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Pope Francis faces a tough road ahead, a veteran Vatican watcher told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an interview that aired Wednesday.
“It’s a very tough period that is beginning for him, because of course people [are] enthusiastic about him.
“I mean the believers but also non-believers are very interested in what he’s saying.
“But within the Church, there is a tough group of conservative of bishops and priests and cardinals, and also very traditionalist bishops and cardinals who are practically against the Pope, who are working against the Pope,” Marco Politi said.
The growing opposition the Pope is encountering within his own Church is mainly down to his attempts to reform it since he took office in March 2013.
“They don’t like what he wanted to do with the synod about family, to give new possibilities to remarried and divorced people to get the communion, or to have a new look on the homosexual union.”
Politi’s latest book “Francis Among the Wolves” looks into this resistance.
“Saint Francis of Assisi once met a wolf; he preached to him and he domesticated the wolf.
“But what we are seeing after one and a half years is that the wolves in the Vatican or in the bishops’ conferences actually are becoming more and more aggressive.”
The Pope’s divisive moves include the recent demotion of U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke, who strongly opposed his initiative to soften the Church’s tone on homosexuality.
“Of course he’s reshuffling a little bit in the Curia but he does it very slowly, and he’s very gentle in this sense.
“His idea is that it is good that people speaks out, so when somebody comes to him and says ‘but this Cardinal is critical against you,’ he says ‘it’s good.’
Whether he’ll be able to move forward with his reformist agenda “is still a very open game.” Continue reading
- Madalena Araujo, CNN
Madalena Araujo describes herself as passionate about global affairs, human stories, food and travel.
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