My authoritarian and quick manner of making decisions led me to have serious problems and to be accused of being ultraconservative. I lived a time of great interior crisis when I was in Cordova. …I have never been a right-winger. It was my authoritarian way of making decisions that created problems.

But now I hear some people tell me: ‘Do not consult too much, and decide by yourself.’ Instead, I believe that consultation is very important.

Pope Francis in his interview with Antonio Spadaro of La Civiltà Cattolica, and published in Jesuit magazines around the world on 19 September.