Leadership is hard, especially when confronting policies and people that simply don't work anymore. Caving in to doubt and criticism just creates organizational mirages that perpetuate dysfunction.

Francis is now busy with something more magisterial, more doctrinal: a new encyclical. The last one, released in July 2013, was taken from one already much prepared by his predecessor, Benedict XVI. This time, it will be fully his own and deal with "human ecology."