Almost a year ago four cardinals sent Pope Francis the ecclesial equivalent of a doctrine exam, known officially as a set of dubia or “doubts”. Their questions were posed as humble requests for clarification but in fact the authors seemed bent on testing the Pope’s doctrinal orthodoxy. Then two weeks ago, more than 60 conservative scholars and clerics offered an extended “filial correction” of the Pope’s teaching, claiming precedent from the fourteenth century. It ran to 25 pages.