Yeah I totally understand that, I'm lucky to have family ties in the community and the priests always introduceme to other converts. Even if you manage to attend just to check it out I'd highly recommend.
And yes you are correct about the Pope, most Catholics really don't like the current Pope and say the church has always had bad popes, but the individual popes are not the infallible part, it's the the papacy and what it teaches. My point goes more to the church history and whether the infallibility of the papacy has any justification and I don't believe it does.