And those who reject even this authority -- those who believe that every individual has the Spirit-given power to interpret God's Word unfiltered and straight -- become their own popes: a Papacy of One. This is the ultimate rejection of authority -- the decision to rely only on oneself as the final judge of Truth. "Ye shall become as gods, knowing good and evil".Ah, ... but we don't consider ourselves infallible in interpreting scripture. We remain open to God's authority to correct our misunderstandings.
However, in the case of Catholic doctrine declared by an ex-cathdra pronouncement by your Pope, you have decided that such is infallible, and thus, not open for correction, even by the very authority of God.
And how precisely does this correction happen? A mysterious finger writing on the wall? A booming voice from the skies? Tea leaves? Chicken guts? What?
However, in the case of Catholic doctrine declared by an ex-cathdra pronouncement by your Pope, you have decided that such is infallible, and thus, not open for correction, even by the very authority of God.
Unless provided by some direct supernatural means (see above), all doctrine must come from the mind of a man via speech or the written word. Protestant congregations and denominations are no exception: every doctrine they teach was spoken or written by a man, and is accepted by those who follow it as being infallible. The Lutherans have Pope Martin I; the Calvinists have their Pope Jean; Presbyterians look to His Holiness John Knox, and of course the Methodists derive the Method from the ex cathedra pronouncements of Pope Wesley. As for the Baptists, the Pentecostals, and the other "independent Bible churches", it's either Pope Scofield, Pope Billy Graham, or Pope Criswell -- or the local pope down in the local pulpit. And of course, all of these Protestant popes are ultimately subject to the pope that lives between one's ears: "Pope Me", a Papacy of One.
Our Pope derives his authority from Christ, who breathed upon St. Peter (whom He named "Rock") and said "upon this Rock I will build my Church, and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it." And that authority was passed down to the successors of Peter. At his own death, St. Peter laid his hands on St. Linus and transferred the Divine authority to him... and thence St. Linus to his successor... and so on down through the ages to the cardinals who passed it on to John Paul II. The authority to teach given by the Holy Spirit to our Pontiff trumps that of any other teacher -- Pope Me, the local pope, Pope Calvin, Pope Luther, and all others who purport to preach the Christian faith.
And the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. In the future (tarries the Lord), long after all the other pseudo-popes, denominations, heresies, schisms, and apostasies we know today are gone and forgotten, Christians on a distant planet circling another star will turn their eyes towards the city of Rome on the far-off planet Earth and acknowledge the Bishop who sits there-- and no other -- as the licit source of authoritative teaching.