Enemies ‘are circling the Pope’

POPE Francis has made powerful enemies throughout the Curia and the universal Church, according to a new book, entitled Francis Among the Wolves, writes Hannah Roberts.

The Pope’s sweeping reforms have rattled conservative elements of the Church which claim he has irreversibly diminished the role of the papacy, Vatican expert Marco Politi claims in the book published last month.

For the “wolves”, the same gestures of humility that have won over millions are merely populist gestures of “a demagogue”.

The author names the main characters of the conservative “opposition”, which include Cardinals Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Raymond Burke, prefect of the Apostolic Signatura. But many of Francis’ opponents among the cardinals and bishops are less open in their criticism, he warns, and he has allegedly made enemies in the criminal underworld, by his reforms to the Vatican Bank (IOR).