faults) lead the whole flock off a cliff of false doctrine.
Please re-read my post...I am not arguing his lack of “impeccability”. I am arguing that there is no reference to his becoming your first “pope” anywhere but in your own documents. You folks made up popism, sacerdotalism, purgatory, genuflecting, even the so-called sacraments out of whole cloth. All I am saying is that if you read the text it points to being saved by grace, through faith, and none of that coming from us...it is all a gift, NOT BY WORKS lest anyone turn into a RC. This is what the first century believers held and taught and reported. But, Rome has morphed this into a monstrous cult. If that is what you prefer, so be it. But, those of us who find ourselves clinging only to Jesus don’t need the trappings of man-made traditions.
And, all of your posts do not explain why this woman should have been abandoned by a boss who says criticizing homosexuality is a deed worth being fired. All the while your pope smiles and visits with the homos. You can believe Jesus is “Lamb-like”, but it is certainly not the Jesus in the text. “I came to bring a sword.”