You were the one who brought the comparison!
Yes, the comparison, or more accurately, the analogy.
So now you agree that the comparison is not necessarily all that helpful?
No, it is extremely helpful and quite accurate, if one is able to understand things analogically. However, to use an analogy is still to speak only of that of which it is held to be an analogue. We were not speaking of Mozart and math, but rather of your failure to understand that relation and "overlap" does not equate to being able to take anything one says about one idea and then argue it as a support or proof of the related or overlapping concept. This is what you have done regarding infallibility.
A pope speaks of the authority of the papacy, and you stretch that into some idea of a much broadened dogma of infallibility with the recourse that authority and infallibility must "overlap" in some conceptual way. Nope. Wrong. Popes are always authoritative, but are rarely infallible. Conceptual overlap means nothing in regards to applying this specific speaker's words, just as it would mean nothing if one used the same position to try to apply the words of Mozart on, say, symphonies to an argument of algebra. Conceptual overlap does not change the purpose and meaning of an author's intent when they write something about a topic. And therein lies the accuracy and usefulness of the analogy.
And, by the way, I am still not talking about Mozart and math, just in case you are confused again.
This type of thing, though part and parcel of how the issue is frequently spoken of by apologists of Rome;
is patently illogical, for there must be overlap at least when what is perceived to be "infallible" is "authoritatively" proclaimed.
As I have shown, and as you also indicate, what they say (when speaking towards faith and morals, of course, according to RC theology) must be believed, taken as 'authoritative' as that has been put.
If not infallibly true -- then what? A person can second guess what they have been told, and take it to mean whatever they best think or understand it to mean, or how it may best fit into overall framework of understanding.
Uh, huh. So-called "Protestants" can do the same evaluating in regards to that which they are told in their own congregational and educational settings also.
What did the Apostle Paul write concerning this sort of thing? Do you recall? Here are two portions which can and do fairly well interact with one another, the written word confirming and establishing itself;
From Acts 17
2 Then Paul, as his custom was, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3 explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ.”
... 10 Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. 11 These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.
And from Galatians 1
6 I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, 7 which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.10 For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.
In spite of what such scriptures can help reveal to us, you say;
That slip-slides towards being a form of double-talk.
The real test is -- does what they say agree with the scriptures, in both spirit and truth.
One must submit that all to Spirit also -- yet one does need be acquainted with and yielded to the Spirit of the Lord in order to best do so.
It is you who confuses yourself, following the confusion amid Roman Catholicism concerning it's own identity, and how such things as we are discussing are described to be.
Leave me out of the torturous pretzel logic, all the jumping through specialized hoops just so (saying just the 'right' words in order to control all dialogue) action which must be engaged in order to keep up appearances -- and retain hold on the fantasy of infallibility for the Church of Rome, for when speaking of concepts of infallibility -- focusing merely and only upon the "Papal" sort (and what is said about that) is something of a red herring/purposeful distraction -- to which you have here added additional insult of sorts, alleging I am confused, etc.
No -- I can see it all plain enough, for I can "see" many things -- and how those interact, and what the apparent results of all that activity have produced -- for both good -- AND ill.