Point taken - I shouldn’t mince words. :-P But, the original question I was responding to - if that isn’t succession, WHAT is it?
1. Connecting that with a long string of farces from/in Rome is a HUGE stretch, for one.
2. As I’ve said before . . . even PRETENDING that Rome started out kosher—A HUGE STRETCH, SUCH PRETENDING—the train quickly left the tracks over a huge chasm. Any shred of anointing departed and the huge shell of a huge structure remains with all it’s self-aggrandizing accoutraments.
3. The notion that Christ commissioned Pebble Peter to be a foundational Rock of a new bureaucratic edifice to rival the Jewish one of 2,000 years ago is beyond far fetched. It’s outrageously and embarrassingly ludicrous.