What hide this author displays to state that there was only one church from 1 to 1000AD.

Bull! Show us the evidence!

One minute spent on Wikipedia turned up the following "Both branches of Orthodox Christianity, together with what is now the Roman Catholic Church, were united and single until the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, after which they were divided..."

Only a fool would ignore the eastern orthodox religions in a discussion of early Christianity, and this accounts nothing for unrecorded and small scale schisms which no doubt occurred during the first 100 years of the church and have been repeated frequently to the present day over matters as insignificant as Latin masses or as substantial as those on Martin Luthor's list, or even which city would be the papal seat (Avignon, France or Rome, Italy, each with their own Pope).

As to whether those who are not Roman Catholics give a fig for the retirement of their CEO, there is scant evidence of that either, beyond the usual factually askew and anti-science storytelling which fills our news and current affairs programs. I, for one, take news items about the Pope or any pope as an invitation to change channels.

Gypsy:

...Carl Jung warned of the dangers in becoming a professional dream interpreter. Dreams are personally tailored phenomena, deeply attached to the subconscious with meanings to be unraveled only by the dreamer:

...Likewise with religion and Biblical interpretations. What matters in life is that ultimately nothing matters: Stop worrying!

There is indeed much to dislike in this piece of flummery.

"... there could be no greater surprise than the news that Pope Benedict XVI will step down from the Papacy on 28 February"

Oh, I don't know. How about "Pope Benedict insists that all paedophile priests should be immediately prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and with the unequivocal backing of every member of the Roman Catholic Church".

That would have been a far greater surprise, don't you think?

And this is the most superb piece of tap-dancing imaginable:

"While it is acknowledged that about eight Pope's across the last 2000 years have lived morally or politically corrupt lives on a personal level, no Pope has ever, in his office as Pope, contradicted the teaching of the Christian faith."

"About eight?" That in itself is an admission that there could have been many more, that were just a little more discreet with their peccadillos.

But for goodness' sake - "no Pope has ever, in his office as Pope, contradicted the teaching of the Christian faith".

This is, presumably, "one of the eight"...

http://www.nndb.com/people/159/000092880/

And this one too?

http://one-evil.org/content/people_15c_john_xxiii.html

If these gentlemen's lifestyles do not "contradict the teachings of the church", then I hate to think what would.

Hey Daffy, loved the "dabase" links - they were almost as funny as the Onion article...

They are meant to be humour, right?

This article regurgitates lots of RC propaganda masquerading as historical facts, but some points really can’t be left unchallenged.

JohnBennets hand Pericles have already pointed out the absurdity of some claims.

I want to take issue with this point:

“The Pope cannot decide however to ordain women as priests, because most simply, Jesus did not do that and the Pope would be going beyond his mandate.”

Look at your bible, and you’ll see Jesus didn’t ordain any priests, male or female. Or deacons, or bishops, or pastors – let alone a pope. These things arose in the early church, but not during Jesus’ lifetime. Indeed, the priests and religious leaders conspired with the Roman political authorities to have Jesus killed.

Jesus did select a group of special followers around him, but this included women. Women, not men, were the first witnesses to the resurrection. The early church included women as leaders. Many theologians regard Mary as the first and most exemplary disciple.

If the pope were to follow Jesus’ example he would have no hierarchy of priests and bishops but a collection of followers, male and female, committed to service, healing and evangelism. At which point, I might become a catholic.

Yes, speaking of the "exemplary lives" of most of the poops why not google The Criminal History of the Papacy by Tony Bushby.
Or the sex lives of the poops.