What is the ordinary universal magisterium of a pope, and must every such document receive internal assent?
Robert Sungenis holds that anything a pope officially writes in order to teach belongs to the ordinary magisterium, including Pope Francis's Amoris Laetitia and Fiducia Supplicans. He argues that, short of infallible dogma, a Catholic may withhold assent for reasons of conscience, though the document remains part of the ordinary magisterium.
A viewer asks for a working definition of a pope's ordinary universal magisterium and why Sungenis seems to treat some documents (Humani Generis, Fiducia Supplicans, Amoris Laetitia) as part of it and others not, given it requires internal assent.
Answer
Anything a pope writes officially that is meant to teach, a letter, an encyclical and so on, is part of the ordinary universal magisterium, and that includes everything Pope Francis has written, Fiducia Supplicans and Amoris Laetitia included. The only distinction is that, unless the teaching is infallible dogma, you are permitted for reasons of conscience to hold back your assent, because no one can force you to believe something you think is not right. That reticence is based on your own disposition, not on the disposition of the document, which is still part of the ordinary magisterium. Every authoritative structure has these gray areas, because humans are fallible and things are not always said in the right way.