Of course there was never any doubt. He has no power to change any of it. The charism of infallibility would cause him to be struck dead if he tried. So one wonders what everybody was panting about.
However, on the other hand, just the mere trickle of a thought from Paul VI* that the church's ban on contraception might be changed (it couldn't) led to a giant apostasy on that teaching which has in turn given us closed churches, closed schools, a dearth of vocations, empty pews, and institutions full of the aged because there is no next generation to care for them.
So it matters not what a pope really means. It matters much what he says. Simply because he's the pope.
* Here's the "trickle of a thought from Paul VI":
"We say frankly that so far we do not have sufficient reason to consider the norms given by Pope Pius XII on this matter [of contraception] as out of date and therefore as not binding. They must be considered as valid, at least until We fell obliged in conscience to change them." - Paul VI, Acta apostolicae sedis (AAS) 56 (1964) 588-59, 1964 address to the special papal commission on the use of contraceptives
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