No one stands between us and our Father in Heaven. Jesus same to save us from our sin and to remove EVERY barrier between us and our Father in Heaven.
A "pope" is an artificial, man-made barrier that doesn't need to be there. I was born and raised Catholic. Saw the light in 1992 and left Catholicism. It's a corrupt church, led by a corrupt man, with a corrupt bureaucracy that serves no other purpose than to separate man from Jesus Christ to profit itself.
That's how I see it and I wish my catholic (small c on purpose) friends would WAKE UP!
And yet it was Simon Peter -- the most flawed one of them all, who would later deny Christ three times on the day of His Passion and death -- who Christ selected as "the Rock upon which I will build My Church."
Just something to think about ...