This is a very important point that is lost to a lot of people that fancy themselves as thinkers and intellectuals.
There is nothing wrong in hearing someone out, quite the contrary it should be viewed as required or at least beneficial. Otherwise, you are just sealed inside the echo chamber you've selected for yourself in the past and not giving yourself the opportunity to grow and shed your own misconceptions (as all of us are expected to have some). Most of the time you might not change your opinion, but on the off chance you are wrong about something, you should allow some room for arguments that might help you adjust your positions.
And now about the Pope example with my thoughts here having nothing to do with your point actually. I've thought about the pope a lot before and I think I would find it extremely surprising if a person holding such a position in such an organization would actually be a believer. If the pope says "I'm not so sure about the God thing" I would be surprised by the honesty and integrity, not by the fact that he has come to this conclusion. I think it's quite likely that that's actually the case already. It's just that the person is in such a position that they would never ever share that.