La Nacion: "As a pope you are different because you speak with utmost clarity, you are completely straightforward, you don’t use euphemisms and don’t beat about the bush; the course of your papacy is extremely clear."
La Nacion: Why do you think some sectors are disoriented, why do they say the ship is without a rudder, especially after the latest Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the challenges posed by the family?
Pope Francis: Those expressions strike me as odd. I am not aware of anybody using them.
Pope Francis: Look, I wrote an encyclical—true enough, it was by four hands [with Benedict XVI]—and an apostolic exhortation. I’m constantly making statements, giving homilies. That’s magisterium. That’s what I think, not what the media say that I think. Check it out; it’s very clear. “The Joy of the Gospel” is very clear.
This section has him accepting the most risible flattery, and not only accepting, but serenely echoing it, making him sound almost thud-headedly un-self-aware.
If my most recent RCIA students conflated homilies, statements, encyclicals and magisterium like that, I'd say they weren't grasping the basic idea of gradations in authority. The Holy Father talks too loosely and too much.