[magisterium]

So what? Acts was clearly written prior to St. Paul's martyrdom, since it doesn't even mention it, though, mentioning his impending trial, it vertainly had the "motive" to do so. St. Peter was himself martyred around the same time. Linus isn't mentioned in anything but the passing reference you cite because he either wasn't even pope yet (or "Bishop of Rome, if you like, it doesn't alter his authority" - a warm Thank You to Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons!), or had only just arrived in the capacity. Scripture, you may be amazed to know, is not meant to address every contingency in 1st Century Christian affairs. It failed to do so in the case of St. Paul, it failed to do so, in a historical narrative sense, for pretty near EVERYTHING that came after.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

So what?

So there is no documented justification for Linus, the Papacy, any "successor" to St. Peter, the "Catholic" Church, celibate priesthood ("A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife" 1 Timothy 3:2 And Paul didn't mean Jesus - That would be gay.), indulgences, Inquisition, infallibility, the Donation of Constantine, burning the library of Alexandria, the Borgias etc. And since Constantine it has often been said that instead remaking the Roman Empire in the image of the Church, the Church was remade in the image of the Roman Empire. Most of the Popes have been more successors of Constantine than of St. Peter.

I don't hate the Catholic Church by any means. I only hate its obvious errors.