Urrrrg, its hard to read your post. Yeah, its kinda annoying to have to wait out 10 turns in re attacking a faction but as a whole, the pope can be good. Just use one territory for nothing but priest building and send them out to Russia and everywhere else that is Muslim. After a while you will get a Theology guild and while your at it, build anything churchlike in that territory.

After a while, it will become very easy to get your guy pope and if you just bribe him once in a while, you will never become excommunicated.