There is plenty of evidence for the chain. Let's take the papacy. Christ gave Peter special prerogatives and charges among the Apostles ("upon this rock I shall build my Church", and "I give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven" and "whatever you bound on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven") St. Peter later appoints 3 bishops in Rome, one of whom is St. Clement (who may very well be the Clement mentioned by Paul)...in the 90s the church of Corinth writes Clement and asks him to settle a local dispute, which he does with authority. Ignatius of Antioch in the 110s is brought to Rome, firing off epistles including one to Rome that strikes a deferential tone; he calls the Roman Church "presiding over the brotherhood of love" and "purified from every strange taint". In the 170s, Irenaeus is saying flat out that every Church must agree with the Church of Rome, because in it the tradition of the Apostles has always been preserved.
Now I know well you're going to pick apart every single one of those and tell me they don't mean what they seem to mean.
But any reasonably unbiased person can see they sure sound like a proto-papacy, and you can't find a single quote from these authors that even sounds remotely like what you believe--which is that the Roman Church went off the rails and started teaching bad, pagan doctrine. Irenaeus said flat out in the 170s that the Roman Church preserved the Apostolic doctrine perfectly since the beginning. You expect me to take your word over his?
I can produce a chain of primary historical sources in defense of my position, starting from people who knew the Apostles personally. Where is your counterevidence? Don't give me this "self-evident" nonsense as if you can just declare the matter resolved by fiat.
“Where is your counterevidence?”
Well, *if you refuse to believe the words I quoted from your Pope* -
probably the most intellectually brilliant man to hold that office -
*saying that things were added* that were unknown to the Apostles and Catholics in earlier centuries, you won’t believe anything I write.
Clearly this is about what you *want* to believe and not about what is true.
Good luck with that Claud.