It's kind of hard to make Paul's rebuke mentioned in Galatians 2 the same incident as Acts 15 when Peter is arguing *for* exactly what Paul later corrects him on.
The more natural understanding is by the time Paul rebukes Peter at Antioch, Peter has fallen back into bad habits.
Agreed. After the meeting, "11 When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face..." I did read a commentary yesterday that suggested this was after Acts 12 but before Acts 15, but others - and your Pope - say this came after Acts 15. After Acts 15 makes sense.
"The "list" argument is mighty thin once it's shown the "fear" argument has nothing to do with Acts 15."
And yet the inspired scripture says, "12 Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. 13 The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray. 14 When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, "You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?"
The fear may not have been related to Acts 15, or James may have been the one who "has fallen back into bad habits." But Scripture, inspired by God, says fear caused Peter to pull back, and eventually reach a point where he "force[d] Gentiles to follow Jewish customs". That goes beyond hypocrisy into teaching and enforcing what is contrary.
"15 "We who are Jews by birth and not 'Gentile sinners' 16 know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified."
"On it's own...hardly a credible reason to search out other meanings for Matthew 16."
I don't need a credible reason to seek out other scriptures to enlighten me on what one passage means - I do it all the time. As much as possible, I want to interpret scripture by scripture, so I an avoid error caused by my prejudices. In all my commentaries, authors will look at how a word or phrase is used in other passages to shed light on its meaning in the one being interpreted.
"Then how do you explain Matthew 16 without all the specious protestant cross-referencing?"
This is why I believe we will need to agree to disagree. I think you MUST interpret it the way you do, since the alternative is to believe the Pope isn't the Pope, but just another...Bishop? I'm not sure what he would be called, if he isn't the Head Apostle.
Meanwhile, I've explained why I interpret it the way I do. It may be "specious protestant cross-referencing", but it is standard procedure for me.
There is nothing wrong with agreeing to disagree. I never intended to convert you to becoming a Baptist. My goal was just to convince you that Protestants can be Christians (IAW Catholic doctrine, per the original article), and that Protestants can be sincere in trying to figure out what the Scripture means.
If you can grant my intentions are honest, even if you find my conclusions faulty, then I've accomplished all I hoped to do.