Two interesting things about the Pope's statement. First, the choice of Bari, which is in the region of Italy which was Orthodox the longest. And second, his call to the laity and ordinary clergy of his confession. It's almost as if he's trying to give the Latin church a 'booster shot' of Orthodox ecclesiology: remember that our magesterium, while in some measure concentrated in the teaching charism of the episcopate, permeates the Church, so that the laity, monastics, and ordinary clergy are as much responsible for the propogation, defense, and yes, even definition of the Faith (the last only in the extrordinary circumstances when heresies challenge the Faith, since a council cannot be universally valid unless received by the Church as a whole).
Those are very perceptive remarks, David.
I still can't figure out how you get around the problem that the Assyrian Church of the East and the Oriental Orthodox pose for this theory. Wouldn't we have to toss every Council after Nicaea and Constantinople I on the basis that Ephesus, et al., never were "received by the Church as a whole"? In one case (Chalcedon) a whole Patriarchate refused, and continues to refuse, it! Moreover, the Fathers frequently appealed to the authority of the Council of Nicaea during the Arian controversies in the fourth century, yet at this point Nicaea had not been "received by the Church as a whole" since the Arian and Semi-Arian bishops and laity were rejecting it!
The Bishops teach, and they teach truth objectively and without requiring the consent of others to it, but the "sensus fidelium" is always an infallible witness to truth and always confirms right teaching (the falling away of some small portion of the faithful to heresy is not an objection against this, but a proof of it - they did not hodl to truth before the proclimation of the Magisterium, and they manifested that tendency openly afterwards - the faith not having changed by the proclimation). If that is a good summary of what you are saying, then we have no disagreement.
The entire body of the faithful, anointed as they are by the Holy One,(111) cannot err in matters of belief. They manifest this special property by means of the whole peoples' supernatural discernment in matters of faith when "from the Bishops down to the last of the lay faithful" (8*) they show universal agreement in matters of faith and morals. That discernment in matters of faith is aroused and sustained by the Spirit of truth. It is exercised under the guidance of the sacred teaching authority, in faithful and respectful obedience to which the people of God accepts that which is not just the word of men but truly the word of God.(112) Through it, the people of God adheres unwaveringly to the faith given once and for all to the saints,(113) penetrates it more deeply with right thinking, and applies it more fully in its life.The entire body of the faithful, anointed as they are by the Holy One,(111) cannot err in matters of belief. They manifest this special property by means of the whole peoples' supernatural discernment in matters of faith when "from the Bishops down to the last of the lay faithful" (8*) they show universal agreement in matters of faith and morals. That discernment in matters of faith is aroused and sustained by the Spirit of truth. It is exercised under the guidance of the sacred teaching authority, in faithful and respectful obedience to which the people of God accepts that which is not just the word of men but truly the word of God.(112) Through it, the people of God adheres unwaveringly to the faith given once and for all to the saints,(113) penetrates it more deeply with right thinking, and applies it more fully in its life. (Vatican II, "Lumen Gentium", 12)