During the Vatican press conference on Tuesday for the unveiling of Pope Francis’ new apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, my colleague Alessandro Speciale tweeted: “Three archbishop-firemen trying to douse the Pope’s words of fire!” We agreed later that actually only one of the three presenters of the document seemed intent on downplaying its most powerful passages. Archbishop Rino Fisichella, head of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelisation, argued that Papa Francesco’s calls for a “conversion of the papacy” and “more juridical authority for episcopal conferences” were only allegorical and void of any real doctrinal meaning. Another Italian colleague challenged the archbishop on that, saying similar word games were empl