Hi Ryan,

Thanks for the question.

"the structure of papal authority within the United States" is not really the best way to articulate it.

The only one with papal authority, at any given time, is the current Pope.

Cardinals, bishops, pastors or priest have no papal authority by themselves but speak "in union" with the [Holy Father|Pope] when teaching correctly on faith and morals from the deposit of faith.

There is a hierarchical authority within the Church. That's probably what you mean; something analogous to a corporate hierarchy within any given company.

The hierarchical authority within the Church based, not on her members, but on groups of people, as you have indicated in your question, would be:

• the parishes and religious houses, like convents or monasteries
  Side note: convents or monasteries are overseen by the local bishop as well as the superior for their Order.
• the diocese or the archdiocese, depending on the Catholic population of the bishop's geographic territory.

Within each country, since Vatican II, there have been groups of bishops in each country that meet on a regular basis.

In the United States, this would be the USCCB, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Within each country there is also a special envoy to the Vatican (U.S. Apostolic Nuncio) who lives in Washington D.C. Laity, religious and bishops can petition him to bring certain issues of importance to the Holy Father's attention.

Wikipedia will give you a list of all the diocese around the world in the Church.

Here is the structure for the United States.

If your question was centered more around the people or clerics in the Church, this posting should help:

• What is the order in a Catholic Church and is there some office called Acolyte?
  

Hope this helps,

Mike

Hi, Ryan —

I'd like to add that each bishop in the United States reports directly to the Pope, although this is mediated somewhat by the papal nuncio. The nuncio is the Holy See's ambassador, and handles a lot of the details in each individual country. The Pope is assisted by the Congregation for Bishops, but the bishops don't report through this congregation.

The USCCB, while it exists as Mike says, has no governing power over the bishops.

There is a kind of honorary and very weak oversight between metropolitan archbishops and their suffragan bishops. For example, the archbishop of Boston will exercise a kind of big brother-like role to the bishop of Manchester (New Hampshire) and other New England bishops, but they don't report to him.

Eric