The best way to analogize this is to compare modern Christianity to the US Courts. Catholicism saying "we made the scriptures, so we aren't bound by them and WE get to tell YOU what to believe" is almost exactly what those other hierarchal guys you posted do, as well as activist judges. in all three cases, you have some centralized power that nano-manages all aspects of the faith, and if you dissent, you are labeled "heretic", "judaizer", or some other negatively connotated word, and drummed out of the club. Christianity is not nearly as hard as people make it out to be, and it certainly is not supposed to be a source of political power.
I have a linear faith that says "God is the same today, yesterday, and tomorrow". I try to limit interpreting scripture to a bare minimum, and most often, one can use other scriptures to interpret the tough ones. Catholicism and modern Christianity have the same problem as the Courts - over interpretation leading to silly conclusions. If you say, "well, they aren't idols, they're icons, then one can redefine adultery as well to include homosexual clergy, no? If one says, "Well, the Sabbath is only for the Jews, we keep the Lord's Day", even thought there is no scriptural basis for this whatsoever, then why not keep permit covetousness as well?
Again, it all boils down to whether the scriptures matter to you or not. If they do, then conform your life and your faith to the clear standards of the Bible. If they don't, then submit to the will of the Catholic Church and conform your life to its ever evolving standards. There is no middle ground, IMO.
Reason and sense demand the acceptance of one or the other of these alternatives: either Protestantism and the keeping holy of Saturday or Catholicity and the keeping holy of Sunday. Compromise is impossible." James Cardinal Gibbons, Catholic Mirror, Dec. 23, 1893.
Catholicism saying "we made the scriptures, so we aren't bound by them and WE get to tell YOU what to believe" is almost exactly what those other hierarchal guys you posted do, as well as activist judges. in all three cases, you have some centralized power that nano-manages all aspects of the faith, and if you dissent, you are labeled "heretic", "judaizer", or some other negatively connotated word, and drummed out of the club.I know you'll be astonished to learn that I don't accept this characterization. I do sure get it (I think) because I believed something very like it for years. A friend said there has never been a heretical Pope and I thought that that was like saying Stalin was never wrong about Stalinism. (a)He defines it; and (b)You wanna tell him he's wrong? I sure ain't gonna!
It is wrong, I think, in some particulars and emphases. I would NOT agree with "nano-manages" (though I reserve the right to steal the phrase.) A lot of the management is downloaded to local conferences of bishops and such. Last year St Patrick's was on a Lenten Friday and we were dispensed from the fast by either our Bishop or the US conference of Bishops. That's pretty nano, but it was also comparatively local.
Also, as is evident in a current controversy about so-called Liberation theology, the wheels grind pretty slowly. WHen our former Bishop Walter the Pink was a little out of line, the Pope just strongly suggested that he accept as a Suffragan bishop someone more conspicuously down-the-middle. NO formal rebuke, no "labelling", just another bishop looking over your shoulder and ruining your day.
But my main disagreement is a frustratingly (to me) perceptual one. Rather than "we made the Scriptures" I'd suggest our attitude is more like "We grew organically with Scripture and Tradition." In some recent thread or "Sidebar" it was suggested that the Scriptures are not and never have been "Sola".
(I'm not trying to get agreement here, but to depict a concept or conceptual framework or outline) It's like the Spirit is advancing on broad front in the first 400-500 years as we nail down central doctrines, practices, scriptures, little by little. One thing leads to another and in the middle of it all suddenly the whole thing is LEGAL so the problem of how we relate to the state begins.
I think the main thing is that the distinction or even opposition of Church and Scripture or Tradition and Scripture is what it looks like to a Protestant, maybe. As I'm fond of saying, to us Scripture is a Tradition -- the jewel of traditions.
Of course, If you look at the Church and posit political organization, which, because it's bigger than a nuclear family and is in the world before the parousia, it must be, to some extent, you can see that it's different and without the same kind of structuring, governing, codified "supreme Law" as what our Constitution is supposed to be. it looks in fact, like a tyranny.
I think that's because what it IS is a family or more like a family than anything else, once you figure in what a family of a billion members would be like. And families, even small ones, are hard to nail down.
This is a young thought for me, so I'm not all that sure of it.