For the rest of her life, Lernoux focused largely on the clamping down on dissent by John Paul II and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI). This was the topic of her third book, "People of God: The Struggle for World Catholicism", published in 1989 after years of research in Latin America and the United States. Unlike most of John Paul II's critics, Lernoux described his attempt to fortify an authoritarian model of the church as an effort to restore "preconciliar" (e.g. pre-Vatican II) Roman Catholicism. The book documented the church's dismissal of scholars who questioned John Paul II's papacy. It also dissected various groups struggling for control of the church and examined the popularity of Opus Dei, Communion and Liberation, the Knights of Malta and Tradition, Family and Property.