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"Don't launch into something like "Oh, this is one verse and is The Church built on only one verse?"

Hmmmm. Aren't you the person who wrote "just pointing out the fallacies of jumping to conclusions, putting words in other folks' mouths and not bothering to read up before raising an argument." How does that saying go?...practice what you preach...

This is the question I asked you..."Then why is this single verse the only one Catholics use to support their contention that God chose Peter be the first Pope?" I have yet to see any support other than Matthew 16:18.

Well no, the question asked was -- is this solitary verse the sole thing on which the Catholic church is built. The answer to that is NO. While we do have the Pope as our leader, that is NOT the central tenet of our beliefs.

When asked why the Pope is our leader, we point out that every religious grouping has leaders, be they called priests or pastors etc. This does not negate the piety, knowledge and holiness of the laity.

So, the Church has a leader -- the Pope. Why did God choose PEter to be the first Pope? WEll, God alone knows. What proof is there for this? Matthew 16:18. That's one verse as you correctly point out, but the answer is to one question. That one verse doesn't define the Catholic church, it just answers the question why we have the Bishop of Rome, the successor to Peter as our head priest.

If you agree that the entire Bible is scripture and true, then you must agree that Matthew 16:18 is true and that Peter was to be the 'first among equals' among the apostles. This does not mean that John or Matthew or Andrew were less holy in any way. It's just that God chose Peter to be the leader, in the same way that God chose Isaac and not Ishmael, that God chose Judah and not Reuben