Man, maybe I have no say being raised Catholic, but real Catholics are basically the archetype of humility before God. You see all this synchreticism in Afro-Brazilian stuff because Catholics believe, as Macumba do, that God is so great and so unreachable as we are, that there are intermediaries to whom we must often communicate instead. This makes problems with the stupid idea that the papacy could fit the bill there, but even in the old days of pissed-off, big cheese God, there was a guy named Metatron who organized his memos, even though a prophet or two got fucked by confusing him with the real deal. Also, I agree with 'nefarious plot', this is so damn irrelevant it makes my head hurt.