that kinda takes us back to that central authority figure comment doesn’t it
No, it doesn’t. They are unrelated points.
To summarize:
Point 1: The Catholic Church has a single, worldwide leader, recognized in his position by Catholics and everyone else. Non-Catholics, anti-Catholics, “what’s a Catholic?s”, know that the Pope is leader of the Catholic Church.
Agreed?
Point 1a: Few other churches or Christian organizations have a similar figure.
Agreed?
Point 2: The sinfulness of any individual man or woman does not change the moral teaching of the Catholic Church. If Pope Benedict XVI were to prove to be an egregious sinner, like Pope Alexander VI, that would not affect the truth or falsehood of the Catholic Church’s moral teaching in any way. No Pope, good or bad, has ever said, “My personal behavior is the standard of Christian morality.”
Point 2a: If a priest sins, whether it’s by committing sodomy, or fornication, or the more prosaical gluttony or wrath, that has nothing to do with the truth or falsehood of the Catholic Faith. It is an axiom that all men sin. We are to have compassion for one another’s weakness, to exhort one another to repent and to improve, and to deligently exert ourselves to prevent harm to others.
Point 2b: It is claimed that the Church has fallen short in the last item, preventing harm to others. I agree, more should have been done. Some erred through ignorance, others through indifference or because of their personal sin. None of this is relevant to the point that sodomy is wrong, every time, all the time, no matter who does it, no matter how they feel about it.