As he passes five-and-a-half years since his election as the Successor of St Peter, Pope Francis has reached a pivotal point in his papacy.

The extraordinary, and unprecedented, attack on his pontificate by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, along with the seemingly never-ending waves of new stories of sexual abuse, has led the 81-year-old Bishop of Rome to reach for the reboot button.

There is an urgent need for this papacy to regain its momentum, given that Francis’ opponents – a well-organised, well-funded, powerful and vocal minority inside the Church – are likely to step up, rather than step back from, their attempts to undermine him as long as the abuse scandal threatens to dominate the narrative.