"Popes do not issue marching orders daily, weekly, monthly, or even yearly. No person who is well-instructed in the Catholic Faith, and is sincerely practicing it, needs to follow the Pope’s doings and sayings. A Catholic is at liberty to like or dislike any Pope.
"If he dislikes a Pope, he should try to remain unaware of the day-to-day news about the Pope. The notion that all Catholics must “heed the call” of the Pope to conversion, or spiritual renewal or growth, etc., and must therefore read all of the Pope’s interviews and daily homilies, is silly. The call to all those good things is in Scripture and the constant teaching of the Church."
Arthur MccGowan believes this, and obviously you believe this.
But does the Pope believe it?
And if he doesn't, where is your authority as a Catholic to disagree with the Pope? As a human being, sure. But as a Catholic? I see no authority at all.
The Church has never taught that the Pope is an all-purpose oracle. The level of authority behind any papal statement--- whether it's something as weighty as an Apostolic Constitution or an Encyclical, or something as mundane as a weekday Homily from Domus Sta. Martae or remarks at a Papal Audience --- depends on the teaching's dogmatic history, and the intention of the pope.
Not everything the pope says is an "edict." Not even everything he says in an encyclical is an "edict". Sometimes it's just a pastoral reflection, sometimes a passing opinion, sometimes even an off-balance, fragmentary and garbled verbal output worthy of "edit" or "delete".
I think Francis would be the first one to admit this. One of the men he just canonized, St. Pope John XXIII, once said, "I am only infallible if I speak infallibly but I shall never do that, so I am not infallible".
I love pope who can handle a nimble tautology.