Poor Fr Lombardi! Even when the Holy Father is safely on terra firma, he is still capable of devastating spontaneity.

Quizzed on what the Pontiff meant by a commission to examine the question of women in the diaconate, the Vatican spokesman could only reply:

‘It is not clear as yet what the Pope has in mind’

Which rather begs the leading question. That women deacons would prove to be no more than a stalking horse for women in the presbyterate no reasonable person could possibly doubt.