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These folks passing in judgment on the supposed “success” or “failure” of a pontificate make it sound like a political office. They also sound loke Protestants in their assumption they can choose not to follow the pope

Calling the pope a dictator , for intance, is fine, but not if you’re part of the church that says the pope has infallible authority. That’s self contradictory. If you want to be free to disregard or dissent from the pope, you should be honest and join the Lutherans or Anglicans

Calling the pope a dictator , for intance, is fine, but not if you’re part of the church that says the pope has infallible authority.

You need to brush up on stuff. There is no "part of the church that says the pope has infallible authority."

What you're referring to is the rare occasion when he speaks "ex cathedra," which is rare and occurs under certain conditions. With Francis, that is nearly never.

If you want to be free to disregard or dissent from the pope, you should be honest and join the Lutherans or Anglicans.

Catholics are free to disregard and dissent from Popes on any number of issues - we do it all the time. In fact, if they make us mad enough, we dig them up, BURN THEIR ROTTING CORPSES and throw them into the Tiber. True story.

As to becoming Lutherans or Anglicans, Catholics who ascribe to heresy are considered apostacized and at risk for eternal damnation. Once you are baptized, you can never be anything else but Catholic. Catholicism is indelible; impossible to remove. No matter what the individual or any other human desires.

Perhaps we all need re-acquaint ourselves with the definition --- the extent, and the tight and explicit limits ---of the concept of "infalliblity."

At 9% for most, and with gusts of 100%, most of what any pope says is simply not ex cathedra.

And since the Papal Magisterium extends back to Peter, and thence forward through 265 popes, anything authoritative that any of them said, further limits what a pope can say today.

Pope Me-Now-Number-One simply can't say his predecessors were wrong, since the effectively nullifies his own authority. This Peronist we've got now, can't on his own say-so abrogate one jot or one tittle of the 2,000 years of authentic Papal Magisterium. So, Ironically, the more time rolls on, the less wioggle-room any particular pope has to say anything "new." In fact, he can't innovate. He is bound (and, hopefully, gagged) by the dicta of all his predecessors.

In 2005 Pope Benedict XVI remarked, "The Pope is not an oracle; he is infallible in very rare situations, as we know". Pope John XXIII once stated it with a humorous twist: "I am only infallible if I speak infallibly but I shall never do that, so I am not infallible".

Here's what happens (LINK) if a pope tries to make an erroneous statement "as if" infallibly. Go ahead and click it's just 2 minutes, and you'll laugh.