What did the early bishops inherit?

Yes. Clement says the apostles appointed ministers and provided for approved successors. He uses that principle to defend ministers who were removed at Corinth.

You grant the evidence for succession in ministry. Now ask what office the successors held and what responsibilities accompanied it.

Clement was dealing with a local dispute, so the letter tells us nothing about succession.

The local dispute is why Clement discusses succession. The letter’s explicit account of appointments and replacements matters.

He appeals to a public line of leaders and teaching against the claim that the apostles secretly passed a different message to an elite.

That explains why the names matter. The list and Irenaeus’s account of what the churches preached reinforce each other.

The list is only a record of who had a title, so it tells us nothing about what survived.

Irenaeus names the bishops to trace the teaching they preserved. Address that claim directly before asking whether the same line also carried every governing authority.

What shows that Christ committed the full governing commission permanently to the body of bishops? I want to distinguish that claim from the evidence that bishops were appointed.

You have identified the disputed step. Vatican II teaches that bishops collectively succeed to apostolic authority in communion with the pope. Engage the sources for that claim.

A bishop would have to be one of the original Twelve for Catholic succession to make sense.

Catholic teaching is that bishops continue the apostles’ mission as successors. It does not identify them as the original Twelve.

The Restoration still needs its own case. D&C 27 identifies Peter, James, and John as the source of apostolic ordination and keys. We can examine the records and what they claim.

That puts the burden where it belongs. Show what the ancient records establish, then test the positive claims about the Restoration.

Yes. If the bishops’ case is incomplete, that proves the Restoration.

A gap in one account does not supply the evidence for another. The LDS claim involves specific events and deserves to be examined on those terms.