"Sorry, but I don't worship people and organizations because of what they do. I worship God because of who He is.
The fact is that the Catholic Church has played a role in God's plan. It is not the Catholic Church's plan. God's plan would still go on without the Catholic Church.
If you really care about history, you will look back to the 4th Pope and the letter that he wrote to the Church of Corinth. That's where this whole mess began.
The Church of Corinth was not under Rome's rule, and yet the head of the Church of Rome wrote them a letter. When no one condemned him for writing a letter, future generations of Pope took this as the power and right to give orders and make decisions. There begins the layer upon layer. The searching for justification that Rome is supreme. Later they included Catholic into the name of the Church of Rome because they were so full of themselves. And the funniest thing is it all started with a letter that no one asked for and no one rebuked.
And if you even bother to read the letter, you will notice the opening statement "The Church of God which sojourns at Rome, to the Church of God sojourning at Corinth"
This Pope considered the churches to be seperate. He considered the churches as belonging to God. Now contrast that to the modern RCC's view that all churches and Bibles exist because of the Roman Catholic Church. Just a bit different don't you think?"
Catholics do worship people. They worship Mary less than God, but more than the saints. You can try and obscure by using the word venerate, but it is a heirarchy of worship. That is the way they used to teach it. Be proud of who you are.
When Clement wrote the words from Rome to Corinth, he was not stating jurisdiction, but direction. A letter from Rome to Corinth.
Ignatius used the word catholic as is was initially meant to be used. It means universal, as in we all worship the same God with the same truths. Just as it is used in the creeds. Later the Church of Rome changed it's name to Catholic because it believed it was the universal church and salvation was not possible outside of the RCC. Power hungry men thirsting for worldly power.
Every member of the one holy catholic and apostolic church will be in heaven. Not every member of the RCC will be in heaven. They are not the same.
Precisely so. Also, Pope Clement made the scriptural foundation of his primacy very clear as he compared the twelve Apostles to the twelve tribes of Israel where Aaron had primacy:
[...] when rivalry arose concerning the priesthood, and the tribes were contending among themselves as to which of them should be adorned with that glorious title, [Moses] commanded the twelve princes of the tribes to bring him their rods, each one being inscribed with the name of the tribe. And he took them and bound them [together], and sealed them with the rings of the princes of the tribes, and laid them up in the tabernacle of witness on the table of God. And having shut the doors of the tabernacle, he sealed the keys, as he had done the rods, and said to them, Men and brethren, the tribe whose rod shall blossom has God chosen to fulfil the office of the priesthood, and to minister to Him. And when the morning was come, he assembled all Israel, six hundred thousand men, and showed the seals to the princes of the tribes, and opened the tabernacle of witness, and brought forth the rods. And the rod of Aaron was found not only to have blossomed, but to bear fruit upon it. What think you, beloved? Did not Moses know beforehand that this would happen? Undoubtedly he knew; but he acted thus, that there might be no sedition in Israel, and that the name of the true and only God might be glorified;