[caww]

Additionally..... There are so many examples of early Christians disagreeing with the Roman church or denying that the Roman church had universal authority,..catholics may suggest that such things were just exceptions to the rule, but the problem is that there's no evidence that the alleged rule existed.

We have example after example of early Christians denying the concept of a papacy, but nobody in the earliest centuries supported the concept...... Denials of the papacy aren't exceptions to the rule in the early church.... They are the rule.... There's no evidence of a papacy existing in the earliest centuries, because there was no papacy at the time.

[terycarl]

There are so many examples of early Christians disagreeing with the Roman church or denying that the Roman church had universal authority,..catholics may suggest that such things were just exceptions to the rule, but the problem is that there's no evidence that the alleged rule existed. We have example after example of early Christians denying the concept of a papacy

yes there were, someone had to prevail, and the Catholic church did. Would you expect anything less from the church that Jesus Himself created?????Now to the papacy....as the church grew she recognized that, in order to maintain a semblance of continuity she needed a centralized position of authority. The Pope is not a special human being other than the fact that he holds a high office. He is the titular leader of more than 1 billion human believers and he is their inspiration as to the understanding of the Christian faith. Believe or don't, it doesn't matter...he is still the head of ALL CHRISTIANITY on Earth...