Obedience.
The alternative is what the Episcopalians have. I can't imagine that the most rebellious Catholic really wants that.
You would be surprised ... at least, I was. There was a period in my parish (prior to my arrival) when they had no resident priest. The Diocese of Albany was still able to send them a RC priest to celebrate the NO liturgy each Sunday. During that phase, the parish council truly ran the parish. They made so many stupid decisions based on improper record keeping. This resulted in the selling off of properties accumulated over the nearly 100 years in which the community existed. Among the properties sold was their parish hall. This was one of their sources of income!
It wasn't until they had sold off everything, including the rectory, that they finally appealed to the bishop to send them a new pastor. To do this, they had to prove that there were at least 100 families in the parish. Talk about the dead voting! They cooked the books to make it look like the parish had more members than it did. Just about 8 years ago, the bishop offered a newly ordained priest the choice of one of two parishes - one was in Florida, the other here in upstate NY. The young priest, accustomed to the colder climes of northern Lebanon, chose this parish. His car broke down on the thruway en route and one of the parishioners picked him up. When he went to open the church doors on that first day, the locksmith across the street asked him if the bishop had sent him here to close the parish. It was that bad!
Today, we are temporarily celebrating our Sunday liturgy at a nearby RC Church while our existing church is undergoing major renovations with the monies received from an insurance claim following a major ice storm that perforated the church roof, allowing mold and mildew to permeate the entire building. While this is going on, the pastor is also completing the final work on his future recotry and collecting monies to match the grant received from NYS to restore the stained glass windows at our future church.
I mention all of this because those parishioners who asked the bishop to send them a priest, are upstarts who resent the work entailed in restoring the original parish. Initially they complained that they could not hold their weddings or other events in this church because it was too small; hence Father's blessing to acquire a new church with very limited resources. The bottom line here is that once the laity are given control over a parish, they are reluctant to relinquish it. They want all the benefits without any of the work.