If you were to meet the pope....or say an archbishop...do you kneel before them?
Depends on context. If you were to be knighted, would you kneel before the king? There is also the question of respecting the person and respecting what the person stands for.
If given the opportunity, I would kneel before the Pope and kiss his ring-—or better yet, kneel before him to receive Holy Communion. I don’t think it would give him warm fuzzy feelings, and would telegraph that I greatly respect the office and the Church, but as for the personal tastes of the man, I am not out to stroke his ego or feed his false humility.
If you refused to kiss his ring and defended his recycling, and insisted on receiving Communion in the paw, Francis would find you simpatico in a way that I am sure I would not be simpatico.
But I’m not here to stroke the egos of churchmen-—I’m here to follow Christ.
Or as the final four lines of the final verse of Way Down in New Orleans by the Hillbilly Thomists says:
Cutting all ties with the prince of lies, face the music, preach the truth, that’s what we came here to do
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKEtajrMY-0&list=OLAK5uy_mjX9ENlde5hqIffxA-t0qVaSkEdCxanZI&index=24
Traditionally, one bent the left knee before sovereigns, and the right knee before God. In pledging one’s allegiance, the tradition was to do so while kneeling. Demons don’t humble themselves before anybody, so in Medieval art they are portrayed as having no knees.
The modern liturgy has canned a fair bit of the traditional kneeling, and what one does with Bishops may vary somewhat in comparison to what is done with a simple priests.
Hope that helps.
You probably won’t like Bourbon, Bluegrass and the Bible-—but you can try it on for size. (Another song by the Hillbilly Thomists, composed by the head of the University of St. Thomas in Rome (better known as the Angelicum) during the height of the lockdowns. He’s a small town Georgia boy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKEtajrMY-0&list=OLAK5uy_mjX9ENlde5hqIffxA-t0qVaSkEdCxanZI&index=24