I congradualate you MRN you done your homework well. I will admit I am not as educated on Catholicism as I should be (Catholicism is up next in school study), and I wish to withdraw my previous statements on the Vicar of Christ, but not the statement on Infallibility. Though I do have one thing to say about the Vicar of Christ.
Let me explain one thing before I go more in depth, I am in no way religious. I love the study of religion and symbology within the church but am in no way religious in the aspect of believing in any doctrine of a God.
(John 14:6 NIV) Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
This statement is a powerful one and makes me question the total authority that the catholic church says it has by being the only way to Heaven.
Logically speaking, could you explain how such contraditions can occur and with explaination?
"Call no man on earth your father; for one is your Father, who is in heaven’'! (Matt. 23:9).
This one also makes me doubt such authority, Yet everyday you shall find priests being called father. Explaination on this can be easily moved aside as just “Taking on the faithful role just as the Pope does” but that statement would still be going against the WORD of GOD.
No where does it certainly proclaim that I have seen does it state St. Peter would be the Pope and head of the Church, not only is Christ silent on this point, but so little does He think of giving a head to the church, that when He promises to His apostles to judge the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt. 19:28), He promises them twelve thrones, one for each, without saying that among those thrones one shall be higher than the others - which shall belong to Peter. Certainly, if He had wished that is should be so, He would have said it. What do we conclude from this sentence? Logic tells us that Christ did not wish to make St. Peter the head of the apostolic college. When Christ sent the apostles to conquer the world, to all He gave the promise of the Holy Spirit. Permit me to repeat it: if He had wished to constitute Peter His vicar, He would have given him the chief command over His spiritual army. Christ - so says the Holy Scripture - forbade Peter and his colleagues to reign or to exercise lordship, or to have authority over the faithful like the kings of the Gentiles (St. Luke 22:25). If St. Peter had been elected pope, Jesus would not have spoken thus; but according to our tradition, the papacy holds in its hands two swords, symbols of spiritual and temporal power.
One thing has suprised me very much. Turning it over in my mind, I said to myself, If Peter had been elected Pope, would his colleagues have been permitted to send him with St. John to Samaria to announce the gospel of the Son of God? What do you think, venerable brethren, if at this moment we permitted ourselves to send his holiness Pius IX. and his Excellency Mons. Plantier to go to the Patriarch of Constantinople, to pledge him to put an end to the Eastern schism?
But here is another still more important fact. An Ecumenical Council is assembled at Jerusalem to decide on the questions which divide the faithful. Who would have called together this Council if St. Peter had been pope? St. Peter. Well, nothing of this occurred. The apostle assisted at the Council as all the others did, yet it was not he who summed up, but St. James; and when the decrees were promulgated, it was in the name of the apostles, the elders, and the brethren (Acts 15). Is it thus what we do in our church? The more I examine, O venerable brethren, the more I am convinced that in the scriptures the son of Jonas does not appear to be first.
Now, while I know the Cholic Church teaches that the church is built upon St. Peter. St. Paul (whose authority cannot be doubted) says, in his epistle to the Ephesians 2:20, it is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone. And the same apostle believes so little in the supremacy of St. Peter, that he openly blames those who would say, We are of Paul, We are of Apollos (I Cor. 1:12), as those who say, We are of Peter.
If therefore this last apostle had been the vicar of Christ, St. Paul would have taken great care not to censure so violently those who belonged to his own colleagues.
Please further my knowledge of the Catholic ways so that I might understand how such blasphemies are Unblasphemistic?..
Lasko