Then what is the church?
How does it exist outside of the people who comprise it?
They are one constitutive element of the Church.
You seem to have interpreted what I said to mean “the hierarchy is no part of the Church.”
This is typical of you. I.e., always eager to pretend that whatever a Catholic says is patently preposterous. That’s why it is so easy to identify you as a bigot rather than an honest questioner.