What is it about Francis that so deeply disturbs his critics? When one of the Pope’s highest-profile defenders met one of his most trenchant detractors, he tried to find out

The most articulate and thoughtful voice of Catholic conservatives in the United States traumatised by the Francis papacy is a very likeable John Paul II convert-Catholic who for the last eight years has been a (fifth?) columnist in that high citadel of secular liberalism, The New York Times.

Ross Douthat (pronounced Dow-that) speaks much as he writes, with a kind of tristesse, in lengthy, well-modulated sentences that strike a hieratic, statesman-like tone.