Remember boys and girls, all you need to do is read the Bible and interpret it yourself.
First off, we are never commanded to handle snakes.
The other thing is, the passage that addresses handling snakes is also the one which the Catholic church uses to justify its teaching of baptism being required for salvation.
So why does the Catholic church choose to accept one phrase in a passage and not the entire thing? And don't Catholics believe in healing?
Why believe the beginning and the end of the discourse and throw out the middle? It's all Jesus talking in the same discourse.
And Catholics tell me constantly that they all believe the words of Jesus above any other Scripture. It IS Jesus talking here. Was He wrong about the snakes and poison?
Mark 16:15-18 And [Jesus] said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”