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Pope Francis The Struggle for the Soul of Catholicism

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For two years, Pope Francis Has enchanted and bewildered the world in equal measure with his compassion and his contradictions. Expanding greatly on his acclaimed earlier book Pope Fanci's: Untying the Knots, Paul Vallely reexamines the complex past of Jorge Mario Bergoglio and adds nine new chapters, revealing many untold, behind the scenes stories that explain this pope of paradoxes.

Vallely lays bare the intrigue and infighting surrounding Francis's attempt to cleanse the scandal-ridden Vatican Bank. He uncials the ambition and arrogance pf top bureaucrats resisting the Pope's reform of the Roman Curia, as well as the hidden opposition at the highest levels that is preventing the Church from tackling the sex abuse crisis. He explains the ambivalence of Pope Francis toward the role of women in the Church that has frustrated American Catholic women in particular. And Vallely charts the battle lines that are being drawn between Francis and conservatives and traditionalists talking of schism in this struggle for the soul of the Catholic Church. Consistently Francis has shown a willingness to discuss issues previously considered taboo, his liberal instincts outraging traditionalists in the Vatican and especially in the Church hierarchy in the United States. At the same time, many of his statements have reassured conservative elements that he is not, in fact, as radical as he might appear.

Behind the icon of simplicity that Pope Francis projects is a steely and sophisticated politician who has learned from the many mistakes of his past. The pope with the winning smile was previously a bitterly divisive figure. His decade as leader of Argentina's Jesuits left that religious order deeply split. His behavior during Argentina's Dirty War raised serious questions. Yet after a period of exile and what he has revealed as a time of great interior crisis he underwent an extraordinary transformation - on which Vallely sheds new and fascinating light."

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Availability

Detail Information

Series Title

Biography

Call Number

922.1 VAL p

Publisher

Michigan : Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.., 2013

Collation

xxvi, 472 p.: ill.; 25 cm

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

978-1-63286-115-3

Classification

922.1

Content Type

-

Media Type

-

Carrier Type

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Edition

First US. edition published 2015

Subject(s)

biography

Specific Detail Info

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Statement of Responsibility

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