[ealgeone]

That does not logically follow. The gift of infallibility does not guarantee that there will not be whackadoodle popes, but that the whackadoodle popes will not be permitted to impose their whackadoodle opinions on the whole Church as permanently binding de fide, on a matter of faith or morals.

Yet there are only two, possibly four, examples of popes speaking "ex cathedra".

That leaves an awful lot of writings by the popes over the years that could be viewed as mere commentaries.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Sure, there's a lot of commentary.

But if you want to get analytical about it, there's a good dozen levels of authority between "infallible" and "mere commentary."

For instance, there are a lot of things which are authoritative but not infallible. E.g. papal rulings which apply only for a particular time, or for a particular place, a particular person or group of persons, or a particular situation, may be authoritative but not universal, that is, not infallible.

An example would be, say, the method of choosing bishops. Church discipline encoded in Canon Law. The authority of abbots. The method of choosing popes. Priestly celibacy.

In contrast, most of what has come down to us via papal encyclicals and so forth, are exercises of the "ordinary magisterium." Restatement of perennial doctrines.

For instance: Jesus is True God and True Man.

That's authoritative, and it is so because it is straight out of Scripture. It doesn't need a special papal declaration because it's already explicitly and incontrovertibly "there."

The vast bulk of theological and moral doctrine is not in any sense innovation. It's repetition.

A ministry of repetition.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I meant to add: do not fall into the “Fallacy of the Excluded Middle.”