I promised more Greeley:

Others will watch with mild interest when the white smoke rises above the Sistine Chapel. Still others will be deeply concerned about the outcome -- either because it will confirm that the Second Vatican Council has been relegated to the trash can of history or because it will show that the spirit of the council may still be alive. page 121

How could so many Catholics adore John Paul II and yet ignore the things he taught? I suspect the answer is that these people distinguish not with any serious reflection but intuitively and distinctively between the symbolic value of the Pope and what the Pope teaches. They cheer the first and don't hear the second because they don't want to hear it. They adore the singer and don't hear the song. If they couldn't hear it from John Paul II, how are they going to hear it from anybody else? page 126

... suggested to me some time ago that when Catholic people cheer for the Pope, they're cheering for themselves. This sounds strange until one realizes that the Pope is a sacrament of the Church, the Pope stands for the Church, the Pope reveals the Church. And laypeople are the Church. Or, to put it in a little less complicated fashion: because Catholics are a sacramental community, a community in which the symbols and signs are extremely important, the personality of the Pope is something you can cheer enthusiastically because you're cheering for what he represents. That is the long Catholic tradition. But you're not necessarily cheering for his particular interpretations of the tradition. If you're inside the Church, [the] theory is easy enough to comprehend. If you're outside, it makes no sense at all. How can you adore, worship, demonstrate for, flock to the wake of your religious leader if on certain fundamental issues you do not agree with him? In part, of course, it's because of the man the Pope was. page 127

There's more. I'll probably quote more from his The Making of the Pope (2005). I haven't read much by Greeley, just some of his sociology and that's all numbers and statistics. I knew he is a novelist but I don't care for romance novels, so I never read any of those from him. This Pope-watcher book, then, is the first real prose of his that I've read and, well, he's a good writer. So I'm not surprised now that his novels sell. Next time I'll find some excerpts that show better his skill.