The Catholic church, as an institution is protected from error....individual Catholics, you for example, are OBVIOUSLY not protected from error...
Are you saying verga is in error in his #160 post?
I disagree bro, because it appears you are implying that MM is a Catholic. I do not think that is true. I know I am not. That way, I know I don't have to bluff my way into Heaven. I don't think MM does either.
Human being within the church make the decisions. Without people, there is no church.
Explain to me how an institution can exist without the people in it.
Is there a computer some where? Some kind of entity called Catholicism, which is sentient and makes those decisions without human involvement?
Your conclusion does not flow from this promise.
The power to bind and loose refers to both formal judicial binding/loosing judgments as well as spiritual binding/loosing, and is nothing new (see below), and was not unique to Peter but was afforded to the other 11 apostles, as well as to the church and believers overall, as seen in Mt. 18:15-20.
Mt. 18:15-17 deals with formal judicial magisterial judgments in union with the church, and which contextually is about judicially settling personal disputes (though in principal it can extend beyond that). And which is nothing new, but which flows from the Old Testament, in which matters in judgment, "between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within thy gates," that were too hard to be settled locally, were to be settled by the Levites and the sitting judge. (Deuteronomy 17:8-12) And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest that standeth to minister there before the Lord thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die: and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel. (Deuteronomy 17:12)
The power of binding and loosing is also provided for husbands as regards their wives: "Every vow, and every binding oath to afflict the soul, her husband may establish it, or her husband may make it void...But if he shall any ways make them void after that he hath heard them; then he shall bear her iniquity." (Numbers 30:13,16) And which likewise applies to fathers over unmarried daughters. (Num. 30:1-5)
Even secular authorities can be said to have binding and loosing power, judging one to be bound in his guilt or loosed from it and the penalty thereof. (Lk. 12:58,59; Rm. 13:1-7) Thus the Lord Jesus affirmed that Pilate had power from God to crucify Christ or to loose Him, (John 19:10) and enjoined conditional obedience to the Scribes and Pharisees who sat in the seat of Moses. (Mt. 23:2) However, this authority obviously did not require or infer that all that those who have the power to bind and loose possess ensured infallibility, so that what they bind/loose on earth results in the same in Heaven.
For the "Whatsoever" of "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth..." in Mt. 18;18 is subject to conformity with the word and will of God, as is the "any thing" in the binding/loosing promised in the next verse: "if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven." (Matthew 18:19) Likewise, And all things, "whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." (Matthew 21:22) As such must be consistent with Christ: "If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it." (John 14:14)
Therefore, rather than the autocratic power that the Roman magisterium uniquely presumes ensured infallibility (which some hold applies to papal elections, and such statements as consign all who dissent from Rome to the lake of fire), instead, both the validity of magisterial judgments and spiritual binding/loosing are subject to what Scripture teaches. However, consistent with this binding/loosing power Peter judged Ananias and Saphira as guilty of a capital crime: "How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out." (Acts 5:9)
And Paul, in union with a local church, bound an impenitent incestuous man: "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." (1 Corinthians 5:4-5)
And likewise exhorted the church to loose the man from his chastisement by dropping the charges: "Sufficient to such a man is this punishment, which was inflicted of many...So that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow...To whom ye forgive any thing, I forgive also: for if I forgave any thing, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it in the person of Christ." (2 Corinthians 2:6,7,10) Moreover, in addition to formal judicial magisterial judgments in union with the church, (Mt. 18:15-17; 1Co. 5:4,5; 2 Cor. 2:7,10; cf. Dt. 17;8-13) there is also spiritual binding and loosing which is available to all believers.
For "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth.." goes with the next verse, "that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name," (Matthew 18:18-20) and which certainly is not restricted to the magisterium, but includes all such as have Elijah-type fervent faith and prayer, who bound the Heavens by his prayers for 3.5 years and loosed them. (James 5:14-18)
Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. (James 5:17-18)
And the proceeding context in which James states this was is in regards to obtaining forgiveness of sins, such as being delivered from chastisement for them via the intercession of elders (not called "priests"), but the only place in the NT which exhorts confession of sins is not toward a distinctive class of sacerdotal Catholic priests but is toward each other:
Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. (James 5:16)
Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins. (James 5:19-20)
But as with other examples of binding/loosing this does not translate into promising that whatever the Catholic magisterium (uniquely) decrees will be God's word and will when doing so in accordance with her scope and subject-based criteria. That is what you must defend, which Mt 16+18 nor anything else simply does not teach.