It should be obvious, given all that we Catholics, right here on this FR forum, say about man's need to cooperate with God's grace, that all this talk about earthly authority within the episcopacy and papacy PRESUPPOSES the idea that the Holy Spirit guides the process Jesus established to rule the Church till He comes.
It is obvious from everything around us as living beings here on earth that it is part of God's plan to leave us to walk with faith along the path to eternal life He has chosen for us. He leaves us to self-govern, by external appearances, in most of our affairs. He *helps* us, when we cooperate with His grace and run our affairs according to His plan, but He does not simply do everything for us. He does NOT rule "directly," though He certainly *could* if He chose. The mere fact that He hasn't and doesn't *should* tell you something.
But, it must be pointed out, it is just as clear that He does not bestow everyone with equal gifts. The passage from Ephesians 4 that I cited earier today should make the principle clear enough. That, combined with the self-evident principle that private interpretation of Scripture is a short route to chaos (as Peter himself says in 2Peter 1:20 and 2Peter 3:15-17), makes it plain that the average laymen are not their own law with regard to Scripture. You would have it so, apparently, but that is not part of God's plan.
YOU say thae Church perverted Scripture, but the reference-standard here is yourself. I say that, quite to the contrary, the Church has NOT perverted Scripture at all. We would be at an impasse, with your word no better than mine, were there not other things to consider. Christ wanted the Church to be "one." So did St. Paul. This unity was effected by submission to the authority of the Church as a body, through the episcopacy, because it IS the will of God, and that will we submit to through faith. This was the ONLY Christian understanding of this matter until the 16th Century. Pride has had its way with those who separated from the fullness of the Church, and division upon division has been your plague ever since. Indeed, that spirit, spread throughout the world, has of late even affected individuals in Catholicism. May such dvision be healed from the top-down! We have hope for it, as it is only a recent and not yet totally pervasive malady within our communion. I pray that you will one day be healed of it, too, though I imagine it will be long in coming. God, after all, does not often overtly show His hand to make us act out of compulsion, as already noted.
Pax Domini.