Pope Francis, Kids, Obama, Abbott & Murdoch

By Jerry Slevin
The Christian Catholicism
December 22, 2013

http://christiancatholicism.com/pope-francis-kids-obama-abbott-murdoch/



Interestingly, the English common law and free press legacy in two former British imperial colonies, Australia and the United States of America, is energizing politically sensitive and fundamentally interrelated investigations of Catholic priest child abuse cover-ups by local bishops. Both former colonies are now federal democratic republics that apply common law concepts that favor individual rights, public proceedings and a free press. Ironically, these concepts originated in part as a reaction to biased and secretive monarchical procedures that are still fully operative almost uniquely under Pope Francis’ continuing canon law process.

It appears that local national political developments may soon lead to confrontations between Pope Francis and the political leaders, President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Both lawyers, as young men Obama worked as an advocate for needy Chicago Catholic parishes and Abbott had been a Jesuit educated seminarian. Obama is frequently opposed by US Catholic bishops and Abbott is close to Australia’s sole Cardinal Pell. A close advisor to Francis, Pell reportedly has advised him especially on handling priest child abuse cases.

Coincidentally, Rupert Murdoch’s major media outlets generally play a key role in both countries, including the USA’s FOX News, which seemingly often features and favors the Catholic Church hierarchy’s views. Murdoch has been a papal knight for some years.

Francis’ top media advisor and reported Opus Dei affiliate, Greg Burke, had worked for FOX News following a stint at TIME Magazine, which just made Francis its “Man of the Year”. A coincidence? Perhaps. TIME has had declines in readership and Francis stories help magazines sell more. Burke at times seems pleased to discuss his efforts to “sell” Francis almost as some kind of hot new consumer product, which can be counter productive to Francis’ more powerful Gospel message to the poor. Perhaps, that may have been a factor in the Vatican’s recent retention of a high priced consulting firm to study the Vatican’s presently inadequate communications efforts.

In Australia, a major national investigation, by a well organized so-called Royal Commission, is underway and is steadily exposing shocking Church cover-ups. Significantly, a separate regional commission has just pierced the Vatican’s diplomatic immunity veil and obtained access to key Vatican records, see: http://ncronline.org/news/accountability/australian-sex-abuse-commission-gets-documents-nuncio

A prominent Australian journalist for the Fairfax Group, a major competitor of Murdoch’s outlets, has now expressed his concerns about some of the apparent gaps between Francis’ words and deeds, see:

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/pope-francis-may-be-awesome-but-theres-the-iffy-bit-20131221-2zrw6.html

And a priest child abuse survivor from near Boston has now responded sceptically and extensively to a more upbeat report about some local Catholics’ hopes for possible Francis’ reforms by the newspaper that played so critical a role in publicizing the priest scandals, the Boston Globe, see:

http://skipshea.wordpress.com/2013/12/22/popes-pr-an-open-letter-to-the-boston-globes-lisa-wangsness/

In the USA, several current police investigations of the Minneapolis/St. Paul Archdiocese’s unfolding scandals may lead to demands for Vatican records as well. At least one of the scandals so far, reportedly, involve commmunications with the Vatican’s top priest abuse oversight committee, then under Cardinal Levada. Levada was just re-appointed by Pope Francis as one of the two US Cardinals on the committee that selects bishops for the USA and elsewhere.

Levada had poorly led the Vatican abuse oversight committee for years under ex-Pope Benedict until last year. He had earlier left behind major ongoing priest child abuse scandals in Oregon and California, where he had previously served as bishop. Apparently Pope Francis thinks that Levada, who at least acquiesced in the continuation in office of Kansas City’s criminally convicted Bishop Finn and failed to take effective action on other bishops who allegedly covered up for predatory priests or worse, is one of the two US Cardinals who should play key roles is selecting new US bishops.

Earlier this week the Minneapolis area police chief went on TV to complain about the lack of cooperation from the local hierarchy, singling out especially the former longtime vicar general, Fr. Kevin McDonough, brother of President Obama’s Chief of Staff, Denis McDonough.

Fr. Kevin McDonough reportedly now has his own lawyer, which seemingly indicates his concern about his earlier role. This, of course, must be stessful both for him and his brother, Denis, to whom he is reportedly very close. It is unclear whether this relates at all to Obama’s recent staff additions that may give Denis more help. Denis is already reportedly over-extended. Additionally, Denis, seemingly unfairly, has taken much of the heat for the poor rollout of Obamacare.

In any event, since some of the Minneapolis scandals involve Federal crimes like possessing child pornography(and likely also by now have Federal prosecutors involved), the Minneapolis scandals will have some ongoing relevance for President Obama. The Minneapolis Archdiocese has even hired the FBI’s former top female official to review suspected priests’ files.

Moreover, the scandals also involve as a whistleblower the former female Archdiocesean Chancellor, Jennifer Haselberger; the former head of the US bishops child protection committee, Archbishop Flynn, and a leader in the US bishops’ anti-gay marriage crusade, Archbishop Nienstedt. Nienstedt recently suspended himself from a public role over an unusual allegation of touching a boy improperly, which has led, it appears, to some of the bishops’ key supporters apparently to seek to flush out the undisclosed youthful complainant and to challenge some Minneapolis journalists.

Add to the mix, several diligent and unrelated local media outlets and it becomes very likely that the media coverage of the ongoing Minneapolis scandals will continue to mushroom nationally, if not internationally.

For more on the the scandals in the Minneapolis/St. Paul “Twin Cities” Archdiocese, see: “Pope Francis and Archbishop Nienstedt”, at: http://wp.me/P2YEZ3-V6 and http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/catholic-church/

For a viewpoint from a perceptive abuse survivor of the current positions of the McDonough brothers, see: “The Politician and the Priest” at:

http://theworthyadversary.com/2483-the-politician-and-the-priest-two-brothers-and-a-fall-from-grace.

President Obama, seemingly intentionally, has to date avoided addressing overtly US Federal involvement, like Australia’s commissions, in the US Catholic Church priest child abuse scandals. During his 2012 re-election campaign, he strongly criticized several times Penn State University’s failures to protect children from football coach Sandusky. Obama also recently acted quickly and comprehensively to investigate alleged child sexual abuse on US military bases. His prior Chief of Staff also spoke out against alleged child sexual abuse at a prominent Jewish school in New York City.

During the recent presidential campaign, Obama reportedly met privately and also appeared prominently with New York’s Cardinal Dolan, then head of the US bishops group. There are apparently no indications Obama discussed the national priest abuse scandal with Dolan, who led the US bishops’ papally supported and abortive political efforts to unseat Obama last year.

While no one appears happy about the unusual new allegation about Archbishop Nienstedt, he is retaining his position, while suspending his public appearances, which is probably welcome by other US bishops.

Nienstedt had been one of the main “faces” of the US bishops’ anti-gay marriage political crusade. Since the bishops have apparently resurrected that crusade to try to help conservatives win control of six (net) more US Senate seats in 10 months, Nienstedt’s “face” likely would hurt that effort since it could often lead reporters to raise the bishops’ child abuse failures in anti-gay marriage media reports.

Control of the US Senate would likely secure control of US Supreme Court majority appointments for many years to come, a likely objective of the US bishops. Some bishops can reasonably expect increasingly to be spending time in Federal bankruptcy and criminal courts in future years.

Given President Obama’s understandable objective of leaving his own mark on the US Supreme Court majority, Minneapolis could become a national political battleground, especially with President Obama’s Chief of Staff’s brother’s publicized role.

Pope Francis could weigh in against gay marriage in a big way after the October Synod and before the November US Senate elections. If he does, especially with the Pope’s appeal to Latino American voters, many of whom oppose gay marriage, Pope Francis could be the conservatives’ last chance.

Given this possible scenario, President Obama might try to pre-empt this by following Australia’s example and setting up a national investigation commission into institutional child sexual abuse, which would likely weaken the US bishops and even the Pope’s political postitions. President Obama could not effectively do this after the Synod since there would not be enough time and it would seem too politically motivated.

Some, like me, would call for the US investigation commission sooner if they were in the President’s shoes. Of course, I petitioned him to do so a year ago. It is disgraceful that US bishops have often to date, in effect, “influenced” via lobbyists, some local political leaders and prosecutors.

Some US bishops and their legions of lawyers have apparently even used carefully timed major settlements to induce survivors and their lawyers to agree to keep diocesean priests’ personnel records secret and sealed for years, until local statutes of limitation barred claims and prosecutions. Survivor lawsuits have become for some bishops a routine cost of doing business, funded too often by Catholics who seem unable to understand the negative impact of their continuing contributions.

President Obama must act to protect many thousands, at least, of US children, and also to secure justice for thousands of survivors nationwide. A national investigation commission would be a very effective approach, as Australia is proving daily. Perhaps, it is the best and only real option. At present, the USA is managing a 21st Century national clerical child abuse crisis with an 18th Century “states rights” criminal law structure. This no longer makes sense. This needs to change now, as it did earlier with child pornography crimes.

The US bishops and President Obama are also on a current collision course over Obamacare’s contraception insurance provisions. A Federal judge has recently enjoined enforcement of some Obamacare’s provisions over this issue, see: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/judges-grants-injunction-in-okla-birth-control-lawsuit

This issue will become more significant and common as bishops increasingly try to dictate women’s reproductive medical decisions to the growing number of US Catholic hospitals. Although the head of the Catholic Health Association, Sister Carol Keehan, has endorsed the Obamacare contraception provisions and US bishops usually contribute very little in funds or guidance to Catholic hospitals, many US bishops still exercise considerable influence over the hospitals. See: http://truth-out.org/news/item/20787-the-growth-of-catholic-hospitals-by-the-numbers

The US issues bear directly on Pope Francis’ central option for the poor–specifically on access to affordable health care and to accessible and effective contraception. Poor couples cannot multiple loaves and fish to feed their many children’s mouths; but they can at least control how many mouths they need to feed.

Contraception is accepted in good conscience by most Catholics, regardless of papal prohibitions. Contraception is also a major factor in reducing the need to consider an abortion. Notwithstanding this, the US bishops and the US Papal Nuncio, likely to try to gain a political advantage, oppose making it accessible to poorer couples. This is inconsistent, if not hypocritical.

In Australia, the upcoming political confrontations will likely be over adopting the yet to come legislative recommendations flowing from the continuing Royal Commission investigation. This continuing cover-up investigation, especially of Vatican files, will also likely impact sooner the Minneapolis investigations, and probably vice versa.

It is unclear where Rupert Murdoch’s media outlets will come out on the chld abuse investigations. To date, they often appear to be supportive of the Catholic hierarchy’s positions. That may change, especially in light of the unpredictable, but serious, implications of currently ongoing UK criminal trials related to Murdoch controlled news outlets. Time will tell.

As millions gather this week to celebrate an innocent divine baby in a manger, some will ponder how this person, who mandated forcefully and clearly that children must be protected, has ended up with a Church hierarchy that claim to act in his name but have failed, and continue to fail, so many children.