There are thousands of Ayatollah, you mean specifically the Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The Catholic Church used to be powerful, but it too has had mismatches between even ex cathedra teachings and what people actually do: see also US politics having occasional arguments about if being Catholic disqualified someone from politics because they submitted to the Bishop of Rome over the people.

And that's without the way government leaders often tell bold faced lies (and less obvious lies, too).