I don’t think the current Pope should be given a millimeter’s slack on the infallibility doctrine, as he has shown a willingness to rewrite what the church is to satisfy his own, trendy tastes.
In the South, when you sugar coat a disagreeable message, it’s called Nice Nasty. If the Holy Spirit didn’t exempt from idiotic human freedom, this one thing— keeping the descendant of Peter of the Denial of Christ Thrice before the Cock Crowed Twice from spewing out Faith & morals errors ex cathedra—you’d have him making even bigger idiotic statements than Global Warming.
A pope denying infallibility is like saying "This statement is false." Very confusing.