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Is this why we have an uninterrupted lineage of Popes since Saint Peter and why our Basilicas and Cathedrals are built on the bones of Christ’s Apostles?
I’m going to correct your misgivings by pointing out that to the (Roman) Catholicity of the Early Church and Saint Peter (and Paul’s) Roman Residency.
(1) Catholicity of the Early Church
(A) Saint Polycarp of Smyrna
For, having through patience overcome the unjust governor, and thus acquired the crown of immortality, he now, with the apostles and all the righteous [in heaven], rejoicingly glorifies God, even the Father, and blesses our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of our souls, the Governor of our bodies, and the Shepherd of the Catholic Church throughout the world. (Martyrdom of Polycarp A.D. 156)
(B) Saint Justin Martyr
For the men of former generations, who instituted private and public rites in honor of such as were more powerful, caused forgetfulness of the Catholic Faith to take possession of their posterity… (On the Sole Government of God).
(C) Saint Iranaeus of Lyon
But [the superior skill spoken of] is not found in this, that any one should, beyond the Creator and Framer [of the world], conceive of the Enthymesis of an erring Æon, their mother and his, and should thus proceed to such a pitch of blasphemy; nor does it consist in this, that he should again falsely imagine, as being above this [fancied being], a Pleroma at one time supposed to contain thirty, and at another time an innumerable tribe of Æons, as these teachers who are destitute of truly divine wisdom maintain; while the Catholic Church possesses one and the same faith throughout the whole world, as we have already said. (Against Heresies A.D. 180).
(D) Saint Clement of Alexandria
Therefore in substance and idea, in origin, in pre-eminence, we say that the ancient and Catholic Church is alone, collecting as it does into the unity of the one faith—which results from the peculiar Testaments, or rather the one Testament in different times by the will of the one God, through one Lord—those already ordained, whom God predestinated, knowing before the foundation of the world that they would be righteous. (The Stromata).
(E) Caius the Presbyter
And John too, indeed, in the Apocalypse, although he writes only to seven churches, yet addresses all. He wrote, besides these, one to Philemon, and one to Titus, and two to Timothy, in simple personal affection and love indeed; but yet these are hallowed in the esteem of the Catholic Church, and in the regulation of ecclesiastical discipline. There are also in circulation one to the Laodiceans, and another to the Alexandrians, forged under the name of Paul, and addressed against the heresy of Marcion; and there are also several others which cannot be received into the Catholic Church, for it is not suitable for gall to be mingled with honey. (Fragments).
(F) Pope Saint Cornelius (A.D. 253)
There was one voice from all, giving thanks to God; all were expressing the joy of their heart by tears, embracing them as if they had this day been set free from the penalty of the dungeon. And to quote their very own words —“We,” they say, “know that [Pope] Cornelius is bishop of the most holy Catholic Church elected by Almighty God, and by Christ our Lord. We confess our error; we have suffered imposture; we were deceived by captious perfidy and loquacity. For although we seemed, as it were, to have held a kind of communion with a man who was a schismatic and a heretic, yet our mind was always sincere in the Church. For we are not ignorant that there is one God; that there is one Christ the Lord whom we have confessed, and one Holy Spirit; and that in the Catholic Church there ought to be one bishop.” (Letter 45: To Saint Cyprian).
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