What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[Cyberman]

I'm siding with rexbecca here. If these infallible announcements are so rare - I think you said a dozen of them in two millennia? - what is the point of Il Papa the rest of the time? There's been many, many popes over the centuries; at the rate you suggest, they cannot all have been necessary to make such announcements. What were the others needed for?

Yes, less than a dozen.

Well, they are still the representatives of the faith. A religion with over 1 billion people can benefit from having one person to represent and guide the people. Even though infalliable pronouncements are rare, you never know when one will need to happen, and if/when this is the case, a pope will be there.

Well ok, but that's not quite what you were saying earlier. You gave the impression that the pope's function was to make these inspired announcements, as if that was the sole attribute on his job description. Just seemes to me that the function would be better served, if it needs serving at all, by having a cadre of cardinals or whatever gathering to discuss and then make the pronouncement, then disbanding afterwards.

If the pope's primary function, however, is a sort of de facto super-cardinal, then fine. I could argue that such a role may have played an important function back in the days when the ordinary unwashed either couldn't, or were forbidden to, read their special book for themselves and thus had to be told what to think etc. Since the days of mass education and mass media, that function, like the vermiform appendix, is basically redundant and often more of a hindrance. On the other hand, it could be politically expediant to have a familiar face at the tiller, a useful distraction for such public anger as the RCC might engender with their shenanigans.

For extra credit: what does it say about the 'holy spirit' that it requires a single mouthpiece to relay its "inspirations"?

You mean why does it need to happen through a person verses just havng the voice sound from the sky for all to hear?

Not really. I'm thinking more along the lines of what are we to make of a person who, rightly or wrongly, is held to be or even claims to be infallible, claiming to speak for an entity that speaks only to him. For example, take the recent(ish) case of the two Wisconsin schoolgirls who stabbed a classmate because they said that the fictional Slender Man told them to. I'm going to prophesy that you and I are in agreement that they are somewhat less than sane. But what if they'd said the holy spirit had told them to act in a certain way (not necessarily murder)? What would you think of their mental state then?

Incidentally, its "versus", not "verses". You're very welcome.

I don't know. God thought it would be best this way, apparently. A theory that is widely accepted is that if God were to reveal Himself in such a concrete way again, He would be hated and resented by many people. Being more ambiguous allows people to simply not believe He exists, and this is a better alternative than knowing He does exist and hating Him. Having legitimate hatred for God is the one sure way of ending up in the one place where God is not present. Simply not believing that He is real leaves plenty of room for hope, IMHO. In my opinion, it's a way of protecting some of us from ourselves.

"I don't know" is a good answer for when you don't know something. Everything else that follows it, if you'll pardon me, is your brain flip-flopping desperately, trying to reconcile what you recognise is absurd with what you want to protect. IMHO, of course.