I’m not sure where the idea that there have only been two instances (in 1854 and 1950) Saying there have only been two instances means Vatican I met to define a dogma that related to one isolated instance. That means the Protestants vigorously opposed this dogma and theologians like St. Francis de Sales vigorously defended papal infallibility against them when there were no instances of it. This does not pass the common sense test.
At the First Vatican Council, some bishops wanted to define some sort of procedure or form the Pope would have to follow for his judgment to be considered infallible. The relator (the bishop responsible for giving official explanations of concilliar texts to the Council) responded that this could not be done because various procedures were used for the great many instances of papal infallibility in the past:
Bishop Gasser:
But, most eminent and reverend fathers, this proposal simply cannot be accepted because we are not dealing with something new here. Already thousands and thousands of dogmatic judgments have gone forth from the Apostolic See; where is the law which prescribed the form to be observed in such judgments?
Granted, he is probably speaking hyperbolically, but in any event it is obvious he had more than one or two in mind. Throughout history Popes have often intervened to provide definitive judgments in the areas of faith and morals, sometimes definitively condemning long lists of propositions (e.g. Coelestis Pastor of Bl. Innocent XI, Ex Omnibus Afflictionibus of St. Pius V, Unigenitus of Clement VI, Auctorem Fidei of Pius VI, etc., etc.; each condemned proposition is probably considered an individual judgment by Gasser above accounting for the high number he gives) and sometimes definitively asserting a truth (e.g. like those definitions in Benedictus Deus of Benedict XII, Unam Sanctam of Boniface VIII, the dogmatic letter of St. Agatho, the Tome of St. Leo, etc.).
In fact, the reason papal infallibility was being especially challenged, and why Vatican I had to respond to reaffirm papal auuthority, was due to opposition to Bl. Pius IX’s condemnations of the quoted errors found in Quanta Cura in 1864.
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The idea that there have only been two instances of papal infallibility is incredibly new and I am not sure where it originates. Even those with the most limited view of papal infallibility at the time of the First Vatican Council (like Bl. John Henry Newman, who did not include infallibility indirectly in legislative decisions, etc. like others did) did not make this limiting claim.
There have been more than one since 1870 as well. For example, there’s a definitive judgment in Pius XI’s Casti Conubii #56, in St. John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae #s 57 and 62, for example.
