The Dictator Pope: The Inside Story of the Francis Papacy

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About The Dictator Pope: The Inside Story Of The Francis

Product Description The Dictator Pope by Marcantonio Colonna—pen name of Henry Sire—has rocked Rome and the entire Catholic Church with its portrait of an authoritarian, manipulative, and politically partisan pontiff. Occupying a privileged perch in Rome during the tumultuous first years of Francis’s pontificate, Colonna was privy to the shock, dismay, and even panic that the reckless new pope engendered in the Church’s most loyal and judicious leaders. The Dictator Pope discloses that Father Jorge Bergoglio (the future Pope Francis) was so unsuited for ecclesiastical leadership that the head of his own Jesuit order tried to prevent his appointment as a bishop in Argentina. Behind the benign smile of the "people's pope" Colonna reveals a ruthless autocrat aggressively asserting the powers of the papacy in pursuit of a radical agenda. Review "A remarkable new book on the pope which is making waves in Rome and around the world....This volume is far more probing and detailed than anything that has previously appeared....When the head of the Church himself does not much feel bound by the tradition or impartial laws he has inherited, what then?...Any answer will have to reckon with the eye-opening material in this compelling book." --Robert Royal, The Catholic Thing "The Dictator Pope draws on a wide range of material including confidential sources within the Vatican....Much of the book consists of close analysis of the various controversies which have characterized Francis's time in office, including the family synod, the reform of Vatican finances, and the dispute over the Knights of Malta. [The author] claims that the pope has become unaccountable, and that the atmosphere within the Vatican is primarily one of fear." --The Catholic Herald "The most valuable service provided by the author of The Dictator Pope is the psychological portrait of Pope Francis: manipulative, hypersensitive, and often downright vindictive--certainly not the cheerful populist that his supporters make him out to be....For all the talk about a 'reformer pope, ' the rhetoric about decentralization, and the promises of reform, the net results of this pontificate to date have been a climate of fear within the Vatican, a tightening of control, and a resurgence of the 'old guard' in Rome." --Philip Lawler, author of Lost Shepherd: How Pope Francis Is Misleading His Flock