The fallacy of misplaced concreteness.
Maybe we should work on a "compound" image rather than an edifice. Maybe the cabins at a summer camp?
Did you ever make your own beer? About 8-12 hours after you put yeast in the "wort" it's like the fermentation vat that ate Manhattan! It's got foam and nasty looking stuff, and the bubbling of the fermentation lock sounds like a distant machine gun.
That would be a more better analogy.
The official reason why is the "principle of subsidiarity", which is (more or less) that decisions should be made and actions undertaken at the most local and "lowest" level.
(related principles are, "It's easier to get forgiveness than permission," and "if it ain't OBVIOUSLY broke, don't mess with it, much less attempt to fix it.")
Much to my surprise, my pastor had not heard the chestnut, "I don't believe in organized religion, I'm a Catholic." When I unleashed it yesterday at "chapter" (the monthly meeting of the local mob of lay-Dominicans) he laughed politely, and then it hit him, and he laughed with surprise at the aptness of it.
It is a little known truth that at least among Roman Catholics, we are members of our local Diocese. I was received and confirmed in "The Church of Richmond."
Maybe I said this before, But I remember during the Elian Gonzales mess, some Protestant asked me why the Pope didn't just command the sisters who were giving him refuge for a while there not to hand him over.
I don't think the Pope COULD give that command legitimately. And if he could, he'd have trouble making it stick if the sisters were intent on Handing the poor kid over.
IN the Montesquieu view of gummint, sure the Vatican has some executive powers, but it's much more like a Supreme Court. Yes, the Pope appoints bishops. But consider in a church this large how little power he has in that. He doesn't have a complete dossier on every thought and deed of the clergy who might be considered to be appointed. So he listens to other bishops who might know some of the candidates and the candidates current bishop, and maybe they know some people in common (e.g. my pastor studied with the Pope) and so forth.
But as a political organization, a polity, it's all held together with baling wire and spit.
In the Horatio Hornblower novels I learned that a Commodore has to ASK the captain of the ship where he is to do stuff. Of course, in the English Navy, the captain had better assent.
There's something similar in the Church, in style if not written down somewhere.
What those on the outside read about is "infallibility" and so forth. But on the ground, it's WAY more complex and, as I say much more like a poorly run summer camp than a quasi-military or even corporate entity.
As a consideration: In the sheriff's office the sheriff can hire and fire at will. There is no grievance right. That's true in most "Commonwealth" type states where "Sheriff" is a constitutional office. But the sheriff does not have all that much power, and such as he has must be exercised more by threat than by action. And since the Sheriff is elected every four years, while chief deputies, who really know the office and the men, can pass from sheriff to sheriff, the wise Sheriff listens to his chief deputy and other deputies of rank and only messes with them in extreme situations. It just has to be that way.
My SIL used to be a bureaucrat in an International Health outfit that contracted with the gummint. Remember when Carter was elected, he was going to clean up the bureaucracy?
Can you say "Passive Aggressive"? I thought you could.
So because of the realities of communication, command & control, and all that, AND because of the conscious effort to push decisions and actions DOWN the polity and OUT from the Vatican, the "Edifice" doesn't really work that well, or isn't that apt.
/EOR (end of rant)
I’ll have to ponder your well made points a bit more.
Much, much appreciate this thoughtful analysis and perspective.
Yeah, bureaucracies can be full of passive aggressiveness.
However, it doesn’t usually prevent them from mangling the serfs.
Maybe I’ll have to come up with a better term. I’ll continue to prayerfully ponder it.
Maybe RC ... Pentecostal . . . Lutheran . . . etc. club is about as good as I can come up with. Pondering.
Can you, dear Bro, appreciate that for so many of my Protty cohorts . . . the contention on the one hand
(A) “OUR DOGMA IS MONOLITHIC, CONSISTENT, PRISTINE, UNIFIED, HOMOGENEOUS ETC. FROM 400 YEARS [BEFORE THE ORG EXISTED] TO THIS MOMENT
and on the other hand
(B) “WE’RE A MESS. WE’VE ALWAYS BEEN A MESS. But by some list of ineffable miracles, our being an utter mess organizationally, leader-ship-wise; magicsterically, etc. etc. etc. has in no wise lessened our infallibility as the supreme everything of the Christian Church.
We cannot imagine that anyone would pretend that any organization could have it both ways. The RC club/org Can’t have it both ways.