I'm hearing that Cardinals can elect the "wrong man", that Cardinals can resist the Holy Spirit, and that Popes can make statements in opposition to doctrine and dogma which have to be corrected or reinterpreted later.
You know I am simply amazed that there are people out there who have really thought that the Cardinals could not elect the "wrong man." One would have to have a pretty wacky sense of history and/or God's prerogatives in order to think otherwise. It seems to me, though, that the biggest problem in all of this is the oversimplified musings of Catholics regarding things they don't fully understand. For instance, I have been told by priests, priests mind you, that Christ is physically present in the Eucharist. Needless to say numerous Catholics in the pews have also argued and promoted this idea. Nonsense of course, and not in the least reflective of Church teaching, but it is a common meme thrown about by people in discussing the Eucharist.
Papal authority is also affected by this kind of simplistic reasoning, and that is why people are now trying to reinterpret things that the pope is spouting everywhere. They need to clean up his comments or they will have to reassess their overstated ideas of the papacy.
Well, hey, with all the claims of papal infallibility, the infallibility of the magisterium, being the OTC, being guided and protected by the Holy Spirit, by the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth over the least little suggestion of error within the church, the criticism of Protestantism for being fragmented and having no central authority thereby leaving it open to deception, yada, yada, yada, you really wonder?
One thing I've learned from FRoman Catholics, is that they and the church are NEVER wrong, even when they disagree with each other.
Any non-Catholic can have a group of FRoman Catholics beating him over the head about some point of Catholic doctrine, and when he finally agrees, some other Catholic comes along and beats him over the head again with how wrong he is after he agreed with the other Catholic.
They take both sides of an issue and so are never wrong.
Sheesh......