Catholics do revere the Pope and Mormons do revere Joseph Smith. To Catholics not accepting the Pope is to not accept the doctrines of The Church, while that may not seem a big deal to us it is a big deal to them because the doctrines of The Church include the Godhood of Jesus Christ and what we now call the Apostles Creed.
The same is true in the Mormon Church. If you don't accept Joseph Smith then you can't accept a portion of the doctrines of the LDS Church because he first promulgated them. There are doctrines of The LDS that if not accepted then in the eyes of That Church you can't be saved into the highest heaven.
When we enter the next life or at sometime after that we will likely see all truth and learn if the Universal Church is after all the Church Peter led or some other. We will find if the Mormon Church is the re-institution of that Church that Peter led or some other. We will learn whether the doctrine of Transubstantiation is real or silliness.
There is much then we will learn and we will likely learn that what really mattered in this life is whether or not we followed Jesus Christ to the best of our ability.
The Pope could be evil but it doesn't make the Catholics evil. Joseph Smith could be evil but it doesn't make the LDS evil.
Barack Obama is evil but it doesn't mean that Americans are evil. One more parting thought, it is the Catholics who brought us what we have of the Gospel, it is they who nurtured it through the many centuries. If there is a protestant religion it is only Catholicism lite. Mormonism makes more of your argument of the dead Catholic Church than you do. The Mormons believe you can't take a part of a dead church and bring the whole of it back to life, they believe that a new church had to be started without using the ashes of the old. Active Catholics and Mormons on the whole are the salt of the earth. They are the very best of people and the very best of Christian Love. More power to them. They may not believe what I believe but then again I may not believe what they believe except that we all love Jesus and Him being raised from the dead so that we too may be raised from the dead to live with Him forever.
What is the Gospel of this new covenant Jesus established with His own precious blood, shed while upon that cross, spread upon the Mercy Seat in Heaven above the laws od sin and death establishing freedom from those laws and offered to any whole will believe He is Savior and THEIE ONLY MEANS to obtain God's life in them? ... Did you catch that? I just put the Gospel of the new covenant in the question. See it? What regimen of sacraments and toil did the folks in the house of Cornelius go through to have God's Holy Spirit enter them, giving them immediately Eternal Life?
No one I know would disagree with what you have just stated.
However, BOTH groups will insist until Jesus returns that ONLY their organization is CORRECT!
Does LDS here mean the MEMBERS or the Organization?
The latter is SURELY evil; while the members (some at least) are merely deceived.
Dang!
I'm channeling TRUMP!