Pope Francis’ Course & Crew For Synod Family Sail Can Sink The Vatican Titanic

By Jerry Slevin
Christian Catholicism
September 13, 2014

http://christiancatholicism.com/pope-francis-course-crew-for-synod-family-sail-can-sink-the-vatican-titanic/

Pope Francis has recently stepped up significantly his already strong efforts to protect the Catholic hierarchy from basic international laws and any democratic oversight.

Of course, Francis is trying to avoid both the long reach to the Vatican of Australia’s Royal Commission now investigating Cardinal Pell’s alleged abuse cover-ups, as well as increasing calls for a comparable US Presidential Commission under President Obama.

And seemingly of equal importance are Francis’ and his US bishops’ relentless efforts via anti-Obamacare contraception insurance and anti-gay marriage crusades to help their “low tax” billionaire buddies preserve a right wing US Supreme Court majority by electing a Republican US Senate majority in November. Both of these majorities will also likely be “friendlier” to some US bishops who are increasingly expected to end up in US Federal bankruptcy and criminal courts. In a non-Presidential election year, Francis’ push may be the “turnout difference” in some states, especially among fundamentalist and Latino Catholic voters.

Significantly, Francis this week has shocked many Catholics, including his usually devoted Jesuit cheerleader, Vatican expert, Tom Reese, at the National Catholic Reporter (NCR),  by Francis’ appointments to the “Family Synod of Fathers Without Kids”, which surprisingly included disgraced Cardinals Sodano and Danneels.

Please see Tom Reese’s complaints, and the more than 700 blogger comments received in two days that mostly agreed with Reese or worse , about Francis’ Synod blunders. Predictably, the staunchly “pro-Francis”  NCR quickly closed comments and replaced Reese’s negative front page article, before the heavy NCR website weekend traffic arrived,  with an article on the wonders of the Vatican Observatory!

Tom Reese’s critical complaints about Francis’ Synod are here:

http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/makeup-synod-bishops-family-disappointing

Francis then shocked even more Catholics by selecting, for two key priest child abuse “prevention positions”, conflicted former canon lawyers to Boston’s disgraced Cardinal Law and Chicago’s much criticized Cardinal George.

Fr. Robert Oliver, Cardinal Law’s former canon lawyer, will be, in effect, chief of staff for Law’s Boston successor, Cardinal Sean O’Malley’s illusory Vatican  “priest child abuse commission”, and (b) Fr. Robert Geisinger, a Chicago Jesuit, will be new Vatican “chief prosecutor”.  Geisinger has had strong ties as a canon lawyer to both Chicago Archdiocesan and Jesuit leaders, some of whom reportedly had extensive histories of secretly protecting priest sex abusers.

One  US Jesuit province alone paid in 2011 over $160 million to settle priest child abuse claims. US Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi, then even objected to a Jesuit, Fr. Conroy, being appointed US House of Representatives’ chaplain, only to be overruled by Republican leader, John Boehner, with strong support for Boehner’s selection from a NCR editor

The Vatican chief prosecutor position is derived from the absurd legal claim, based on the 1929 corrupt bargain between Mussolini and Pope Pius XI, that the 110 acre campus in Rome used for a few hundred Catholic religious officials is a separate nation. This is a cynical and conflicted “self policing” position that, in effect, aims often to protect in secrecy alleged child abusing clerics, like Pope John Paul II’s favored Polish/Dominican Republic Archbishop Wesolowski,  from national criminal prosecutions abroad that would likely implicate more Vatican officials in public legal proceedings.

Please see my further analysis and links below, in addition to the links above to my earlier remarks and also to easily found pertinent and reliable news items via a simple Google search.

On Vatican Media Management Efforts

Francis, of course, has a huge media “myth making” machine that is overseen by a FOX/TIME/OPUS DEI veteran and advised by the high priced US consulting firm of McKinsey & Co. Some of them tout the “Francis Illusion” incessantly, often using the “words and symbols” of Italian Zeffirelli’s “Jesus of Nazareth” extravaganza.

Francis’ over-hyped 18 months (so far) papal mini-series will now add, as new episodes, (1)  Francis’ fundamentally flawed “only celibate men vote” Family Synod and (2) Francis’ illusory and rigged  “priest child abuse commission”.

The Francis Illusion appears, however, to close observers, to be increasingly in reality, more like a blend of the “actions and deeds” of three Hollywood classics — “The Wizard of Oz”,  “Titanic” and “The Godfather”. In particular, Francis’ media strategy seems basically to confuse protecting vulnerable children from predatory priests with protecting pedophile protecting bishops behind the Francis Illusion smokescreen!

But wait, wishful thinking papal zealots and apologists, who blindly support the almost 78 year old Francis, protest that this 18 month mini-series will eventually become a comedy, with a happy ending. Perhaps, but it increasingly appears that the main joke will likely be on those who “buy Francis’ sales pitch”.

Pope Francis seems poised with his farcical agenda and loyalist staffing of his Family Synod and “priest child abuse commission” to make fools of world leaders, including Germany’s Merkel, Ireland’s Kenny, Australia’s Abbott, the UK’s Cameron, France’s Hollande and the USA’s Obama, on important family and social welfare issues. These officials’ budgets are often the source of much of the financial and social support of priest abuse survivors often left destitute in their countries by the Catholic hierarchy.

On Francis’ Islamicist Terrorism Diversion

Francis and his right-wing political allies are also increasingly trying to deflect attention from the Vatican’s worldwide financial and sex scandals to a “New Devil”, a small number of Islamicist terrorists who threaten and attack some local Middle East Christians. This, for some hierarchical militarists and their opportunistic right wing US political allies, may even “warrant a new crusade”.

This reckless approach clearly is a lethal recipe for more major and senseless Middle East wars to be fought by NATO countries’ youth. For what,  to protect some Popes’ self interest over some Ayatollahs’ self interest? How insane, really? Does Francis realize how dangerous this near war mongering really is, especially for Western democracies like Germany, France, the UK, the USA and Australia, with substantial Muslim minorities?

Does Francis really care, as he flounders around trying to save his hierarchy?

The Middle East mess  is clearly not the World Cup matches; it is international politics that a “fallible” Pope Francis seems too often to be blissfully ignorant about. Francis had already foolishly promoted Russian Putin’s image with a Vatican welcome that was followed by the near invasion of Ukraine. Will Francis ever learn to stick to Jesus’ message of individual conversion and personal peacemaking and leave politics and war to political and military leaders?

Of course, the popes of Francis’ formative years, Pius XI and Pius XII, facilitated, evidently for the Vatican’s self interested advantage, madmen like Mussolini and Hitler, which helped lead to World War II, so anything’s possible with unaccountable papal monarchs under stress.

On Some of Francis’ Other Diversions

Francis and his “billionaire buddies” apparently are sticking to the Yellow Brick Road and to media created “illusionary wizardry”, while the Vatican Titanic continues to sink more each day on the horrific iceberg of the priest child abuse scandals. TOTO could swim, but can the Papal Wizard?

Pope Francis indisputably showed this week that the welfare of families, especially of children, is less important to him than protecting Vatican cardinals and worldwide bishops from prosecution. Francis’ latest actions irrevocably raised the curtain, that Vatican publicists’ had so carefully crafted, on the latest Papal Wizard’s “Happy Pope” illusion. The Vatican spin machine has finally run out of mystical smokescreens to hide the Vatican’s  “Godfather-like” strategy.

Pope Francis has now shown beyond any reasonable doubt that he is “one of the boys” at the Vatican. It is now clear that Francis was elected a year and a half ago by frightened cardinals, primarily, to save themselves from outside government prosecutors investigating numerous priest child abuse and corruption scandals.

Neither Francis’ “low tax” billionaire funders, nor Francis’ supportive Goldman Sach’s bankers and alumni, nor even Francis’ media cheerleaders, including those at the NCR and the Boston Globe’s new Crux websites, will likely be able “to  put lipstick” on Francis’ latest shameful  actions. But surely they will try! Money still talks loudest and the Vatican has access to a lot of it. It appears Francis likes publicly “playing with the poor”, while privately “running with the bulls”.

On Francis’ on Women and Children

Francis signaled strongly this week that:

(1) on “contraception’, Catholic couples must keep “mass producing Catholic babies”, especially in light of the “escalating Islamicist threat”, no matter what is best for couples’ other children. This dangerous farce is clearly directed at salvaging the “papal power myth” of infallibility tied to recent popes’ “infallible  banning” of birth control. It is also aimed  at buttressing, pre-the US November Congressional elections,  Francis’ right wing US political allies’ opposition to Obamacare contraception insurance and their contrived fear of a growing radical Islamicist “threat” to the Vatican; and

(2) on curtailing priest child rape, Francis’ new “priest child abuse commission” will continue from all indications to try to protect clerics before children. Just to make sure, Francis appointed two hardliner priests as the key staffers on Vatican child abuse handling.

Jesus ordered all of us to protect children first, last and always. Francis, following his recent predecessors, now says, in effect, we must protect children, unless it puts cardinals and bishops at risk of criminal prosecution.

Ironically, Francis’ medieval Vatican Curia and some radical Islamicist mullahs seem engaged in a worldwide bi-polar “Taliban style” struggle, mainly about “whose God and whose religious hierarchy” will rule the world without accountability.

As Colonel Andrew Bacevitch, an international relations scholar and Vietnam War veteran,  recently noted at Reuters: “Traditionalists, especially numerous in but not confined to the Islamic world, cling to the conviction that human existence should be God-centered human order. Proponents of modernity, taking their cues from secularized Western elites, strongly prefer an order that favors individual autonomy and marginalizes God. Not God first, but we first — our own aspirations, desires and ambitions.  If there’s a core problem afflicting global politics today, that’s it.”

On the Priest Child Sex Abuse Scandal

For the current “big picture”, please see the recent report by Fr. Thomas P. Doyle, O.P., the world’s leading expert on curtailing priest child sexual abuse, at:

http://christiancatholicism.com/how-survivors-have-changed-history-by-thomas-p-doyle-o-p/

On Cardinal O’Malley

As to Pope Francis’ new “papal protector of children”, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, recent NCR comments of Jim Jenkins are revealing. Reportedly, Jenkins, a prominent California psychologist with some abuse survivor patients, battled with Cardinal Levada, beginning a decade ago when Jenkins was on Levada’s San Francisco’s Archdiocesan child protection board. Jenkins observes about O’Malley, in pertinent part:

“Hierarchs in the Vatican are only motivated by power and it’s twisted sister, money. This is a typical maneuver by Cardinal Sean O’Malley. He says the pious thing in public but in private, behind the scenes, he makes sure that the fix is in. This is the way that O’Malley has conducted himself ever since he became a bishop – it’s the way he has climbed the clerical ladder. O’Malley is the chief Vatican cleaner-upper who sweeps up after the elephant parade of abusers. … “

Jenkins adds in another comment:

“Really, with Sean O’Malley – the most political creature I have ever met in my whole life – in charge of this commission, we shouldn’t get our hopes up by any means. O’Malley has greased his climb up the clerical ladder cleaning-up [as in covering-up] sexual abuse scandals in every stop along his career as a prelate. It is what O’Malley does best. That is the reason the Vatican dons made him a cardinal in the first place. He does his job well, and looks really good in that Franciscan habit – right out of central casting.”

“It is illogical for us to expect much from Papa Francesco on the sexual abuse front. Bergoglio could never have risen to the rank of cardinal-archbishop of Buenos Aires, then get elected pope, without the support of the most reactionary members of the hierarchy [Think Ratzinger!].”

“How could we now expect Bergoglio to turn his back so easily on the very men who just months ago elected him pope? Not going to happen.”

And as to Francis’ appointments of Frs. Oliver and Geisenger,  Jenkins noted crisply:

“With these two appointments … , the message is clear: THE FIX IS IN!”

For less colorful and more detailed, and documented, information, from Anne Barrett Doyle, the excellent reseracher at BishopAccountabillity.org, on Cardinal O’Malley’s poor history on child abuse prevention efforts, please see her “Six Ways Cardinal Sean O’Malley Has Mishandled the Abuse Crisis” at:

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/OMalley_Fact_Sheet.htm

To date, after a well publicized announcement nine months ago, O’Malley has had only a few perfunctory meetings of his inchoate priest child abuse commission, usually timed to deflect negative publicity from UN committee condemnations of the Vatican’s priest child abuse cover-ups and the like. The Vatican priest child abuse commission, after its announcement nine months ago (and 18 months after Francis” election), still lacks a full membership, a specific agenda and basic administrative protocols.

On Cardinals Sodano and Danneels

Belgian Cardinal Danneels in 2010 reportedly recommended silence about an especially obscene sex abuse case that had involved Bishop Roger Vangheluwe. Cardinal Danneels reportedly advised the victim, a nephew of Vangheluwe, to delay a public statement until Vangheluwe had retired. So what else is new?

At another meeting Vangheluwe, in Danneels’ presence, reportedly made a private apology, which the nephew rejected and went public with his charges.

During 2010, Bishop Vangheluwe resigned, admitting his guilt publicly according to reports. The shameless bishop also gave a TV interview subsequently where, in effect, he admitted to abusing as well another nephew as a child, without appearing to comprehend at all the seriousness of sexually abusing his nephews.

The bishop, like so many predatory priests before and after him, is now free to enjoy the “good life”, with impunity, while the abuse survivors go to their graves often irreparably harmed and indigent.

Jason Berry, a leading reporter on the priest child abuse scandal, last year addressed in the NY Times, Cardinal Sodano’s poor record, in pertinent part, as follows:

“…Cardinal Sodano ranks with the Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony as an egregious practitioner of the cover up. As John Paul II’s secretary of state, he pressured Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict, in two notorious cases.”

“In 1995, Cardinal Hans Hermann Groër resigned as archbishop of Vienna, trailed by accusations, soon proven, that he had abused young men. Cardinal Ratzinger wanted the pope to speak out; Cardinal Sodano overruled him.”

“Cardinal Sodano also pressured Cardinal Ratzinger to abort a case filed in 1998 by several men accusing the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, of abusing them as seminarians. Cardinal Sodano was a longtime beneficiary of money and favors from Father Maciel. Priests who left the order told me he received at least $15,000 in cash.”

“Cardinal Ratzinger tabled the case until 2004 but, with John Paul dying, finally ordered an investigation. In 2005, Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope Benedict. Cardinal Sodano’s office then announced the Maciel proceeding was over, while people kept testifying. Benedict dismissed Father Maciel from ministry in 2006; he died in 2008. Still, Cardinal Sodano lavished praise on the Legion, despite the news that Father Maciel had several children.”

In 2005, Cardinal Sodano was elected dean of the College of Cardinals, which will select the next pope. At 85 years old, he is too old to vote, though he will oversee the conclave, and will surely have his candidate.”

It appears clear, at least now, that Cardinals Sodano likely played a key role in selecting Cardinal Bergoglio as Pope Francis. Sodano and Bergoglio evidently go back over three decades to their time dealing with military dictatorships in Argentina and Chile. Indeed, Francis has made one Sodano protege,Parolin, a Cardinal, Vatican Secretary of State and a member of the Council of Cardinals, making him a likely choice to succeed Francis. Francis has put another Sodano protege, Cardinal Baldisseri, in charge of the Family Synod.

Please see Berry’s full article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/opinion/the-pope-could-still-right-the-wrongs.html?_r=0

And Pope Francis now appoints Sodano and Danneels to advise about families! Hello?

The Vatican and Goldman Sachs

Reportedly, as to Francis’ supporters among Goldman Sachs’ key executives and alumni, key ones appear to include (1) Peter Sutherland, Chairman of Goldman Sachs International, and (2) former Goldman Sachs CEO prospect, Geoffrey Boisi, a large donor to Catholic causes, who also reportedly has been a member of the Knights of Malta and of the Papal Foundation, and a former Chairman of the Boston College (BC) Board of Trustees, and (3) new Vatican Bank Board member, Michael Hintze, who had served reportedly as head of U.K. trading at Goldman Sachs.

As to what is the extent and nature of the direct and indirect financial fees these bankers and their associates have earned and will earn as a result of their Vatican connections, will we ever know?

Please note, as to Sutherland’s extensive papal influence, the pertinent parts of this recent report:

” … {Peter} Sutherland addressed the Council of Cardinals, the most senior advisers to the Papacy, in a room close to Doma Santa Marta, the Pope’s residence….

… Sutherland, chairman of Goldman Sachs International, was appointed as an adviser to the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, an asset manager for the Vatican.”

See more at:

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/pope-drafts-in-peter-sutherland-after-vatican-bank-hit-by-scandals-30336625.html#sthash.66PlO6R5.dpuf

Please see also the sources in the links at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sutherland

Reportedly, Boisi is also associated with some of NCR’s key donors and advertisers, such as FAIDICA with its Hilton Foundation, and the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management.

For additional information on Boisi, please see:

http://observer.com/2000/11/welchs-juice-man-how-brash-barbarian-banker-geoffrey-boisi-thrills-neutron-jack/#ixzz3D7leBUOp

For a description of Boisi’s struggles a decade ago with Cardinal Law’s former top assistant, Bishop William Murphy, in trying to remove Cardinal Bevilacqua’s nephew, Monsignor Alesandro, as Boisi’s Long Island parish pastor, please see:

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2004_01_06/2004_04_28_Ciolli_ParishionersLambaste.htm

For Boisi’s ties to NCR donors and advertisers, please see:

http://www.fadica.org/main/About/MeetFADICA.aspx and

http://www.theleadershiproundtable.org/TLR/aboutus/board-of-directors.html

On the influence of donors on the media outlets, NCR and the Boston Globe’s new Crux website, please see:

http://christiancatholicism.com/fear-strikes-back-the-national-catholic-reporter-finally-replies/

http://christiancatholicism.com/francis-synod-wall-street-ncr-crux-nuns-kids-just-amazing/  and

http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2014/09/11/crux-pope-francis-boston-college-event-panel-video/

The prominent presence of Cardinal O’Malley and Mary Anne Glendon at the “launch gala” at BC  for Crux indicates, to me anyways, the hierarchy’s likely strong (and likely disappointing) influence on Crux’s journalistic coverage and editorial.positions. O’Malley is the sole US member of Francis’ elite Council of Cardinals. Glendon has served in Vatican positions under both Francis and his prececessor.

Reportedly, in October 2012,the former Irish President, Mary McAleese revealed that, on a state visit to the US in 1998, she was publicly berated by Cardinal Law for her stance on the ordination of women. During a heated argument with McAleese and members of her delegation, the cardinal attempted to usher her into a room to listen to a lecture by Mary Ann Glendon on the church’s views on women priests. McAleese rebuked him with the statement “I was the President of Ireland and not just of Catholic Ireland”

Of course, McAleese, a civil and canon lawyer, recently indicated that Francis’ decision, not to have women as full voting participants at the Family Synod, was completely “bonkers’. She echoed Francis’ favored Cardinal theologian, Cardinal Walter Kasper’s description of the exclusion of women as full Synod participants as “absurd”.

I now have to wonder who suggested to billionaire financier, John Henry, to set up the Boston Globe’s new website, Crux, and to call and hire for Crux John Allen, NCR’s former chief “papal spinner”, now replaced at NCR by Tom Reese, a usually pliable and obedient Jesuit who is too often swooning over a Jesuit Pope, even one who reportedly was quite disliked by many Argentinian Jesuits.

John Henry obviously has many Wall Street contacts, likely including some associated with key donors and advertisers at NCR. Disappointingly, Crux’s early efforts seem to me mostly to indicate just another papal spin outlet. Crux opening gala just confirms that for me.

This is what I had expected it would be, especially given Allen’s extensive history of”softball” papal promotions at NCR. A reporter like Allen apparently can get more interviews “by pitching softballs” and accepting uncritically papal spin, than by being an objective and critical thinker. Allen may not understand that there is a difference between journalism and cheer leading.

I hope the Boston Globe newsroom has, at least, put some drapes over its earlier Pulitzer Prize for its game changing stories a decade ago about Cardinal Law and the Catholic hierarchy’s broader priest child abuse cover-ups. Wow, does the Vatican papal media machine recover quickly, or not?

Of course, Pope Francis had earlier worked closely with Cardinal Law and Carl Anderson in Spain, well after the Boston scandal disclosures, on a Curial Commission about “family matters”. That should have been some clue about Francis.

On the Synod and Contraception

It is hardly promising for the soon upcoming Family Synod of Fathers Without Kids that only 175+ celibate male clerics will be entitled to vote. No women or married men need apply, thank you very much!

As to the Family Synods’ approach to contraception, the following comment to Tom Reese’s above cited article by Dr, Rosemary McHugh, a Chicago physician and moral authority, is quite informative: She writes:

“Thank you, Fr Reese for your honest views about the make-up of the Synod on the Family. For the celibate clergy to keep pushing natural family planning, when so many women and couples are not able to do NFP for various reasons, shows me that Pope Francis does not want to focus on real issues, instead the synod is getting bogged down in sexual issues. For the celibate church to say that every act of intercourse between a man and a woman must be open to the possibility of a pregnancy is a theoretical construct that does not make common sense, made by men who have no life experience of true intimacy with any woman. As a physician, I am sad to see a rehashing of the contraceptive issue from the 1960s, which is being resurrected to further intimidate women. Women who have easily readable menstrual cycles and find it easy to do NFP often lack understanding and compassion for those who cannot do NFP for various reasons. The church does not offer any other option to NFP except abstinence. No wonder women are following their own consciences and doing what they have to do to survive. Why is the church so backward?”;

and as another NCR blogger graciously added about the Family Synod in a comment (since I am now banned from commenting myself at NCR):

“So sad… It’s just like Jerry Slevin always said –they’re just going to rearrange the deck chairs on their sinking Titanic.”

The Family Synod will have a few lay Catholics as non-voting auditors, including several couples active in Catholic natural family planning (NFP) groups.These unrepresentative NFP couples at the Synod will likely further be used to advance Pope Francis’ beatification of “St. Pope Paul VI” , who outrageously banned the Pill in 1968 over the strong objections of the cardinals, bishops and married couples on his own papal birth control commission. These NFP couples will likely be used also to buttress Pope Francis’  and US bishops’ anti-Obamacare contraception insurance crusade before November’s important US Senate elections.

Why do mature Catholic parents let themselves be used as pawns like these NFP couples appear to do? Why do Catholics generally, especially so many women, accept this so passively? I cannot understand this.

Paul VI’s ruthless disregard for his own birth control commission’s pro-contraception advice has been documented fully in Robert Blair Kaiser’s classic “The Politics of Sex and Religion”, which he generously has made available as a free e-book here:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/151118

Please also see my 2011 NCR essay:

http://ncronline.org/news/vatican/new-birth-control-commission-papers-reveal-vaticans-hand

As to the Family Synod’s “non-approach” so far to gay Catholics’ families, a Boston reporter just noted about a question raised with Cardinal O’Malley at the recent Crux opening gala at BC:

“On a range of hot-button social issues such as LGBT rights, divorce and the role of women in the church, panelists talked about Francis’ compassion and outreach but played down the possibility of significant shifts in doctrine. As O’Malley said of the pope, ‘He hasn’t changed the lyrics, but he’s changed the melody.’ ”

O’Malley sums up Pope Francis well: Francis changes the melody but not the lyrics, as did his Papal Wizard predecessors also. Francis almost slick approach can also be described as “words, NOT actions” or “talking the talk, but not walking the walk” and, even in some cases, as “sheer hypocrisy”!

How long will Catholics be fooled by Pope Francis’ too frequent “doublespeak”?

Hopefully, either in connection with the needed Family Synod discussion of gay Catholics and families, and possibly also in connection with the expected beatification of Pope Paul VI, Pope Francis will generate an honest discussion at the Synod about the pertinence of rumors of the sexual orientation of recent popes, including Paul VI and Benedict XVI.

Perhaps, the ex-Pope might even share with the Synod Fathers some honest observations of his own on the pressing subject of treating gay Catholics with dignity, notwithstanding his earlier brutal position reflected in the Catechism?. At this point, what does the ex-Pope stand to lose?

Since it is unlikely Francis and the ex-Pope will ever publicly release, without a court order, the ex-Pope’s secret “Gay Lobby Report”, at least the ex-Pope should consider discussing this important subject, no?

For some related background, please see:

http://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/a02tPaulV_Accusations.html

http://www.awrsipe.com/Comments/2012-04-04-pope-benedict-gay.htm