You call thousands of denominations "content?"
What non-scriptural excuses are you writing about?
A good example is all the rhetorical cartwheels that have to used to deny petrine supremacy.
The unsolvable problem for protestants is they can't simultaneously claim anyone can interpret the scriptures while denying the catholic interpretation. Has it never occurred to you that the Matthew 16 passage doesn't make a peep about all the things protestants have to bring into the discussion to "understand" verse 18?
The closest protestants can get is insisting on goofy, non-scriptural, totally conjectural, conclusions that "disqualify" peter because he gets slapped down soon after.
I’ve already posted on Matthew 16 - and 18, and John 20. It is hardly ‘rhetorical cartwheels’ to compare 3 sections that use such similar wording.
It is pretty common and certainly not contrary to scripture or reason to use passages in scripture to flesh out and explain a paragraph in another.
I see no sign that Peter was made Supreme above the other Apostles. Matthew 16 doesn’t say that, nor does it say that any favor Peter had would be passed on to any who followed him.
If anything, James would seem to have been ‘highest’ among the Apostles in scripture. Peter wouldn’t fear the followers of James if he was above James in rank.
You can call this “goofy, non-scriptural, totally conjectural, conclusions” - but I give quotes and reasons. I don’t know how else to hold a rational debate.