They essentially have no choice but to support him.
That's what happens when you believe that your magisterium is infallible and the pope is God's vicar on earth.
You're stuck.
They have no recourse if they don't like him or if he's wrong. Speak up and your eternal destiny is on the line. Believing as they do that their priests have the power to forgive or RETAIN a person's sin, or that the church can ex-communicate them, they're in a really tough spot.
They essentially have no choice but to support him.That's what happens when you believe that your magisterium is infallible and the pope is God's vicar on earth.
I think you will find simply by reading the posts of Catholics here on FR that many feel no such compulsion as you imply. They are quite comfortable pointing out when he says something ridiculous, and I am confident it causes no trouble with their faith. That is because there is nothing in the Catholic faith which maintains that any pope is necessarily right in anything he says, outside of a very tiny sliver of very specific teachings. Consider this. In the time since Vatican I and its specific exposition of Papal Infallibility, i.e. about 144 years, there have been a grand total of two infallible statements from popes. Two. That amounts to some several sentences out of the what, millions, that popes have written or spoken in that time. So, no, there is essentially no requirement to support any erroneous papal statements whatsoever.
Roger that.
The fallibility of infallible Popes is one of the reasons I became an evangelical Christian as a young man after 8 years of Catholic education and an upbringing as a Catholic.
I think Francis will have a positive influence on the world given his accessibility and transparency. I’m still not convinced, however, that he’s conservative enough, as most Popes are.