Canon 753: “While not infallible in their teaching, [Catholic bishops] are the authentic instructors and teachers of the faith for Christ's faithful entrusted to their care. The faithful are bound to adhere, with a religious submission of mind, to this authentic Magisterium of their Bishops.”
An essential aspect of internal Catholic practice therefore requires that the Catholic give religious submission of mind and will to the authentic Magisterium of the Pope and this even if he is not speaking ex cathedra. An essential component of internal Catholic practice is that the Pope's ordinary teaching at a minimum must be religiously submitted to by both intellect and will. (I say at minimum, because if infallible teaching is involved, whether in ordinary or extraordinary mode, the full assent of faith, or theological assent, is required. This is something much more than religious submission.) [http://www.catholic.org/news/hf/faith/story.php?id=49496]
**An essential component of internal Catholic practice is that the Pope’s ordinary teaching at a minimum must be religiously submitted to by both intellect and will.**
Like that is going on here with the FRoman Catholic crowd! I get the feeling they think they are more Catholic than Frank.
The passage I cited from JPII will help you understand in a more practical, human way the Catholic perspective on the relationship among Christ, the Magisterium and the ordinary Christian faithful, how the Church's "charge is to announce and teach authentically that truth which is Christ", how the Magisterium "does not bring to the Christian conscience truths which are extraneous to it" and how, because the truths it brings is the Truth of Christ, "the authority of the Church, when she pronounces on moral questions, in no way undermines the freedom of conscience of Christians".
By the way, if you are curious to learn more about the Magisterium, conscience and Christ's teaching's from a Catholic perspective, I wholeheartedly recommend reading all of Saint JPII's Veritatis Splendor sometime. There are some really beautiful passages in there, such as this one:
The light of God's face shines in all its beauty on the countenance of Jesus Christ, "the image of the invisible God" (Col 1:15), the "reflection of God's glory" (Heb 1:3), "full of grace and truth" (Jn 1:14). Christ is "the way, and the truth, and the life" (Jn 14:6). Consequently the decisive answer to every one of man's questions, his religious and moral questions in particular, is given by Jesus Christ, or rather is Jesus Christ himself, as the Second Vatican Council recalls: "In fact,it is only in the mystery of the Word incarnate that light is shed on the mystery of man. For Adam, the first man, was a figure of the future man, namely, of Christ the Lord. It is Christ, the last Adam, who fully discloses man to himself and unfolds his noble calling by revealing the mystery of the Father and the Father's love".
I hope Francis the first does not log on to FR regarding the above.