Christopher LAMB. The Outsider. Pope Francis and His Battle to Reform the Church. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 2020. Pp. 188 + xvi. $24 pb. ISBN 978-1-62698-361-8. Reviewed by Anthony J. BLASI, 4531 Briargrove St., San Antonio, TX 78217.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected pope on March 13, 2013. Within hours, the traditionalist blog Rorate Caeli posted, "Horror!" Of "all the unthinkable candidates, Jorge Mario Bergoglio is perhaps the worst." Thus began a continuous campaign to subvert a papacy. Journalist Christopher Lamb, of The Tablet, recounts the intrigues of conservative hierarchs, media personages, secular political operatives, and high-roller business moguls, and the silent non-responding response of the popular Pope Francis.

Lamb clearly admires Francis, even as he sticks to the facts and points to mistakes the pope has made. He strategically inserts biblical quotations that parallel the pope’s utterances. Because he is upfront with his perspective, the reader can take the book as reportage rather than editorializing. And he clearly has a mastery of the facts, telling the reader how he came to know what he reports and clearly pointing to lacunae in his knowledge.

Among the opponents of Pope Francis is now-retired Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganó, a figure in the 2011-12 episode in which Pope Benedict XVI’s butler pilfered letters and leaked them to the press. Viganó, from a wealthy family, is himself accused in court of trying to take over his family’s $22 million fortune. Benedict demoted him, making nuncio to Washington. When Pope Francis visited the United States in 2015, it was Viganó who arranged a meeting, without advising Francis beforehand, between the pope and a Kentucy county clerk who refused to process same-sex marriage licenses. In 2018, with the help of a right-wing reporter, Marco Tosatti, Viganó drafted a dossier falsely accusing Pope Francis of protecting the sexual abuser Theodore McCarrick (now a former cardinal). The dossier was published in the National Catholic Register, owned by the right-wing publishing conglomerate EWTN.

Francis wanted to simplify the Church’s marriage annullment procedure, but Cardinal Raymond Burke, head of the Apsotolic Signatura (highest court) stood in the way. The pope removed Burke from the court and appointed him to the presumably innocuous post of patron of the Order of Malta. Burke and the Grand Master of the order, Matthew Festing, championed pomp, ceremony, and elaborate vestments. Burke encouraged Festing to sack the no-nonsense grand chancellor (administrator) of the Order’s charities, Albrecht von Boeschlager, claiming Francis wanted the firing. Francis had to reinstate von Boeschlager and install a special delegate to take over Burke’s duties. An inquiry found mismanagement on the part of Festing, who had to be removed from office. Incidently, in the past the Order of Malta had been involved in an attempt to remove Cardinal Bergoglio from the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires.

Meanwhile, Pope Francis was trying to revivify a synodal mode of governance, holding a synod on the family. Discussions at the synod about allowing divored and remarried people to receive the sacraments angered traditionalists. Burke and three other cardinals published dubia (corrections) to the pope’s exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, that was issued in response to the synod; the dubia were published in the National Catholic Register. Australian Cardinal George Pell, later convicted of sexual abuse but ultimately exonerated, also expressed reservations publically.

Cardinal Gerhard Müller had led the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, but was replaced when his term was completed. He openly complained of being replaced and would accuse Pope Francis of lacking doctrinal rigor; he criticize the Amazon regional synod that Francis conducted.

Cardinal Robert Sarah from Guinea, as head of liturgical affairs, tried to reverse Vatican Council II and have priests face away from the congregations when celebrating mass; Francis had to block that. Then Sarah delayed Francis‘ decision to include women in the Holy Week Washing-of-Feet service. Sarah became a principal figure in the campaign against Francis.

All this seems to be inside ecclesiastical politics until populist politicians, media magnates, and business interests involved themselves. The right-wing Italian politician Mateo Salvini frequently attacked Francis because of the latter’s environmentalist stance and defense of migrants‘ rights; unsurprisingly Cardinal Burke publically praises Salvini. Salvini is an ally of Steve Bannon, multi-millionaire from Goldman Sachs and one-time White House strategist for Donald Trump. Tom Monaghan , founder of Domino’s Pizza, and others discontinued an annual donation to Vatican charities that had been made by the Legatus group. And the Papal Foundation, originally established under the guidence of former Cardinal McCarrick, also ceases its annual contribution. This group includes Frank Hanna III (with his brother David, operator of a credit card company that had been fined for not disclosing fees), a Trump donor. Tim Busch (Republican Party donor), Wayne Murdy (Trump donor), and James Longon (Eagle Forum, Trump endorser)  also belonged to the Papal Foundation. All these people once had access to Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, but did not have access to Pope Francis. Archbishop Georg Gänswein, secretary to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and prefect of the papal household that Francis declines to live in, maintains a court of conservatives in parallel to the much less pretentious group of visitors to Pope Francis. A notable visitor to the Gänswein court is U.S. Ambassador Callsita Gingrich and her husband Newt, Cadinal Robert Sarah, and Msgr. Livio Melina (let go as a profesor in the John Paul II Institute).

The Sophia Institute Press (Hanna) publishes anti-Francis conspiracy theories. Right wing critics of the pope regularly appear on Raymond Arroyo’s The World Over program on EWTN, including Steve Bannon. Arroyo himself occasionally hosts programs also on Fox News. The Knights of Columbus organization has supported Cardinal Sarah by purchasing copies of his book, God or Nothing, for distribution in Africa. News stories with an anti-Francis slant often appear from the Catholic News Service, also owned by EWTN.

Then there are conservative and hence anti-Francis groups such as the Napa Institute (Tim Busch), the Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira Institute, the Societies for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property, and the Panamazonsnodwatch website.

Mr. Lamb has clearly made his point about an organized opposition to Pope Francis, linking it to big money and the defense of unfettered capitalism as well as to elements in the Catholic Church tied to doctrinal formulae from the past.