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I find the title of this article interesting ("Is the Pope Catholic?"). What else is he? He's certainly not Protestant. And I doubt if the Orthodox would want him.

...in which the flock is to look to leadership in understanding what church teaching is

You nailed it here in your excellent post. It's always interesting how our Catholic friends preach to us about the traditions and authority of the Church and yet don't wish to follow the teachings of their leaders. If they feel that the "keys to the Kingdom" has been handed over to THIS Pope, then his saying are instructions from God. Catholics can't pick and choose what they want to believe-believing this teaching and ignoring another. They, after all, bash us Protestants over the head with this very thing (30,000 denominations???).

BTW-The mere fact that some in the Church are questioning the Pope's stance on certain issues against Biblical teaching raise hope that we will soon have more Catholics joining our Protestant ranks. Let's just hope they go to a good Bible believing Protestant church. Regrettably there aren't many of those left any longer.

Sola scriptura...and Happy Reformation Sunday!

It's always interesting how our Catholic friends preach to us about the traditions and authority of the Church and yet don't wish to follow the teachings of their leaders. If they feel that the "keys to the Kingdom" has been handed over to THIS Pope, then his saying are instructions from God. Catholics can't pick and choose what they want to believe-believing this teaching and ignoring another.

But that picking and choosing is just what is done as an alternative to fallibly judging which magisterial level certain teachings fall under (since there is no infallible list of all such) and thus what level of assent is required, and what they means in detail. Thus the response to an exasperated poster on a RC forum dealing with this issue:

rrr1213: Boy. No disrespect intended…and I mean that honestly…but my head spins trying to comprehend the various classifications of Catholic teaching and the respective degrees of certainty attached thereto. I suspect that the average Catholic doesn’t trouble himself with such questions, but as to those who do (and us poor Protestants who are trying to get a grip on Catholic teaching) it sounds like an almost impossible task.

itsjustdave1988: Well, the question pertained to theology. The Catholic faithful don’t need to know any of this stuff to be faithful Catholics, so you are confusing theology with praxis. Praxis is quite simple for faithful Catholics: give your religious assent of intellect and will to Catholic doctrine, whether it is infallible or not. That’s what our Dogmatic Constitution on the Church demands, that’s what the Code of Canon Laws demand, and that is what the Catechism itself demands. Heb 13:17 teaches us to “obey your leaders and submit to them.” This submission is not contingent upon inerrancy or infallibility. - https://forums.catholic.com/t/catechism-infallible/55096/31

And to which the list i provided is pertinent, of broad papal exhortations to follow the pastors as docile sheep.

Well, I am not a "Protestant" since that term is too broad, and the doctrine I am to defend is that of the NT church, and if Caths would want to conform to what we see in the only wholly God-inspired and faithful substantive record of what the NT church. understood, then they would leave Rome to seek fellowship with those who seek to conform to that church.