Sez Mike: Joe, you are still talking of all those highly educated, informed, in touch, with-it fellow-Catholics of yours in the developed western world: in the US in particular. You seem to take the Catholics you happen to know, of whose community you are a part, as ubiquitously typical. How insular! You seem to me to be wilfully ignoring my reiterated question...

Well, Mike, as I said before, my "highly educated, informed, in touch, with-it fellow-Catholics...in the developed western world" don't know what the Pope says, and generally don't care. Why is it that you think that Nigerian Catholics will be better informed and more concerned? My point is that the doctrine is not of the primary importance that you assign to it. What IS important to Catholics is worshiping together as a local community. The Pope rarely comes into consideration, among American Catholics, English Catholics, or Nigerian Catholics - and Catholics rarely know more than disconnected snippets, sound bites, of what he has to say. As an absolute monarch, the Pope is not very effective. Catholics (other than right-wing papal cultists) rarely pay much attention to him. They like seeing him on the balcony and getting his blessing when they visit Rome, but that's about it. Oh, and they think the popemobile is cool.

The essence of Catholicism is to worship God and love your neighbor. All this other stuff is rarely discussed.

-Joe-