>It has a hierarchy, but it has multiple hierarchies.

the Church has been "multipolar" on multiple levels for about as long as it's existed.

A very easy to parse political example from recent history is during ww2 when Croatia had the catholic fascist Ustase collaborating with Nazi Germany and Italian fascists whilst in Poland the Nazis were actively suppressing the church and sending the clergy and other religious to the concentration camps.

A theological example would be the "conflict" (and I use the term lightly) between Franciscan Scotists and Dominican Thomists wrt stuff like the Univocity of Being