In a new biography, 'Benedict XVI: A Life', the retired pope rejects accusations of interfering in church debates since his resignation in 2013, claiming this is a “malicious distortion of the truth.”

Commenting on the retired pope’s new book, Dr Austin Ivereigh, Vatican expert and biographer of Pope Francis said, “It’s a totally imprudent and ill thought-out intervention which has the effect of undermining Francis’s authority.”