The Church Will Always Have a Visible Existence

Diamond: Just as David's throne could remain empty for over 500 years until Christ came to sit upon it through his Messianic mission, the chair of St. Peter or the office of the papacy could be empty for an extended period of timeuntil Christ returns in his second coming. The problem with this argument is that the church teaches that there will never be a time when there are no visible successors of the apostles and no successor of St.Peter. Pope Leo XIII said the church must uniformly remain to the end of time. If it did not, then it would not have been founded as perpetual," Diamond says.