The pope has about as much pull with god as the psychic friends network has with contacting your dead grandmother.
If you look at the church history, you see that the first five hundred years or so consists of them blending in the christain faith with paganism to get the hybrid that the catholic church is today. The next 1000 years consisted of them forcing their beliefs on the rest of europe that didn't like their pagan beliefs dilluted by christianity.
The pope, like most kings, emperors, czars, sheiks and whatever leadership you can think up of, believes that his authority is granted directly from god. Unless god himself comes down from heaven and puts that stupid little hat on his head, evidence is far to the contrary. Maybe I'd be a little more inclined to believe in the crap they preach if it were actually in their bible, the book they claim they preach. Instead you will find that Much of the catholic church is smoke and mirrors, passed down through tradition and lore.
If anything, you should only believe what you have concrete evidence backing your belief through facts and actual history.
If you are gonna believe a work of fiction, then actually read the book and figure out if you are actually living the book to the letter or are you just doing what they tell you the book says, and making up the rest as they go. At least the scientologists get that part right.
