Vatican Embassy Protestor

[Ben Davis]

Actually, it's the bishops who independently cover them up, not the pope himself.
But let's say that Pope Francis was personally responsible for the legal protection of every priest on the face of the earth. Papal infallibility, as a Church doctrine and not a set of two words, doesn't mean that the pope can't make mistakes. He can say and do a lot of stuff, like allow the ordination of future child rapists, but very rarely does the Catholic Church take some of it and say, "This is right." Twice in its history, actually.
And, considering that absolutely none of his actions, let alone his words, let alone official Church teaching, indicates that child rape is morally acceptable, except that he's afraid to take it on, his infallibility is nowhere close to coming into play.

...and you're either missing the point or trying to side-step it. In principle, the Cardinals are selected infallibly by the Pope who, in turn, infallibly select the bishops and so on. The processes & actions of the church are a reflection of Papal infallibility . If the hierarchy can fail, in process or action, the Pope is fallible. Consequently, to protect the concept, the entire foundation upon which the authority of the church rests, any failures mut be covered up. Whether the church officially endorses failures or not is beside the point. The bare existence of failures negates the possibility of Papal infallibility.

In reality, we see that infallibility is a joke because of the blatant corruption that exists and the various conflicting pronouncments made by different Popes. It's a despicable and insulting motive for the act of covering up child-molestation.