Like the populist he was, Pope Francis felt an instinctive scepticism about bureaucracies, including the one he was called to lead. Famously, he once catalogued 15 spiritual diseases of the Roman Curia, including "spiritual Alzheimer's" and the "terrorism of gossip", and those were among the kinder things he had to say about the place. I vividly recall one veteran curial official coming out of that Christmas 2014 dressing-down and sarcastically quipping to no one in particular: "Well, that wasn't exactly a pick-me-up."