Conservatives Launch Civil War against Pope

By Philip Willan
The Times
December 19, 2016

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/_TP_/article/conservatives-launch-civil-war-against-pope-wj3xn7hfz?ni-statuscode=acsaz-307

The Pope has the approval of Catholic congregations, but his reforms have angered cardinals

The Pope is facing an unprecedented smear campaign designed to undermine his three-year pontificate. It has been orchestrated by cardinals angry about his sympathy for homosexuals and divorcees.

The campaign amounts to “a subterranean civil war” within the church, Marco Politi, an expert on the Holy See, said. He added that the smear campaign from within the Vatican included books, articles and letters contesting, in particular, the Pope’s teaching that divorced and remarried Catholics can “in certain cases” receive communion.

Politi said that the criticisms of the Pope constituted an attack that was unprecedented in modern times. In an article published by Il Fatto Quotidiano newspaper to mark the Pope’s 80th birthday last Saturday, Politi said: “It’s a systematic campaign of delegitimisation, which questions the…