I think "my faith" would be a more accurate rendering, unless perhaps you are jointly posting with your spouse. It seems to me that you are a Catholic by your own admission. I have found in my experience, a strong tendency amongst Catholics who have journeyed away from the Catholic Church on another path, be it Christian oriented, another faith, or no faith at all tend to be overly angry, harsh and critical toward the Catholic Church. It seems to me to be a fault and not a virtue.
It is also seems to me that nonCatholic assemblies, especially Evangelical and Fundamentalists tend to be dominated by personality and evoke an authority/submission paradigm more than the Catholic Church where the designated clergy operate more as servants despite all appearances. This may even be reflected in the salaries where Catholic clergy appear to be paid the least.
I think "my faith" would be a more accurate rendering, unless perhaps you are jointly posting with your spouse. It seems to me that you are a Catholic by your own admission.
No, as i am sure others likewise marvels at the seeming inability to conceive how we cannot follow such men as popes.
It is also seems to me that nonCatholic assemblies, especially Evangelical and Fundamentalists tend to be dominated by personality
They do have personalities, and which do have influence on the "personality" of the church, as is true in Rome, esp. of papal personality, but if meant like uncritically following men as popes, then that is a mark of a cult.
and evoke an authority/submission paradigm more than the Catholic Church where the designated clergy operate more as servants despite all appearances.
Typical Catholic contrivance, in which (conditional) assured infallibility is ascribed, and thus implicit submission to a man as if to a god is required, and even bowing to such (which Peter refused from a lost man and believers are never shown doing, as "all ye are brethren"), and the prelates under which are said to have God submitting them them, and are clothed in gaudy ostentatious clothing and lordy titles - against which the Lord warned - are said to be "servants versus masters to be served. In that sense the Caesars which medieval papacy was much patterned after were servants
VEHEMENTER NOS, Encyclical of Pope Pius X promulgated on February 11, 1906:
It follows that the Church is essentially an unequal society, that is, a society comprising two categories of per sons, the Pastors and the flock, those who occupy a rank in the different degrees of the hierarchy and the multitude of the faithful. So distinct are these categories that with the pastoral body only rests the necessary right and authority for promoting the end of the society and directing all its members towards that end; the one duty of the multitude is to allow themselves to be led, and, like a docile flock, to follow the Pastors.
St. Ignatius once said that should the Pope command him to undertake a voyage by sea in a ship without a mast, without oars or sails, he would blindly obey the precept. And when he was told that it would be imprudent to expose his life to danger, he answered that prudence is necessary in Superiors; but in subjects the perfection of prudence is to obey without prudence. - St. Alphonsus De Liguori, True Spouse of Christ, p. 68 http://wallmell.webs.com/LiguoriTrueSpouseChristVol1.pdf
Catholic Encyclopedia>Kiss: The veneration shown in the kissing of a person's hand or the hem of his garment is accentuated in the kissing of the feet. This is probably implied by the phrase of Isaias (49:23): "Kings...shall lick up the dust of Thy feet." Under the influence, no doubt, of the ceremonial of king-worship, as manifested in the cultus of the Roman emperors, this particular mark of veneration came to prevail at an early date among the usages of the papal court
At the election of Leo IV (847) the custom of so kissing the pope's foot was spoken of as an ancient one... Innocent III explains that this ceremony indicates "the very great reverence due to the Supreme Pontiff as the Vicar of Him whose feet" were kissed by the woman who was a sinner. - http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08663a.htm
That of the pope alone all princes shall kiss the feet.
That a sentence passed by him may be retracted by no one; and that he himself, alone of all, may retract it. That he himself may be judged by no one. That no one shall dare to condemn one who appeals to the apostolic chair. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/g7-dictpap.asp
As Peter was given a new name so does the new Supreme Pontiff become known by another. After the election he extends his first blessing to the people -- a Benediction which was not given in the open for years until Pope Pius XI established the custom.
The Coronation, one of the most magnificent of Vatican Ceremonies, takes place shortly after the election. With the Pope carried high in a golden chair and attended by brilliantly attired chamberlains and soldiers, the Coronation Mass is an unrivaled spectacle of beauty, dignity, and ancient pageantry. At the Coronation, in the midst of the pomp and splendor, a master of ceremonies recites in Latin: "Holy Father, thus does the glory of the world pass away." As the first Cardinal Deacon places the three-crowned Tiara on the head of the Pope, he says: "Receive the three-crowned Tiara, and know that thou are the Father of Princes and Kings, the Pastor of the earth, and Vicar of Jesus Christ, to Whom be honor and glory forever. Amen." The CORONATION of Pope Pius XII took place on the balcony of St. Peter's in March 1939. (From the book "The Vatican and Holy Year" by Stephen S. Fenichell & Phillip Andrews -- 1950 edition. http://www.users.qwest.net/~slrorer/ReunionOfChristendom.htm)
“With regard to the mystic body of Christ, that is, all the faithful, the priest has the power of the keys, or the power of delivering sinners from hell, of making them worthy of paradise, and of changing them from the slaves of Satan into the children of God. And God himself is obliged to abide by the judgment of his priests, and either not to pardon or to pardon, according as they refuse or give absolution, provided the penitent is capable of it. " Such is," says St. Maximus of Turin, " this judiciary power ascribed to Peter that its decision carries with it the decision of God." 2 The sentence of the priest precedes, and God subscribes to it. .” – Dignity and Duties of the Priest, St. Alphonsus Ligouri, Vol. 12, p. 2 (whose writings were declared free from anything meriting censure by Pope Gregory XVL (1839) in the bull of his canonization). http://www.archive.org/stream/alphonsusworks12liguuoft/alphonsusworks12liguuoft_djvu.txt
The supreme power of the priestly office is the power of consecrating...Indeed, it is equal to that of Jesus Christ...When the priest pronounces the tremendous words of consecration, he reaches up into the heavens, brings Christ down from His throne, and places Him upon our altar to be offered up again as the Victim for the sins of man...Indeed it is greater even than the power of the Virgin Mary [who is said to be all but almighty herself]...The priest speaks and lo! Christ, the eternal and omnipotent God, bows his head in humble obedience to the priest's command.
Of what sublime dignity is the office of the Christian priest who is thus privileged to act as the ambassador and the vice-gerent of Christ on earth! He continues the essential ministry of Christ: he teaches the faithful with the authority of Christ, he pardons the penitent sinner with the power of Christ, he offers up again the same sacrifice of adoration and atonement which Christ offered on Calvary. No wonder that the name which spiritual writers are especially fond of applying to the priest is that of alter Christus. For the priest is and should be another Christ. (John A. O'Brien, Ph.D., LL.D., The Faith of Millions, 255-256 , O'Brien. Nihtt obstat: Rev. Lawrence Gollner, Censor Librorum Imprimatur: Leo A. Pursley, Bishop of Fort Wayne,-South Bend, March 16, 1974
The most angry, bitter, verbally abusive Catholics I have encountered are fallen away Protestants who have "crossed the Tiber".