As you say, the laity can “make their views known” to the clergy. They cannot, however, follow their conscience. For after making their views known (which presumably represent their consciences), they must receive a judgement or teaching or instruction regarding them, and then obey them - despite what they might still believe on their own.
I’m not slighting it, I’m just acknowleging it. Catholicism is based on obedience to Papal and Clergy authority, and the laity is simply not authorized to make decisions about their own faith. Opinions are one thing, obedience is another. Catholics accept this state of affairs as central to their Catholicism. I’m just noting its existence. And I’m also noting the difference between a non-Catholic and a Catholic having opinions about doctrine - the former follows their own opinions, the latter cannot. So there is a fundamental, yet unacknowledged difference between the two in the use of the concept of “opinion.”
As for Catherine of Siena and Thomas Aquinas instructing the Church, you’ll note they are Saints. There are many in the history of the Church who also sought to instruct the Church who were not acknowledged as Saints, and thus were excommunicated, burned, or otherwise erased. I’dd say that’s a pretty high bar for insisting on one’s own opinion as a Catholic, and not very supportive of an argument that Catholics are free to follow their own minds.
Catholicism is based on obedience to Papal and Clergy authority, and the laity is simply not authorized to make decisions about their own faith.
I get the distinct impression you aren't Catholic. Am I right? No Catholic would say or believe this. It is not what "Catholicism is based on" and isn't even a part of our ethos. This strikes me as some outsider's prejudiced assumption about what we do and believe.
Opinions are one thing, obedience is another.
In this you are right. Which is why it is so strange that you keep talking about obedience when I have been discussing opinions.
Catholics accept this state of affairs as central to their Catholicism.
No, we do not accept anything like what you are describing as central to anything. I promise you that. No Catholic I have ever known in my life would accede to the strange notions you have laid out as being what they practise. Not even close.
As for Catherine of Siena and Thomas Aquinas instructing the Church, you’ll note they are Saints.
Exactly, and when were they given that honor? Was it at birth so that they could behave in ways that, you say, the Church does not allow? What a strange idea, and also entirely not one which could ever be confused with Catholicism. But, no, that is not how it has happened. They were just Catholics during their life, but were then recognized as saints specifically because they lived lives worthy of recognition. In other words, they were thoroughly Catholic and models of behaviour, not aberrations as you seem to think. And, even more to the point, St. Thomas Aquinas was a teacher and what I referred to was something he taught others in the Church, and that teaching is held up by the Church as definitive.
There are many in the history of the Church who also sought to instruct the Church who were not acknowledged as Saints, and thus were excommunicated, burned, or otherwise erased.
Oh yeah, you aren't Catholic. This is just Dan Brown fiction. None of what you are arguing is true. The Church is founded on truth, not power. Your model is one of force, but that is just what you want to believe. The Church teaches the true faith, and has done so from the beginning. It calls the faithful, all the faithful, to live according to the truth and to instruct the ignorant wherever or whoever they may be. Your notions are as foreign to us as the teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses.