The Pope’s new work, Let Us Dream, about which Austen Ivereigh, his collaborator, writes movingly in this week’s paper, is published on 1 December. So, with the caveat that the final work may be different from the excerpts, it strikes me that it is characteristic of Francis’ best and least good aspects. The best is the Pope’s compassion and human sympathy and his scriptural solidarity with the poor. What’s also evident is what Austen calls his openness to the Spirit, his “unfinished thinking”.

The less good trait is his interventionism. His actual job as Pope is to be bishop of Rome and the arbiter of last resort when it comes to disputed matters of faith. Francis however sounds off about the subjects that exercise him very readily. More worryingly, in addressing the big challenges, he is willing to be prescriptive and specific about his remedies: for instance, the solution for him to the exodus of migrants to Europe and elsewhere is to welcome all comers. For poverty, he supports a universal basic income.