But that is nothing new, It, the catholic hierarchy, has always behaved in that way, certainly since the later middle ages.

Precisely. It has always behaved that way. It is high time somebody disabused it of the notion that it controls or dictates what its adherents believe and stopped it behaving that way. Or, more to the point, stopped the adherents believing that they really should pay attention (or even lip service) to what the hierarchs tell them.

But that does not mean that those who disagreed with them should not be considered catholic. Then and now. Richard is saying that Catholic dissenters are not Catholics. I am sure the Pope agrees.

It's a challenge. Either you agree with the pope and admit you're not a catholic by his standards, or you disagree with the pope and thereby question why his standards are at all relevant. The issue at hand is "what does it mean to be a catholic?" and by extension "why should I want to be a catholic at all?" What we want is people to rethink their knee-jerk allegiance to the catholic church and peel away, or if they won't then to take the church to task from within and assert a more democratic, less hierarchical, less authoritarian and medieval model of governance within it. The current state of affairs is based entirely on unthinking inertia rather than fulsome assent. That's how the hierarchs get away with the crimes they do. That's what needs to be challenged.