There have been congregations of believers since the days of the Apostles, almost 300 years before there was any Pope or Roman Catholic Church, who never were confused about this, and never had to figure this out. They knew what Paradise was in Luke ch. 16, and didn't need a sinner in a fancy robe on a fancy throne to tell them whether there was anything like "Limbo."
When will the pope ask his theologians to get around to discussing the relevance of a pope.
This statement is a rather vicious one, and reveals an ignorance of Scripture and Christian history. Jesus clearly wanted a single, universal church, of "one heart, one mind, one spirit", (Phillipians 1:27). The Greek word for 'universal' is "Katholicos", hence the Christian Church quickly became known also as the "Catholic Church", (universal church).
The word 'pope' simply means 'papa', or "father". The ancient Jews always called their leaders "fathers", (Abraham, the prophets, etc), and this tradition did not disappear when Christianity emerged. Paul himself wrote that he was a "father" of those Christians whom he taught.
"For in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel" (1 Corinthians 4:15.
Saint Peter was clearly the head of the Apostles, as they always deferred to his authority and his 'rank'. The New Testament often refers to the 12 Apostles as "Peter and the eleven". Peter was selected by Jesus for His first Apostle for the purpose of maintaining a heirarchical order amongst the apostles. Christ knew that He'd leave them one day and they would need a visible leader to guide them, and to be the final authority at Councils when questions of doctrine arose which could not be settled by the Bishops and elders. Peter was even selected for Apostleship before his brother Andrew was, and Andrew was his elder. In Jewish custom the elder brother would naturally have been selected first, unless Christ had some particular reason for not doing so.
At the very first Church Council, assembled in Jerusalem to answer the question of the necessity of circumcision in Mosaic Law, it was Peter who after "much debate", rose up with the final answer and then all fell silent, (Acts 15: 7-12). It was Peter alone who was allowed by Jesus to walk on water. It was Peter, (which means 'rock' = 'Petrus' in Greek), who was the 'rock' that Jesus founded the Church upon, (Mathew 16:18). Jesus gave Peter the Keys to the Kingdom, (Mathew 16:19). In fact, Jesus named Peter "rock" in both the Greek, (Petrus = Peter), and Aramaic when He named Peter 'Cephas'. (John 1:42). 'Cephas' was Aramaic for 'rock'.
Peter was the apostle whom Jesus said three times: "Feed my lambs, tend my flock, feed my sheep", (John 21: 15-19). Then there is the Scripture verse stating that when the women ran to tell the apostles of Christ's resurrection John and Peter ran towards the empty tomb. Though John arrived first, he stopped and waited for Peter, then allowed Peter to enter in first. This is yet another of many verses revealing Peter's primacy over the other apostles.
My point of all of this is to illustrate that Peter was the visible head of the Church. Peter was martyred in Rome, which he was bishop of. Since Peter was the head of the apostles and died as Bishop of Rome, the successive Bishops of Rome held the primacy among the bishops. There are existing Church epistles from various Bishops in the early Church who called upon the Bishops of Rome to settle disputes within the Church which could not be settled by local Bishops.
Saint Clement, a first century Bishop of Rome, and a disciple of the Apostles themselves, wrote an epistle to the Corinthians. This letter was written to settle a dispute that arose amongst the Corinthians, meaning of course that Clement was intervening in the affairs of another Church. Clement wrote with absolute authority when he said:
"If any man should be disobedient unto the words spoken by God through us, let them understand that they will entangle themselves in no slight transgression and danger" (Ep. 59). He goes on to tell them: "render obedience unto the things written by us through the Holy Spirit".
In 107 AD Saint Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, wrote a letter to the Roman Bishop. He began this letter by referring to the Roman Church as "presiding over the brotherhood of love", (the 'brotherhood of love' is the Church itself). Ignatius then proceeded to enumerate the Roman succession from Linus to Eleutherius, the twelfth after the Apostles, who then occupied the see of Rome. Ignatius also wrote, in a farewell letter to Rome as he was about to be martyred in AD 107:
"Where the bishop is present, there is the Catholic Church" (To the Smyrnaeans 8:2). This letter all by itself demolishes the Protestant claim that the Catholic Church came later in Christianity and was a heretical sect, and that the bishop of Rome, (now called "pope"), wasn't head of the Church from the very beginning of Christianity.
Also in the early second century, St. Irenaeus, a disciple of Polycarp, (who had been appointed Bishop of Smyrna by St. John the Apostle wrote in his "Adversus Haereses" (3:3:2) :
"Because it would be too long in such a volume as this to enumerate the successions of all the churches, we point to the tradition of that very great and very ancient and universally known Church, which was founded and established at Rome, by the two most glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul: we point I say, to the tradition which this Church has from the Apostles, and to her faith proclaimed to men which comes down to our time through the succession of her bishops, and so we put to shame . . . all who assemble in unauthorized meetings. For with this Church, because of its superior authority, every Church must agree -- that is the faithful everywhere -- in communion with which Church the tradition of the Apostles has been always preserved by those who are everywhere ---