Do Protestants Need a Pope?

It has been one week since the solar flare of activity ignited in the blogosphere as a result of The Beckwith Incident . I have noted that this has caused many bloggers to comment that Evangelicals need to better define what they are. Perhaps they have been more defined in the past by what they are not. One of the advantages that I have noted in my three years as a new Catholic is the unity and identity brought about by the papacy. The papacy defines and ensures the compact unity of the Church as Karl Adams explains in the Spirit of Catholicism:

"But when he speaks as pope, as successor of St. Peter, then he speaks with a divine authority that demands the obedience of all the faithful; he speaks as the visible basis and pledge of unity, out of the compact fullness of the Body of Christ, as that principle in which the supra-personal unity of the Body of Christ has achieved visible reality for the world of space and time."

An article written by evangelical theology professor , D. S. Long, two years ago ponders the notion of whether Protestants need a pope. Given the recent conversion and the controversy it has engendered, this article is more apropo today than it was two years ago. Check it out here.