re: Pope Francis endorses evolution and big bang

quote:

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The church of Rome added centralized power to the equation

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There was centralized power from the beginning, it just became easier for that power to be enforced after Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313 AD, bringing the persecutions of Christians to an end.

Pope St. Clement I is the earliest example of a Bishop in Rome exercising this authority when he wrote to the Corinthians in 90 AD. At the time of this letter, St. John the Apostle was still alive and well and was the Bishop of Ephesus - a church located much closer to Corinth than Rome was. Yet the Corinthians appealed directly to Rome for an answer to the chaos that was sprouting up there at that time. Clement's response, now known to us as the Epistle of St. Clement, was revered by the Church in Corinth for many centuries, often read aloud at mass. It was so revered in fact it almost made it into the Bible.