"Pope’s autobiography sheds light on his complex and contradictory mind" - Catholic Herald

"He’s sticking with the de facto ban on the celebration of the Tridentine Rite (it’s only the unsympathetic Dicastery for Divine Worship which can grant permission), thereby overturning the sensible compromise of his predecessor, on the basis that “it is unhealthy for the liturgy to become ideology”.

The celebration of Mass in the form in which it was celebrated for half a millennium is hardly ideology, but the Pope is having none of it. “This rigidity [of those spiritually attached to the rite] is often accompanied by elegant and costly tailoring, lace, fancy trimmings, rochets. Not a taste for tradition but clerical ostentation… These ways of dressing up sometimes conceal mental imbalance, emotional deviation, behavioural difficulties…”.

That’s quite the charge sheet, coming close to conflating a love of the Old Mass with psychosexual disorder. He doesn’t say that only camp homosexuals like the Tridentine Rite, but he comes close to equating liturgical conservatism with effeminacy. He quotes with approval a US cardinal who, when approached by two newly-ordained priests for permission to celebrate Mass in Latin, tells them to learn Vietnamese and Spanish before they learn Latin, on the basis that these languages are spoken in the diocese. Bishops like that don’t deserve vocations.

What this book does is remind us yet again that Francis is a complex man, simultaneously compassionate and authoritarian. And although there’s a resignation letter with the papal chamberlain in the event of him suffering a medical impediment, he has never thought of resigning. At the age of 88, he’s still going strong – and that’s impressive."