You’ve gotta think in terms of sociology. People aren’t just pledging fealty to the voice of god; though they do submit themselves, it’s still to a collective, social understanding of what they think being Catholic means.
Don’t get me wrong, the Pope has a lot of social influence, but if he was too obviously antagonistic to his own role, I think a lot of people would make up some gobbledygook about this one being poisoned by satan and they would just take him out. The material interest of keeping the Catholic machine going is more valuable than strictly adhering to literally anything and everything this one guy might say.
As an analogy, you don’t want to cool glass down too quickly because it will crack and shatter.
Yes?
You’ve gotta think in terms of sociology. People aren’t just pledging fealty to the voice of god; though they do submit themselves, it’s still to a collective, social understanding of what they think being Catholic means.
Don’t get me wrong, the Pope has a lot of social influence, but if he was too obviously antagonistic to his own role, I think a lot of people would make up some gobbledygook about this one being poisoned by satan and they would just take him out. The material interest of keeping the Catholic machine going is more valuable than strictly adhering to literally anything and everything this one guy might say.
As an analogy, you don’t want to cool glass down too quickly because it will crack and shatter.