There's no "cope".  SV exaggeration of both infallibility and the overall authortiy of the different modes of papal teaching are utterly absurd, an overreaction to R&R that have thrown thoser under the bus.  I urge you to Google and read the balanced work of Msgr. Fenton regarding the "Authority of Papal Encyclicals."  Extending the plenitutde of papal authority to Pacelli (or any other Pope) every time he passes wind (through his lips, and for some SVs even elsewhere) turns the Church's doctrine into a source of ridicule to non-Catholics, elevating the Pope to some divine oracle.

Pius XII was an unmitigated disaster for the Church, and his was the watershed papacy that led directly to Vatican II.

OK, but one does't have to accept the Dimonds' premises to make an objective assessment of the situation.  BoD per se is certainly not heresy, and it's an opinion that's long been tolerated by the Church, but that also doesn't make it true.  I've long disagreed with the Dimonds' exaggeration of the theological note regarding BoD.  BoD has always been speculation and theory.  There's no evidence of its having been divinely revealed, as the majority of Church Fathers rejected it, and I've never seen a single argument made that indicates BoD was implicitly revealed, i.e. that it proceeds implicitly and necessarily from premises that were revealed ... the only two ways we have to determine the contents of the Deposit of Revelation (unless you're a Modernist who believes that the Church can come to an "awareness" of new revealed truths over time).  In fact, the only even quasi-theological argument I've seen for BoD is from St. Thomas, and the others simply have a house of cards of "authority" leading back to St. Augustine (who later rejected BoD and issued some of the most anti-BoD statements in existence).  St. Thomas stated that Sacraments have a visible aspect and an invisible, but did not prove that the two were separable in the case of Baptism.  They most certainly are not in Holy Orders or Confirmation ... ironically, the other two Sacraments that confer a character.

So the mistake made by the Dimonds is in believing that if they can put together a formally valid syllogism that consists of even a single Revealed Premise, that makes the conclusion tantamount to being revealed.  First of all, both premises must be revealed, as the strength of a conclusion can only be as strong as its weakest premise peiorem partem sequitur conclusio, but even if both presmies are revealed, the construction of the argument itself is subject to human error.  Just because it's formally valid doesn't mean that some distinction wasn't missed.

By way of example:

MAJOR:  the Sacrament of Baptism is necessary for salvation, de fide, taught solemnly by Trent.
MINOR:  BoD means that the Sacrament of Baptism is not necessary for salvation [their assertion].
CONCLUSION:  BoD is heretical because it rejects the dogma in the MAJOR.

While the MAJOR is most certainly dogma and denying it would be heresy, the issue is with their Minor, their assertion that BoD means the Sacrament of Baptism is not necessary for salvation.  I doubt that St. Robert Bellarmine would have been so obtuse as to not see such a glaring contradiction of dogma.

No, people could reject the CONCLUSION because they dispute the MINOR, since they assert that even in the case of BoD, the Sacrament remains necessary, and the "necessity" taught by Trent doesn't mean the necessity of actual reception, but that in BoD, the Sacrament remained the instrumental cause of justification, i.e. there could be no BAPTISM of Desire without a Sacrament of Baptism TO Desire.  I think it's weak, but it's NOT heresy to reject their MINOR.

Now, for all intents and purposes, the vast majority of those who hold BoD DO in fact reject the necessity of the Sacrament.  You'll notice that St. Robert Bellarmine was very careful to avoid stating that the catechumen could be saved WITHOUT the Sacrament, which he knew would be heretical.  Instead, he says that those saved by so-called "BoD" receive the Sacrament in voto, i.e. holds that BoD is an alternative mode of receiving the Sacrament apart from having water poured on your head.  Again, there's no proof for this.  For every argument in its favor, I find dozens of arguments against it.

No, there was no teaching addressed to the Universal Church.  It's very obvious from the tone of the docuмent that he's speculating, referring numerous times to various "theories" and was ... almost in Wojtyla-esque fashion ... asking the Midwives to help the Chuch work it out about the issues he discussed.

This is nowhere close to having even the tone of a Papal Encyclical.  It's a long, rambling, speculative speech delivered to a group of Midwives.  Simply because it's put out there in a book doesn't change the authority of the teaching.

On what intellectual ground, therefore, do the faithful base the assent which they are obliged to render to these non-infallible decisions of authority? On what Cardinal Franzelin¹⁰ somewhat cuмbrously but accurately describes as auctoritas universalis providentiae ecclesiasticae. The faithful rightly consider that, even where there is no exercise of the infallible magisterium, divine Providence has a special care for the Church of Christ; that therefore the Sovereign Pontiff in view of his sacred office is endowed by God with the graces necessary for the proper fulfilment of it; that therefore his doctrinal utterances, even when not guaranteed by infallibility, enjoy the highest competence; that in a proportionate degree this is true also of the Roman Congregations and of the Biblical Commission, composed of men of great learning and experience, who are fully alive to the needs and doctrinal tendencies of the day, and who, in view of the care and the (proverbial) caution with which they carry out the duties committed to them by the Sovereign Pontiff, inspire full confidence in the wisdom and prudence of their decisions. Based as it is upon these considerations of a religious order, the assent in question is called a "religious assent."
 
         But these decisions are not infallible, and therefore religious assent lacks that perfect certainty which belongs to divine Catholic faith and ecclesiastical faith. On the other hand belief in the Providence which governs the Church in all its activities, and especially in all the manifestations of the supreme ecclesiastical authority, forbids us to doubt or to suspend assent. The Catholic will not allow his thought to wander into channels where he is assured by authority that danger threatens his faith; he will - indeed he must - suffer it to be guided by what he is bound to regard as the competent custodian of revealed truth. In the cases which we are now contemplating, he is not told how to adhere with the fullness of certainty to a doctrine which is divinely guaranteed by infallibility; but he is told that this particular proposition may be maintained with perfect safety, while its contradictory is fraught with danger to the faith; that in the circuмstances and in the present state of our knowledge this or that interpretation of Scripture may not safely be forsaken; that a particular philosophical tenet may lead to serious errors in a matter of faith. And the Catholic must shun the danger of which he is authoritatively warned by bowing to the judgment of authority. He must not doubt, he must assent.

Where did you get the information in the OP from?

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I think it may be helpful to quote Cartechini's foundational work, Must I Believe It? He teaches a rather different set of principles than what you seem to follow on questions like this, when the pope or his congregations teach without the note of infallibility:


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Although his explanation is rather complex, the idea is very simple. The pope is endowed with special graces and protection by God to exercise his authority in teaching the Church, and therefore the faithful must assent to his teachings even when they are given without the note of infallibility.

Lad,

Where did that come from? I never argued for a moral (or immoral) equivalency between the Conciliar Church and the Church of the Renaissance. The issue was simply whether the Renaissance popes let in elements of the occult, Kabbalah and тαℓмυdic through as it were the back door by taking token, public actions against such spiritual corruption while fostering the promoters, purveyors and publishers (artists and scholars) of it, and Hoffman makes a very solid case that they did. There's a "head in the sand" and do not wrong element about the treatment of the papacy and popes that simply doesn't square with the historical record. And we haven't even mentioned the "modernist" cave on geocentrism.

We both have expressed that the Conciliar Church presents marks that are indicative of the Great Apostasy forecast in Scripture, which shows radical signs of innovation, including revolutionary tampering with the worship of God (the liturgy, sacraments) - Daniels account of a "chang[ing of] times and laws (7:25) - that are clearly not something you see in the Renaissance.

I am not making any such claim as you appear to be addressing.

DR

You and me both. I went down the Dimond rabbit-hole recently and came out questioning a lot of things to the point that I don't care to get caught up in any of the various trad group politics anymore. I want to be a Catholic who follows Catholicism, not the Catholicism interpreted by [insert trad group here]. But, unfortunately, someone's post-Conciliar interpretation of Catholicism is going to creep in there somewhere eventually.

My thoughts on the situation from a recent Gab post of mine are attached, if interested. (And NO, I am absolutely NOT advocating for the "Orthodox" by quoting him)

 I still think the See is vacant, but the jist of it is, just do what you can to be a good traditional Catholic in these times. Don't get hung up on the novelties or puritanism of other trads or trad groups.