“Unsparing scrutiny and criticism; and so be it” or “not spotlighting his stumbles”. Which is it?
I don’t see how one can do both.
The main thing would be to direct the "unsparing scrutiny and criticism" to overt acts and explicit nonambiguous words, especially official ones, and not toward the man. This means you can dismiss small foot-faults ("Did he or did he not genuflect?") and resist the teptation to be a tea-leaf-reader of Chatty Frank's off-the-cuff verbal fragments.
We have no right to hold the Pope under hostile surveillance as if there were a presumption of guilt. Everyone deserves, at least in public, a presumption of innocence. Yes, even the successor of Peter.
Above all, we should not be venturing into suppositions about his motives, habits, his personal moral inventory. That's between him and his confessor, and moreso, between him and God.
And when I say "not spotlighting his stumbles," I mean not magnifying the "publicity splash" of his mistakes. Generally speaking, I think the Devil counts on us (US) magnifying the bad effects of things 10-fold, 60-fold, 100-fold.
Take care not to be a force-multiplier for damaging impact. It immeasurably strengthens the Devil's hand.
I think we should familiarize yourselves more with the definitions of Rash Judgment, Detraction and Slander. If we engage in these things even a little, nobody will hear us or take us seriously when there's a serious judgment to be made. It's the "Boy Who Cried Wolf" effect.
Once again, Burke is the model.