[phryk]

Even if you take away the belief system in the Catholic church and the Pope has an affect on a huge number of human beings, and that is really what this is all about...

Yes, and it's about how many people are affected, not how many "care" about it.

You don't have to care about the Leaks in order for the revealed programs to affect you. And it's not only the first world, as every spy agency freely siphons any and all "foreign" data they can get their hands on. So third world countries are considered fair game by pretty much all spy agencies and are obviously spied upon (German authorities for instance often repeat the mantra that they spy on Afghani data traffic because terror). Even now the largest part of the third world population has a cellphone and is getting ever more connected.

The catholic church might have a good deal of political sway and lots of followers, but the Snowden Leaks affect as close to 100% of the global population as you'll ever get.

Edit: I'd also like to point out that the influence of the church is dwindling while the influence of digital communication is going to continue to soar.