ON BOARD THE PAPAL PLANE – Pope Francis has brushed aside criticism of his rhetoric on women during his weekend trip to Belgium, insisting that to masculinise women is “not Christian” and the product of an “exaggerated feminism”.

Francis then invoked a classic Argentine trope, a reference to the Tango, to imply that suggestions he has a conservative mentality vis-à-vis women, or their role in the Catholic Church, are ridiculous.

Yet the Pope may actually have added more fuel to the fire at another point, when, referring to Belgium’s former King Baudouin, who resigned for a day in 1990 rather than sign a law legalising abortion, Francis praised his courage by saying what he did required “a politician with pants”.