Why, thank you, Bipolar! This comes from evaluating the evidence, instead of just trying to explain it away.
" And Jesus Himself said "He who is first shall be last"."
And the last, first. And the the guys in the middle, di-si-do in place. :o)
If all the last (the children, for example) come first, I suppose ALL us grown-us will be more or less level at the very back of the line :o)
"I see nothing definitive about superiority over the other Apostles. Nothing. nada."
It depends on what you mean by "superiority". I don't imagine Peter was the smartest or most intellectual. He was not the most well-trained in Jewish and Greek knowledge (Paul apparently scoops him on that.) I don't know that fishermen are inherently higher-up than tax collectors.
All I know is that, according to Scripture, Peter is given, symbolically, "The Keys." The meaning of this is very well illustrated in Isaiah 22, where God says to Shebna, the unworthy "Master of the Palace," that He will cast him out from his office, and instead "summon my servant Eliakim, son of Hilkiah", giving him all the symbols of leadership:
"I will clothe him with your robe,
gird him with your sash,
confer on him your authority.
He shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
and to the house of Judah.
I will place the key of the House of David
on his shoulder;
what he opens, no one will shut,
what he shuts, no one will open."
Clearly the significance of the "keys" is to make someone the Master of the Palace (who stands in for the King in his absence) and and to give him authority.
We don't know that Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, was an innately "superior" man, no more than Simon (Peter) son of Jonah was: we do know he was given a position by God.
"Does your faith require ... Mary to be sinless (even though that goes contrary to Scripture)?"
Here's your Scripture on Mary: Kecharitomene." Read it carefully. I rest my case.
By the way, It's not un-Scriptural. Not only do we have the Angelic Salutation, we also have the realization that in Biblical language,words like "all" and "none" and so forth, often don't mean to indicate exceptionless absolutes, but rather to indicate the general run of things.
For instance, Scripture says "No one has ever seen God," but it also says, "Moses and Aaron saw the God of Israel."
Scripture says "No man is just, not even one", yet it also calls Noah, Joseph of Nazareth, and even John the Baptist, "Just men."
Scripture says "All men have sinned," and also calls Mary "Kecharitomene" (full of grace, not full of sin!)
"Does your faith require the RCC to be the One True Church?"
Depends on what you mean. The conciliar document Lumen Gentium says that "the Church of Christ... subsists in the Catholic Church." It doesn't say "IS" in a total, mathematically-closed-set, exclusive sense.
This is because the Catholic Church also teaches that we [can], according to Catholic doctrine, affirm correctly that the Church of Christ is present and operative in the churches and ecclesial communities not yet fully in communion with the Catholic Church, on account of the elements of sanctification and truth that are present in them."
What are these "elements of sanctification and truth"? That's dealt with explicitly in the Catechism (para. 825): "The elements of sanctification found also outside the visible confines of the Church are: (1) the Bible, (2) the life of grace, (3) Faith, (4) hope, (5) charity, (6) other interior gifts of the Spirit, (7) and visible elements."
I think that this can contribute to a more accurate nderstanding.
The "Palace" we are talking about is the Kingdom of Heaven. I really don't think Peter is the master of the Kingdom of Heaven, do you? That would be a new title. What do you suppose these keys are, exactly? Did anybody else get these keys or just Peter? Why did He give Peter these keys to the Kingdom of heaven?
On the contrary, if Mary received grace, it was because she was a sinner.
Where sin abounds, grace does much more abound.
Where there is no sin, there is no grace because the person is getting what they deserve, not getting what they don't deserve. Grace is only operative when the person doesn't deserve what they are getting.
If Mary was graced, it was because she had sinned.
Don’t forget about me. I still want to know about the keys.