Are the opponents of Pope Francis trying to open a second front in their war against his reforming papacy? According to some interpretations, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has sent a warning to his successor not to allow the ordination into the priesthood of a small number of married men, in order to relieve the severe shortage of priests in the Amazon region. This was one of the proposals that emerged from last year’s Amazon Synod in Rome, to which Pope Francis is still considering his response. Such an interpretation appeals to that vociferous ultra-conservative minority in the Catholic Church which regards Francis with deep suspicion and not a little antagonism. It suits them to maximise any impression of a split between the two, Benedict being cast as a trenchant critic of the Franciscan papacy – which, in fact, he is not.