If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.
But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Having an unbroken line of popes (some being good at using the sword of men to gain their seat, or ecclesiastical ends, and dual tasking in being both celibate in profession and adulterous in practice, or competing with other claimants to the seat of Peter with mutual excommunications, and sanctioning use of torture to deal with suspected heretics, and outlawing religious freedom, and then calling the former intrinsically evil, and the latter as wrong, etc. etc.) to justify elitist claims.
Paul had nothing on Rome.