Papal infallibility

One big mistake that many people do when they try to argue against eg. a religious or scientific position, is that they completely fail to research and understand what exactly that position actually is, so that they can give a valid objection to it. A lot of times people just assume something about the position and object to it based on those assumptions. When those assumptions are wildly incorrect, this becomes in essence an inadvertent straw-man argument (the main difference to an actual straw-man argument being that the subject matter is not being deliberately and knowingly distorted in bad faith.)

There are countless examples of this that one could list with regard to creationist arguments against the theory of evolution. However, sometimes skeptics also inadvertently engage in this same mistake when trying to argue against religion, or Christianity, or a particular Christian denomination or teaching.

One of the most commonly misunderstood and often-criticized and even mocked Catholic teachings is that of Papal Infallibility.

I have myself seen first-hand someone say in all seriousness (ie. clearly not joking) the archetypal argument of the form "if the Pope is infallible, why doesn't he play the lottery? We'll see how 'infallible' he is."

This is a complete misunderstanding and research failure of what Papal Infallibility actually is, what the Catholic Church actually teaches about it, ie. what the official doctrine is.

It's not a good idea to argue against a position you have completely misunderstood. Even if inadvertently, that just becomes a full-on straw-man argument, and it's not very constructive nor useful.

Catholic doctrine does not teach that the Pope is always infallible, without error, without mistakes, without false statements, not even without sin. Official Catholic doctrine does teach that even the Pope himself is as much a sinner as anybody else, and is capable of committing sin (for which he does need to seek forgiveness and absolution), and is very much not always correct and infallible.

What the official Catholic doctrine teaches is that when the Pope makes a particular type of official declaration ex cathedra (ie. essentially "officially from his position as the Pope") that pertains to Church doctrine, then that declaration is to be considered from God himself, and thus infallible. This kind of proclamation uses a very particular context and wording, and is very unambiguously stated as such an official Papal proclamation, for the purposes of establishing Church doctrine and catechism.

Things that the Pope says otherwise, during interviews, during conversations, even outright during sermons and mass, is not this kind of infallible ex cathedra proclamation.

Also, the vast, vast majority of people have absolutely no idea how many such proclamations Catholic Popes have given.

Perhaps a bit surprisingly, ever since the doctrine of Papal infallibility was officially established in Church canon in 1870, it has been only used once. That's it. One single time.

There have been Catholic scholars and bishops who have attempted to retroactively assign official infallibility to statements made by popes prior to 1870, but there is no officially accepted list, only allegations. After the canonization of Papal infallibility in 1870 there has been only one such officially recognized "infallible" proclamation, made in 1950 by Pope Pius XII.

That being said, even approaching the subject matter with absolute understanding and accuracy, the whole concept is not without criticism.

Take that "infallible" 1950 Papal official proclamation for instance: Pius XII officially declared that the virgin Mary directly ascended to heaven, ie. experienced a so-called assumption (ie. was directly taken to heaven, in her spiritual body, at the moment of death, exactly like happened to Jesus according to the doctrine.)

One could ask: If that's true, why did it take almost two thousand years for God to suddenly reveal this truth? And why now?

Doesn't make much sense. It sounds a lot more plausible that Pius XII just wanted to make that common belief "official" and thus just declared it officially, in order to canonize it and make it an indisputable fact.

Same goes with the canonization of the concept of papal infallibility in itself: Only in 1870? Why did it take so long? Was God withholding this information for some reason? Why did he suddenly decide in 1870 to reveal such a fundamental doctrine?