Actually the Catholic Church has changed over the years. The idea of papal infallibility is from the 1800s. Pope John XX111 had a huge impact. He tried to return the Church from a hierarchical, institution which reinforced anti-semitism into one in which the priests and nuns as well as the laity shared authority. He, as far as I know, did not touch the homoerotic elements of a Church preferring males and keeping an exclusively male leadership. Pope John terrified the fundamentalists who then elected 2 reactionary popes. They both, failed the great moral test of the 20th century and colluded with fascism. Benedict (formerly Ratzinger) was in the Hitler Youth. His great moral defense was that everyone was doing it. Ratzinger was appointed by his predecessor and used his position as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to change the rules and get himself elected pope, and to elevated his fundamentalist rigid, hierarchical buddies into power.

This Catholic Church crisis is a powerful one. It erodes the moral authority of the hierarchy and the delusion that it protects “the flock” who are not, now behaving like sheep. Feminism has swept the globe. Benedict’s condemnation of women who refuse to be “submissive,” his investigations into uppity “independent US nuns and his terrible decisions to keep crimes secret, have costs to him and his fundamentalist authoritarian “Brothers” and “Fathers” . There was a huge case in Brazil where the Bishop immediately excommunicated a little girl and her mother and her doctor. The hierarchy acted quickly in that case, to excommunicate a nine year old and her protectors because they arranged an abortion after she was raped and pregnant with twins. Her rapist was not excommunicated. That created a huge public furor in Brazil and throughout the world. They cancelled the excommunications. No one can govern without the people believing in them. Benedict is trying to defend the secret keeping hierarchy. I have no idea what will happen. However the Catholic Church is already ignored on issues of birth control, and abortion. At least in the US, the most abortions are performed on Catholics. Benedict’s insistence on the submission of women is widely ignored. Thirty thousand US nuns publicly defied the hierarchy and supported Obama’s Health Care Bill. Change in that hierarchical, authoritarian, misogynist looks promising.