[Sir Francis Dashwood]

And, as to the Bishop of Rome...

For, from the time that the Bishop of Rome had gotten to be acknowledged for bishop universal, by pretence of succession to St. Peter, their whole hierarchy, or kingdom of darkness, may be compared not unfitly to the kingdom of fairies; that is, to the old wives' fables in England concerning ghosts and spirits, and the feats they play in the night.

And if a man consider the original of this great ecclesiastical dominion, he will easily perceive that the papacy is no other than the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof: for so did the papacy start up on a sudden out of the ruins of that heathen power.

Thomas Hobbes. Leviathan, 1651

[HiTech RedNeck]

Which is certainly a polar opposite view from what the Roman Catholic popes call themselves.

But sometimes both poles, in a question that is polarized among worldly lines, are wrong.

A valid member of a valid Christian group (due to the Lord) which is, nonetheless, erring... does not often come into discussion. That would say less about the Pope than the Roman Catholics want, and yet more about him than most evangelicals will say. It’s hard to factor the worldly way of loyalty to earthly organizations out of our thinking.