Peter died for the faith, he was not a “joke” as you put it. The people of scripture all had faults and God used each and every one of them to further his message and will.
I am not a Catholic, but I do find your references to one of the founding Saints of Christianity to be offensive and in need of being tempered.
It seems clear that, operating in the flesh, his allegiance was toward a Master whose goal, as Peter thought, was to bring an earthly dominion that would reform religion, eject Roman dominance, and provide His special disciple/apostles a high position in the government that this New Master would impose. Peter's initiative, verve, desire for eminence, and intermittant commitment demonstrated his continual errors and misjudgments that Jesus certainly knew He had to manage, in taking Simon bar Jonah on as a subject needing transformation (not reformation) to be of service under the New Covenant.
I believe that the continual vignettes of Simon/Peter's dilemmas and responses while operating in the flesh are given not as a confirmation of his value to the ministry, but as proof of the damage an unregenerated "believer" can do to a ministry, and should be an example to us all as a call to spiritual maturity.
Note that Peter's tendencies to err continued to influence his actions even through the post-Calvary presence of The Christ, and especially in the ten days following His Ascension, right up until the momentuous Arrival of Another Comforter and Guide (of the Same Kind), at which Simon Peter exhibited the startling transformation that led to his soul-winning Pentecostal homily--one of being led by the Indwelling Holy Ghost.
I am not a Catholic, but I do find your references to one of the founding Saints of Christianity to be offensive and in need of being tempered.
Perhaps you might take into account that subsequent to the Pentecostal metamorphic transformation, Peter's actions began to reflect a spiritual maturity worthy of imitation by Christian generations to follow. Though this pattern was interrupted by a couple of minor incidents of recidivism to old behaviors ("Not so, Lord" at Joppa; Paul's rebuke of Peter at Antioch), Peter began to model submission to his pastor and co-equal Apostles in the Polity of the Jerusalem church, and finally, from Babylon, penned the grand letters to the dispersed Jews of his bounded ministry (to the Circumcision, 1 Peter); and to the broader scope of all faithful (2 Peter, confirmation of Paul's writings and condemning the negligence of teaching by discipling); as well as coaching John Mark in the formation of a 3rd biographical sketch of Jesus' ministry. These were done about 65-67 A.D., about thirty-some-odd years after his own training by Jesus, and continually growing submission to the Holy Ghost.
The story of Peter's transformation is stunning, and worthy of careful thought by those who wish to place him into the wrong role as Primary Prelate of an erring religion. I do not believe Peter, in the end, would have wished for that position he would have sought for at the first.
But certainly, at the Bema of Christ, it must be that of Peter He will say. "Well done, thou good and faithful servant ... enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."
Eh?