The unprecedented pontificate of Pope Francis requires some context in the wider Church and the strange and tumultuous epoch in which we live in 2017. We inhabit an age in when the political Left has gained enormous ground across Europe, with the chief tenets of liberalism - its friendly ally for the time being - in the ascendancy, with much of its established dogma going largely unquestioned in society. Old certainties have given way to new certainties. There can be little doubt that we exist in a ‘new society’ vastly different and, in many ways, unrecognisable from that of even 100 years ago. No doubt, there are signs that society in much of the West is not entirely comfortable with the liberal agenda with its plethora of competing parties, but Christianity is now so ostracised, its name so blackened that the dogmas of liberalism are preferred to the dogmas of Christianity, since the former signifies freedom in the popular imagination, while, with the exception of Eastern Europ
