About pope part: meh.

Pope is more than position - it's a symbol and in my lifetime I already heard about two beloved popes so yeah. They are to act like a shepard and inspire us to be the better version of ourselves. In short, spiritual leaders.

It doesn't work on not religious people for the most part, and it's not supposed to. And from what I've seen id doesn't work neither for left nor right...for first because christianity is too slow on moral progress and on the other because christianity is too fast with moral progress. Which is a funny proof for people thinking they can meet with right in the middle xD