Abuse Cover - Up: Pope Talks – Cameron Acts

By Jerry Slevin
Christian Catholicism
February 5, 2015

http://christiancatholicism.com/child-abuse-cover-up-pope-francis-talks-prime-minister-cameron-acts/

A tale of two cities, London and Vatican City: two different approaches to investigating official cover-ups of child sexual abuse — the UK’s is serious; the Vatican’s is window dressing so far. The latest tale takes place over just a few days, yet shows the essential contrast between the UK’s parliamentary democracy and the Vatican’s absolute monarchy. London’s investigative approach is clearly designed to be expeditious, independent and transparent; the Vatican’s approach is clearly designed to be unending, controlled and secretive. London’s sex abuse commission is seeking to find out who did what when; the Vatican’s sex abuse commission is designed to find “best practices”, including some education and training programs. If the pope is serious, he needs to add to his commission some experienced, independent and proven members, like Fr. Thomas Doyle, Illinois Justice Anne Burke and former Irish President, Mary McAleese?

Is Francis trying to avoid finding the truth? It seems he is. He has been dealing with priest child abusers likely for over four decades, from when he served as the young provincial of all Argentina Jesuits. He seems to know well how to stall and cover up, no? It is nice to have some abuse survivors on the pope’s commission, but are they necessarily the best choices for investigating the pervasive priest child sexual abuse cover up? What professional investigating experience do they really have? Brave and compassionate persons, yes, but not necessarily experienced at contributing significantly to a serious investigation commission.

Since his election in March, 2013, Francis has several times “talked the talk” — he has vowed zero tolerance for priest sex offenders, but many want him to “walk the walk” and make all bishops who allegedly covered up the abuse accountable. The pope’s sex abuse commission has been very slow getting off the ground. Announced in December 2013, it saw its final members added in December 2014 and still has no operating statutes. It is dominated by clerics, including disgraced Cardinal Law’s former canon lawyer, who are. in effect, investigating their colleagues and friends — a clear conflict of interest. Moreover, they are only “advisory”, subordinate to the pope ultimately.

Two priest sex abuse survivors are now named as members of the pope’s commission, Ireland’s Marie Collins and the UK’s Peter Saunders. Saunders told Vatican Radio recently that the consequences of the abuse he suffered “put a sledghammer through my ability to trust” and continue to affect every aspect of his life, leading to low self-esteem, shame and guilt which he is still trying to deal with through regular therapy.

Saunders, chief executive of the UK National Association for People Abused in Childhood, reportedly has said the UK commission’s new head, Judge Lowell Goddard, would “enhance the whole credibility of the inquiry”. To date, however, Saunders has not publicly addressed the many shortcomings of the pope’s commission. Will he? Let us hope and pray he does.

Collins, who earlier publicly complained about the commission’s slow pace, told Reuters recently that commission members had asked the pope to write a letter to thwart any resistance from bishops to its work. Pope Francis then wrote urging bishops and religious superiors to cooperate with his sex abuse commission, as it prepares to meet for the first time with its full membership.

In a letter released Thursday, 2/5/15, Francis said the commission is an important new way to encourage the Catholic Church’s commitment to taking “whatever steps are necessary” to ensure children are protected. Members are being divided into working groups focusing on different areas such, as reaching out to abuse survivors, holding bishops accountable and keeping pedophiles out of the priesthood, and will have met for for the first time as a group starting Friday, 2/6/15. Will the two abuse survivors have a say, for example, on holding bishops accountable. Unlikely, no?

Pope Francis formed the commission after initially facing public pressure and criticism that he had largely ignored the clerical sex abuse scandal that had so tarnished the papacies of his two predecessors. The modest, indeed, minimal aim of this advisory commission is to come up with best practices for dioceses and religious orders to implement. It followed several earlier flawed initiatives that requested bishops’ conferences around the globe to address the scandal, including the 2011 request from the Vatican for bishops to develop national guidelines to prevent abuse.

Francis’ own Argentina bishops conference, that he led, had even failed to respond timely to the Vatican’s request until after he became pope. In his letter, Francis said “every effort” must be made to implement those guidelines, review them periodically and ensure they are being observed. He said the sex abuse commission is designed to provide them with help to do so, including with education and training programs. A lot of talk, no?

Given Francis’ and his predecessors track record, Francis’ letter will likely be taken as just the latest “wink” to bishops that it is business as usual. A best practices analysis is hardly a serious approach after decades of bishops’ neglect of this child abuse scandal.

It has been a tough week for Pope Francis with: (1) the UK investigation announcement, (2) the much and justifiably ridiculed all male “Pontifical Council on Women” with its launch in a night club atmosphere at Teatro Argentina in Rome, and (3) the release of Jesuit educated and former Wall Street lawyer, Gerald Posner’s explosive book, “God’s Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican” , (see at [Amazon] link). Posner, who was generally stonewalled by the Vatican leadership under both the ex-Pope and Francis, covers everything from unspeakable misdeeds involving Holocaust victims’ assets, to Vatican facilitation of bribery of Italian political leaders, to Pope Francis’ recent efforts to stop the financial bleeding.

Please see, for more. my related remarks, “Will UK Probe of Teresa May Compel Ex-Pope Benedict To Testify????” , here [Christian Catholicism] and “Vatican To Women: YES on Unwanted Babies – NO on Tummy Tucks “, here, [Christian Catholicism] .

Will Hillary Clinton, a Yale lawyer who worked on the Watergate Commission that transparently and independently investigated US President Nixon’s criminal cover-up conspiracy, be next to call for a national investigation commission in the USA? President Obama seems to lack the fortitude to do so. Australia’s Julia Gillard and UK’s Teresa May called for serious commissions. Is this a “women thing” only? Why is Michelle Obama, a Harvard lawyer, so silent here? As US whistle blowers and SNAP justifiably take their bows, why are they not blowing their whistles at President Obama’s inexcusable inaction?

Australia has shown that a well funded national commission is the best way to curtail institutional child sex abuse and also to get justice for abuse survivors. The whistle blowers’ and SNAP’s failure to press Obama more to set up a presidential commission is puzzling at best. Please see prominent Australian abuse advocate, Aletha Blayse’s persuasive case for a US presidential investigation commission like Australia already has, here,”Child Abuse, War, and the Need for a National Commission of Inquiry into Child Abuse”, here, [Christian Catholicism] .

When Pope Francis addresses the US Congress on September 24, will John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, Joe Biden, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, et al., dare to raise with Pope Francis the subject of protecting defenseless US children from unaccountable predatory priests and bishops? If not, why not?

UK’s David Cameron’s Home Secretary, Teresa May, acted boldly on Wednesday (2/4/15) to establish an independent child sex abuse commission with power to compel testimony, as reported here, [Mirror] and here, [BBC News] . Pope Francis’ cherry picked advisory abuse commission finally meets later this week without even a governing statute yet, a dozen years after disgraced Boston Cardinal Law’s bombshell revelations. Francis’s commission is being run by Cardinal Law’s former canon lawyer!

Pope Francis’ seemingly Keystone Kops’ approach is not limited to some children’s issues, but to some women’s issues as well. As theologian Mary Hunt recently and fairly noted , in pertinent part, (in italics):

“However well-intentioned Vatican officials may be, they embody Murphy’s Law when it comes to women: everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Maybe if women were more than bit players, things might improve. …

I persist, if only to encourage others to trust their intuitions about such dubious endeavors and to think about women when they sing the praises of Pope Francis. Women make up slightly more than half of the Catholic population, and many more than half of its active members. Only by ignoring women can Francis fans herald his achievements. .

Only by setting aside the all-male priesthood, bracketing any mention of kyriarchal decision-making structures, and passing over outmoded notions of gender can one honestly say that Francis, who captains the ship, is any better than his immediate predecessors when it comes to half of the church.

Adding insult to injury, the Council chose, as RD’s Patti Miller pointed out yesterday, Man Ray’s “Venere Restaurata” as the cover illustration for its study document in preparation for the meeting (Venus Restored, 1936). Art is always dicey, but for a notoriously patriarchal institution to feature a female nude torso bound in rope is simply too ambiguous for prime time. The Council has seven women Consultors (who have no vote) including art historian Micol Forti, who gamely defended the choice by claiming that the piece is a starting point for new ideas. I should say so! But unless the document writers are willing to concede (which they do not) that the Roman Catholic Church’s theology and policies on sex and reproduction tie women in knots (except for their Fallopian tubes), I respectfully suggest that this image, like the YouTube video, be retired before it causes more scandal… “

For more, including Mary Hunt’s perceptive and informative analysis of the Pontifical Council’s study document, please see her, ” VATICAN COUNCIL ON WOMEN WOULD BE FUNNY WERE IT NOT SO INSULTING“, here,

[religiondispatches.org]

The Catholic Church leadership after two years under Pope Francis still continues its longstanding policy of trying to cover up priest child abuse cases, it appears. This is almost inexcusable. Church leadership, including apparently the pope’s “child abuse czar” and even a bishops conference, currently still seem to fail to abide by the Vatican’s “zero tolerance” hype.

Church leaders are evidently trying, despite Pope Francis’well publicized grand gestures and warm words about abuse survivors, (a) to keep potential abuse cases away, as long and as much as feasible, from independent and experienced local police and criminal prosecutors, who are trained in handling these cases (most recently near Boston and in the South Pacific near Australia), and (b) to avoid paying acknowledged priest abuse survivors’ just claims, as the Minneapolis, Milwaukee and dozen USA diocesan bankruptcy filings make so clear. Pope Francis the “man” is not matching up to his “myth” once again, while many in the media sadly continue to be entranced in their two year “Francismania coma”.

Please see here, “Catholic Bishops Conference … releases new sexual abuse policy“, [Radio Australia]; here,”IC Community Demands Meeting with O’Malley on Church’s Overreaction“, [Revere Journal]; here, “Two cases of child pornography possession in Vatican in 2014“, [Reuters]; here, “Minn. archdiocese transfer of assets may protect it from bankruptcy creditors“, [Star Tribune]; here, “Bankruptcy Protection in the Abuse Crisis“, [BishopAccountability.org]; and here, “Archdiocese wins latest dispute in bankruptcy over sex abuse“, [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel].

Boston”s Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the pope’s “child abuse czar”, is finally about to hold his first full meeting of the pope’s abuse commission, even as he is criticized for mishandling the recent Revere case. For O’Malley’s poor “prior record” on priest child abuse cases, please see here, “Six Ways Cardinal Sean O’Malley Has Mishandled the Abuse Crisis“ [BishopAccountability.org]

The Vatican’s most sensational scandal, the abuse cover up, seems to be mostly more of the same half measures used by his failed predecessors. This is consistent with Pope Francis’ earlier failure as Cardinal to address priest child abuse claims fully in Argentina; please see Pope Francis & Database of Argentine Abuse .

Instead of trying to face fully his own Church scandals, Pope Francis spends much of his time, too much, on public relations efforts, like his unnecessary trips to South Korea and the Philippines, and on cultivating as Vatican allies leaders of Russia, China, right wing US Republicans and billionaire plutocrats worldwide.

Catholic bishops are still not required under Church rules generally to report child abuse claims to the police, for example, and accused clerics are investigated secretively by other clerics mainly. Francis has not acted to improve priest selection, to help weed out problem priests faster, by expanding the priest selection pool to include married men and women, and he has not acted on predatory priest management oversight worldwide by making bishops accountable. Kansas City’s criminally convicted Bishop Finn still sits on his episcopal throne.

The Vatican, per Reuters’ recent report linked above, discovered two cases of possession of child pornography within its own walls last year, its chief prosecutor Milano said on Saturday (1/31/15). In his report, Milano said Vatican police had investigated “two delicate cases, of varying degrees of seriousness, of possession of child pornography material” by people living or working inside the 110 acre Vatican campus.

The prosecutor gave no details but a Vatican spokesman said one of them involved Jozef Wesolowski, a former archbishop who was arrested last September in the Vatican on charges of having paid for sex with children while he was a papal ambassador in the Dominican Republic. Reportedly 100,000 images of child pornography was found on his computer. The Vatican spokesman gave no details of the other case.

After telling a UN commission that the Vatican was only responsible for protecting children on its 110 acre Vatican campus, the Vatican now seems unwilling to name a priest it is investigating for child porn charges, which may present risks for the few children on the Vatican campus. What is going on, Pope Francis?

The Vatican continues to err in handling sexual abuse by priests. Pope Francis would do well to read the wise advice of Dr. Rosemary McHugh. a priest abuse survivor and an expert on women’s reproductive health, contraception and natural family planning. Please see her remarkable story entitled “Ireland: A Priest Predator & A Young US Doctor & An Archbishop” here.

Indeed, Francis should invite Jesuit educated Dr. McHugh to serve as a full time participant at the Final Synod on the Family in several months. She could join Dublin’s Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, whom she already knows. Martin was a key Vatican advocate, at the 1995 Beijing UN Conference, for the challenge to Hillary Clinton led by Mary Ann Glendon, seemingly as Pope John Paul II’s “female warrior”, with help from Cardinal Sodano’s subordinate, Diarmuid Martin. Glendon, a long time supporter, and likely near beneficiary, of both Boston’s disgraced Cardinal Law and Mexico’s infamous child abuser, Fr, Macial Maciel, is now a top female adviser to Pope Francis.

The 1995 Vatican’s self serving position that Glendon and Marin pushed hard, still held under Pope Francis today, with regard to family-planning services, was that the ” … the Holy See’s actions during this Conference should in no way be interpreted as changing its well-known position that ” … the Holy See in no way endorses contraception or the use of condoms, either as a family-planning measure or in HIV/AIDS prevention programs …”. (My emphasis).

Most importantly, Pope Francis is entering the most critical period of his papacy. He meets soon with all of his Cardinals. Francis should tell the Cardinals, and all Catholics soon thereafter, that he now has rejected completely his original flawed strategy followed so far, and should also consider outlining for them the program discussed in my The Crisis Pope Francis Faces . And, as indicated, in a matter of a mere several months, the pope holds his Final Synod (without any women as full participants, incidentally), as he then moves into his 80th year, on one lung no less.

Francis is surely a remarkable person . Yet by now he must know what the ex-Pope’s sudden quitting really signified. Popes now cannot save both the Catholic Church and the Vatican for the reasons discussed below. Francis’ Christmas attack on Vatican officials perhaps confirmed this. Francis appears, however, to have chosen mainly to protect the Catholic hierarchy, a losing proposition, and likely has as a result set the stage for an accelerated division into various Church factions.

Pope Francis is quite old and yet is working non-stop. He appears, unfortunately, to be surrounded by some men who seem to be oblivious to the Vatican’s precarious position. Francis faces at least three major scandals involving priest child abuse, sexually repressive teachings and officials’ financial corruption, while his hierarchy debate arcane matters like “graduality” and most of the media still focus on counting papal “tweets” and other irrelevancies.

The scandal that has changed everything for the previously “untouchable” Vatican is the child abuse scandal. The pope clearly has not done nearly enough here. And his efforts to change the sexually repressive teachings are facing strong resistance from conservative Cardinals as discussed below. He is almost out of time. While the pope has made a start, in Rome at least, on curtailing his hierarchy’s financial corruption, he still has a long way to go.

Indeed, as mentioned, even Cardinal O’Malley, the new “child abuse czar”, has not yet gotten the message. Some Boston area Catholics think Boston church officials, including apparently O’Malley, have erred in letting three staffers resign because they refused to call 911 when they suspected child sex crimes. See [Revere Journal] Refusing or delaying calls to law enforcement gives criminals and potential criminals more time to destroy evidence, intimidate victims, threaten whistleblowers, discredit witnesses, fabricate alibis and even flee the country. Such refusals and delays often enable more kids to be hurt. So they must be harshly punished. Sadly, that’s not what happened here. O’Malley took the easy way out as he packs his suitcase for his first full meeting in Rome soon with his “go slow” commission.

Meanwhile, as reported in the above link, the bishops in Papua New Guinea, have just adopted an abuse policy, which the Catholic Church has been working on since the 1990s, covering how to investigate sex abuse wrongdoing within the Church and how to report sexual abuse.

The bishops’ Director, who helped formulate the new policy, told Radio Australia’s Pacific Beat program, under the new framework, people wanting to report sexual misconduct could seek advice from a contact person. “We have what is called a contact person who is the first port of call, so to speak, for a person to make a complaint,” he reportedly said.

“They explain to the person their options of going through the criminal process, or through the church process, but the person has the option of taking the criminal process or the church process.” The Director also reportedly said hopefully under the new protocols and guidelines, people from Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands would find it less daunting to report allegations of sexual abuse within the church.

He reportedly also indicated: “We find that in the societies in the Pacific, which are often male dominant with a great respect for church leaders and priests and who wish do not bring shame upon the church, the power of being a leader and chief and so on, that people are very reticent to bring claims against the body of a church or priest and more particularly in rural areas,” he said. So the bishops fix is to report first to a Church contact. Really ???

How about just telling Catholics to go the police promptly in every case?

As to Boston Cardinal O’Malley’s material “omissions” as the new pope’s “anti-abuse czar”, one of his recent omissions was his refusal to respond to the Boston Globe’s recent report about the poor record discussed below of the Vatican’s new “top cop” on child abuse prosecutions, Jesuit Father Robert Geisinger. Contacted by the Globe, O’Malley declined to answer questions about Geisinger’s failure, along with his Jesuit colleagues, to report Jesuit Fr. McGuire to civil authorities. Pell’s spokesman instead passed the buck and referred questions to the Vatican.

A year after first announcing the Vatican’s often touted new anti-child abuse advisory commission, O’Malley amazingly stated on 60 Minutes that the go-slow commission was working on some “protocols”, which his subsequent statements seem to suggest will focus more on protecting bishops than children. And CBS did not press him on the commission’s inexplicable and unacceptable organizational delays. It appears to be another instance of a media “pass” for the Vatican’s conflicted approach to holding clerics accountable for harming defenseless children.

It seems quite clear that Pope Francis is intentionally pursuing effective child protection reform measures very slowly, at best, and almost secretly with this new advisory committee (A) headed by disgraced Boston Cardinal Law’s successor, Cardinal O’Malley, who is well experienced with “handling” abuse investigations secretively and slowly, and (B) aided now, as top staffer, by Fr. Robert Oliver, who has been successively Cardinals Law’s, O’Malley’s and Mueller’s predictable and seemingly pliable longtime canon lawyer.

Fr. Geisenger now is serving now as the Vatican’s “top cop”, succeeding Fr. Oliver in that position. Priests presumably will like this “priest friendly” lineup more than innocent children and their parents will, I suspect.

Twelve years after the Boston Globe Catholic priest child abuse revelations and almost 30 years after Father Thomas Doyle’s abuse report to Cardinals Law, Levada, Bevilacqua, Laghi, et al. and Pope John Paul II, for O’Malley to say on CBS we are looking into “protocols” is evidently a farce. And O’Malley seems to have gotten away with it with many in the media so far!

I have to wonder, as an international lawyer, if O’Malley, Oliver and Geisinger, all presumably US citizens, were picked to work on the latest papal public relations ploys to “do little or nothing” to really curtail clerical abuse also because the US has not ratified the International Criminal Court (ICC) Treaty.

Since the ex-pope had already been a subject of a complaint filed with the International Criminal Court (ICC), it must have occurred to the Vatican and its lawyers that whomever handles these matters can expect to face a further complaint at the ICC, a very serious matter. It might be more difficult to prosecute them under the ICC Treaty as US citizens if they had returned to the USA when the ICC prosecutor finally pursues the Vatican again, as I am confident as an international lawyer she will.

Pope Francis must act now to try to make the Catholic Church hierarchy accountable once again, as it was during its first three centuries in the Church Jesus disciples, including women, left behind. This is the choice Pope Francis must make soon. Anything less will fail to fix the Church permanently

Moreover, f Francis fails with his “graduality/mercy” initiative at the Final Synod, many Catholics, including some of the millions who follow Francis on Twitter, will likely fairly quickly become convinced that internal Vatican reform any time soon is hopeless. They will then probably either look to restructure their local Church institutions on a consensual basis or just join the tens of millions of others who have already exited the Catholic Church completely.

The Catholic Church may yet survive as a “catch all label” for many diffused groups of practicing Catholics organized consensually from the bottom up, but the Catholic hierarchy appears to be playing out its final act from many indications. In light of the current “mess”, a diffused Church may be a true blessing and closer to the Catholic Church that Jesus’ disciples, including many women, left behind. God works in unexpected ways, no?

This future outcome may seem too pessimistic for a purported “unchangeable 2,000 year old institution”. But is it? For reasons discussed below, this outlook is more likely than not.

Pope Francis needs to adopt a bold new strategy when he meets with his assembled Cardinals soon. He needs to “dream” like Martin Luther King dreamed. As I earlier remarked, in “dreaming” about the pope’s encounter in the Philippines with the young “street child”, Glycelle Palomar, on the eve of Martin Luther King’s US holiday, yes, I had a dream! I dreamed that the pope told the young former street girl what the Vatican’s real strategy was. The pope also needs to tell the Cardinals about the same dream. If the pope had told her (and tells all his Cardinals, especially the new ones) the “real deal”, I dreamed it would go something like this. Pope Francis would have said:

(1) I was elected by frightened cardinals to keep them out of jail for crimes related to child abuse cover-ups and financial corruption;

(2) My priority is protecting bishops, all 5,000 of them, while maximizing their wealth in their unaccountable lifetime positions;

(3) I need to preserve the Vatican’s “richest markets” , especially in the USA and Germany, and among the billionaires of the Philippines, South Korea, Mexico, et al. In the USA, I need in 2016 to get a friendly Republican, like the Bushes were, in the White House (God forbid Hillary Clinton gets elected!), now that low tax/low regulatory Republicans control the US Congress and, in effect, the US Supreme Court. Our US billionaire donors like that;

(4) In the USA, I must also appeal to fundamentalist and Latino voters with a muddled mix of anti-abortion/contraception and anti-gay marriage crusades, and frequent appeals to Our Lady of Guadalupe, Junipero Serra and Oscar Romero, and of course, constant references to the devil;

(5) In Germany, I must protect the bishops $6 billion annual governmental subsidy, including by getting divorced and remarried Catholics from taking their families and pro rata subsidies out of the Church;

(6) I must push with my contraception ban to pump up the Catholic birth rate everywhere, especially in light of the high birth rate among our Muslim competitors; and

(7) If after taking care of my bishops, obedient priests, opportunistic politicians, “scholars” and media supporters and, of course, our 24/7 insatiable civil, criminal and and bankruptcy lawyers, I, as pope, would use the rest of the donations, if any remains, to “trickle down ” what remains to the poor, and to those priest abuse survivors who keep silent.

Once Pope Francis tells his Cardinals that message, he must then tell the Cardinals, and all Catholics soon thereafter, that he now has rejected his original strategy completely. As indicated above, the pope must then consider outlining for them the program discussed in my The Crisis Pope Francis Faces

Well publicized Catholic Church scandals have triggered a unique situation — both an unprecedented crisis and an unexpected opportunity. This crisis (A) erodes Catholic trust in light of the longstanding gap between the Vatican’s words and deeds, (B) invites outside governmental intervention at a time when the Vatican lacks powerful international protectors like it had for centuries, and (C) underscores the urgent need for key changes in Church structure and doctrine. The crisis has also contributed, as indicated, to one pope’s unanticipated resignation and to the replacement pope’s unpredictable revolution.

Before his 80th birthday in less than two years, Pope Francis can successfully seize the opportunity, follow his conscience and apply his unique status, forceful temperament and popular appeal. Most importantly, he can declare “infallibly” key changes. By then, he will have received new input from his two advisory Synods of Bishops. He has already been enlightened by his valuable almost two years of experience as pope.

Pope Francis is now also is unhampered by his prior pastoral positions and unfettered by his earlier ideological constraints as an obedient cardinal, bishop and Jesuit. If Francis fails to act effectively soon, the consequences will likely be quite negative for the leadership of the Catholic Church.

Pope Francis can accomplish much if he wants to and finds the wisdom and courage to do so. Equally important, it seems unlikely any of his successors will get a more propitious opportunity in the foreseeable future to adopt long overdue changes. It may be now or never for Pope Francis and the Vatican.

Any needed changes that Pope Francis leaves uncompleted, whether by choice or circumstances, Catholics can then push to complete soon thereafter, with or without Vatican support. Catholics can be expected to do so, given the current Catholic majority’s momentum and mounting democratic governmental pressures.

The Catholic majority can expect help in effecting these changes from powerful forces, outside the Church structure, that are now investigating the Church in Australia, the UK, Ireland, Minneapolis (USA), the Dominican Republic, Poland, the Philippines and in many other countries.

The Catholic Church has changed, indeed really changed a lot over two millennia, often due to external pressures. For example, in the 19th Century, Pope Pius IX and his Vatican allies were urged by many, including other rulers, to modernize and reform his declining medieval Papal States to save this papal kingdom.

The pope, in effect, imprudently refused to do so sufficiently, and instead concentrated on being “declared infallible” by many intimidated bishops he convened in Rome despite a coming invasion. He then quickly militarily lost to Italian troops (including many Catholic troops) a large portion of Italy that popes for centuries had ruled as unaccountable absolute monarchs.

Pope Francis, as noted above, is about to meet with all his Cardinals. He needs to change his basic losing strategy before he meets with them. The pope has admitted that he has made many mistakes. The pope, unfortunately, continues to make them with his flawed strategy, including mistakes (1) on his self policing of clerical sex abusers, as indicated here, “Vatican Investigates 2 Cases of Child Porn Possession” [ABC News], (2) on disregarding Catholic women, as indicated here,”Vatican Hits Sour Note With Women, but Progress May Come” [ABC News] , and here, “Who Is the Pope?” by Professor Eamon Duffy [New York Review of Books], and here “Pope confirms 48 prelates as voting members of October synod” [National Catholic Reporter], and (3) on aligning through his US bishops with the “low tax” billionaire Koch Brothers, as indicated here, “Controversial Koch brothers give big (again) to Catholic University” by David Gibson [Religion News Service] , and from Fr. Tom Reese here “Everyone supports tax reform in the abstract, but not the specifics” at:

[ncronline.org]

Oddly, the usually meticulously careful AP Rome earlier on Saturday (1/31/15) reported that the pope’s regular (and overworked) Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, indicated that two Polish-born prelates were being investigated by Holy See authorities for alleged possession of child pornography.

AP earlier had reported that Lombardi on Saturday (1/31/15) identified one of them as Monsignor Bronislaw Morawiec, an administrator at St. Mary Major Basilica, which was Boston’s disgraced former Cardinal Bernard Law’s former Rome base and is a church where Pope Francis sometimes prays. Presumably, Morawiec had been investigated by then top Vatican prosecutor, Fr, Robert Oliver, Cardinal Law’s former canon lawyer. Cardinal Law’s former key legal aide, Oliver, is now the top staffer at the pope’s new “go slow” abuse commission that, after almost two years, will have its first full meeting soon.

AP’s original report indicated that the spokesman said Morawiec has already been convicted of fraud by the tiny city-state’s justice system. AP later withdrew the original story linked above, saying in a subsequent report, that Morawiec was not under investigation for child pornography possession, while still indicating that Morawiec has been convicted of fraud by a Vatican tribunal. Got that! He has been shown apparently to be a crook, but not a pervert, thank God.

The Vatican’s tiny city-state’s recently expanded judicial system is neither independent, transparent nor experienced in handling serious crimes involving clerics. It lacks basic competence as well, as the pope’s butler’s trial clearly showed, and as Saturday’s mix up on reporting seems to confirm.

Why is the pope’s busy official spokesman Lombardi handling criminal proceedings announcements? These announcements require more thorough and expert attention, no? AP Rome in a corrected report on Sunday (2/1/15) noted that an earlier version of its Saturday article incorrectly said Rev. Lombardi identified Morawiec as a suspect in a child-pornography investigation. In fact, he had cited Msgr. Morawiec’s fraud conviction, AP finally reported. Is the Vatican’s criminal justice system just a new version of the “Keystone Kops” so evident, for example, in the Vatican’s financial scandals?

No matter what the outcome of the Vatican’s trials, few will accept as reliable any of these Vatican decisions, due the the conflicts of interest, secrecy and sheer incompetence of the Vatican judicial proceedings. The Vatican should look to the current Australian Royal Commission, to the several Irish judicial investigations and even to the imminent UK investigation procedures for guidance as to how to handle criminal investigations of accused clerics in a modern manner.

AP identified (1/31/15) the other child-porn suspect as Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, as had been reported widely awhile ago. A Vatican church tribunal already found Wesolowski guilty of sexually abusing boys while serving as papal ambassador in the Dominican Republic. This criminal trial should be held instead in the Dominican Republic, where the five boys live that this John Paul II appointment allegedly abused.

Of course, the Vatican likely is very concerned about evidence leaks from Wesolowski’ s computer of some of the reported 100,000 child porn images and possibly communications from or to other clerical pedophiles, etc., on his computer.

And with respect to woman, on Saturday (1/31/15), AP’s reliable Rome reporter, Nicole Winfield reported in one of the AP reports linked above: “A new Vatican outreach initiative to listen to women hit a sour note before it even got off the ground: The sexy blonde on its Internet promo video came under such ridicule that it was quickly taken down.But the program is going ahead, and an inaugural meeting this week will study women’s issues in ways that are utterly new for the Holy See. No, there is no talk of ordaining women priests. (My emphasis)

Nicole Winfield added that the Vatican’s new initiative on women ” … denounces plastic surgery as a form of ‘aggression’ against the female body “like a burqa made of flesh.” And it acknowledges that the church has for centuries offered women ‘ideological and ancestral left-overs’ This is dangerous territory for the all-male Catholic Church hierarchy, as even Pope Francis has faced criticism for being a bit tone deaf as far as women are concerned. “ (My emphasis). Of course, the new all male celibate initiative appears to be avoiding the contraception ban. Predictable, no?

Please see above AP Nicole Winfield’s “Vatican Hits Sour Note With Women, but Progress May Come” in the above AP link.

Please see also the pope’s initial all celibate male appointments today to the Final Synod on the Family in October (no women included, of course — “absurd” per Pope Francis’ top theologian, Cardinal Walter Kasper, and “bonkers” per former Irish president. Mary McAleese. earlier). These appointments are discussed in the above National Catholic Reporter link.

Pope Francis in two years as pope has mostly just recycled some celibate officials from the Church’s 0.01 % all male leadership group, leaving the flawed top down monarchical structure intact, with no consequential participation by the 99.99% of the Catholic laity and surely no women.

Pre-Constantine (c. 325 A.D.), early Catholics, including laity and some women, oversaw transparently their religious leaders directly for three centuries. Catholics must do so again, soon! Who and/or what follows Pope Francis under his flawed top down all male strategy? Please see The Crisis Pope Francis Faces , “Pope Francis Is Still Failing Too Many Abused & Abandoned Children, No??” and Pope Francis vs. Shadow Pope Benedict — Who is Infallible .

Meanwhile, US bishops’ seeming political allies, billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, recently made headlines by pledging nearly $900 million to help elect candidates who support their libertarian strain of economic conservatism, but the industrialists are also nearly doubling their investment in the business school of Catholic University of America, which is overseen by the U.S. bishops, as reported by David Gibson.

That’s despite the fact that many Catholics — including Pope Francis — say the kind of unregulated capitalism that the Kochs appear to promote runs counter to the Catholic Church’s social teachings.

“Money is useful to carry out many things,” Pope Francis has reportedly said, “but when your heart is attached to it, it destroys you.” As the pope well knows, attachment to money has wreaked much destruction in his own Catholic Church. This is related extensively in the new stunning expose, “God’s Bankers”, by investigative reporter and former Wall Street lawyer, Gerald Posner, discussed in detail below. And Pope Francis needs to be well aware of the risks here, as he appears to align himself with billionaire plutocrats like the Koch Brothers and Goldman Sachs bankers.

It appears that the US bishops may be collecting here from the Koch Brothers their reward for helping the Kochs’ “low tax/low regulation” Republican candidates get control a couple of months ago of the US Congress. See Jesuit Fr. Tom Reese’s analysis of how US tax changes occur in the National Catholic Reporter link above. Even a slight change in US tax laws could have hundreds of millions of dollars per annum in adverse potential consequences for the Kochs and other billionaire allies of the US bishops and the pope.

Also noteworthy here, David Koch supports gay marriage and abortion rights. Critics of the CUA gift say it is ironic that the school would seek such massive support from a social liberal when Catholic charities are not allowed to take any money from any person or group that supports abortion rights or gay rights.

Indeed, Davis Koch would likely not be able to be hired to work at a Catholic parochial school in some dioceses, given his positions on sexual morality issues. But his money apparently still talks to unprincipled US bishops, it appears. And they also follow Pope Francis’ orders, no?

As to recent popes’, including Pope Francis’, “three card monte ” approach to using “infallibility/creeping infallibility/definitive statements smokescreens” to exclude women (over half the 99.99% of Catholics) from any senior leadership role, please see the recent NY Review of Books article in the above link by eminent (and seemingly Catholic loyalist and former member of the papal historical commission) historian of the papacy, Cambridge University’s Eamon Duffy.

Professor Duffy, in pertinent part perceptively states: ” … In his published “conversation” with the Jesuit Antonio Spadaro, he { Pope Francis} has called for a new and profound theology of women and a greater recognition of their crucial role in the church. But his own folksy remarks about the place of women and “the feminine genius” in the church have distressed even the most moderate feminists. He has made clear his belief that Pope John Paul II’s 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (Priestly Ordination) has settled ‘definitively’ the question of women’s ordination—’that door is closed.’ ”

Eamon Duffy also notes: “”This blanket endorsement of Papa Wojtyla’s attempt to close down discussion of the issue indicates the limits both of Francis’s radicalism and, arguably, of his theological sophistication. Critics of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis pointed out that popes do not have a hotline to God. ‘Definitive’ papal utterances are not oracles providing new information, but adjudications at the end of a wider and longer process of doctrinal reflection, consultation, and debate, often extending over centuries: there are procedures to be followed if such adjudications are to command obedience. But the question of female ordination has never been subjected to this kind of extended theological scrutiny, and a properly theological basis for the prohibition remains therefore to be tested. So, it was asked, how did Papa Wojtyla know that the ordination of women was impossible, and what was meant by describing his preemptive strike on the question as ‘definitive’?”

The obvious flaw in Francis’ current approach with a self perpetuating, top down and unaccountable management structure was again just noted pointedly and exhaustively by a Jesuit educated son of an Italian American Catholic, Gerald Posner (a former Wall Street lawyer from the elite Cravath, Swaine &Moore) in his explosive new 750+ page book, “God’s Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican” , see at Amazon link [Amazon] .

Please see well respected investigative reporter, Gerald Posner, for yourself, in a recent Wall Street Journal video interview, entitled. “God’s Bankers': New Book on Vatican’s Misuse of Funds“, where he discusses, among other surprising revelations he uncovered, the ex-Pope’s recent ouster evidently with a push from the Vatican “gay lobby”, here, at:

[wsj.com]

Please listen also to the recent stimulating NPR interview, “From Laundering To Profiteering, A Multitude Of Sins At The Vatican Bank” here [NPR] discussing Posner’s “God’s Bankers”.

God’s Bankers covers the astounding saga marked by poisoned business titans, murdered prosecutors, mysterious deaths of private investigators, and questionable suicides; a carnival of characters from Popes and Cardinals, financiers and mobsters, kings and prime ministers; and a set of moral and political circumstances that make clear the Vatican’s real aims and ambitions.And Posner even looks to the future to assess if Pope Francis can succeed where all his predecessors failed: to overcome the resistance to change in the Vatican’s Machiavellian inner court and to rein in the excesses of its seemingly uncontrollable and insatiable hierarchical greed.

Asked in his NPR interview about Pope Francis’ Vatican financial reforms, Posner responded, in pertinent part: “I’ve been impressed by him … {but} What could upend it? He needs to be there long enough that these changes can’t be reversed by a new pope who gets in and can be pushed around by the strong dominant bureaucrats.”

Posner’s book, which took him nine years to research and write, has been well reviewed in the reliable Providence Journal, please see:

[providencejournal.com]

The Providence Journal reviewer indicates (in pertinent parts, in italics):

“In the 19th century, the unification of Italy caused the church to lose the Papal States and the income they had raised. But in 1929, after much negotiation, Pius XI concluded the Lateran Pacts with the Fascist government under Benito Mussolini, an avowed atheist. The cynical agreement defined the 108.7 acres in Rome as a sovereign state, and gave the Vatican a big chunk of cash as compensation for Papal States. In return, the pope endorsed the Fascist government.”

“There’s more. Starting in 1933, and while Jews were being persecuted in the ’30s, Vatican Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, a Teutophile who had spent 12 years in Germany, concluded an agreement with the Nazis that, among other things, required German Catholic bishops to swear allegiance to the Third Reich.”

“And yes, there was money involved: Hitler assessed 8 percent from German Catholics and sent it to the Vatican. Pacelli became Pope Pius XII in 1939, and refused to believe what his priests were telling him about the murder of the Jews. He never even complained when Roman Jews, some of them living 250 yards from his windows, were deported to the gas chambers. But when a stray British bomb happened to hit a Catholic church during the war, Pius XII complained bitterly.”

“It was in 1942, under Nogara, {the Vatican’s top financial advisor} that the Vatican established its own bank, about which much of this book’s narrative is centered. Nogara set it up so that the Allies, who were by that time in Italy, could not keep track of what he was up to. Because it was in a sovereign state, the bank didn’t have to answer to anyone — and it didn’t. High-ranking clerics at the bank were seen carrying out suitcases of cash. Worse than that, the Vatican Bank was used by Italian magnates, politicians and mobsters to launder cash — millions at a crack.”

“The last major moral failing in the Vatican occurred with the scandals involving pedophile priests, and the bishops who covered up for them, in America and elsewhere. Pope Benedict XVI’s failure to apologize to victims was attributed to fears that it might encourage lawsuits directly against the Vatican, not just the dioceses where the offenses occurred.”

“Posner uses his superlative investigative skills to craft a fascinating and comprehensive look at the dark side of the Catholic Church, documenting ‘how money, and accumulating and fighting over it, has been a dominant theme in the history of the Catholic Church and its divine mission.’ He opens with the various spiritually creative methods the Church has used to make ends meet, such as the sale of indulgences and Pope Urban II’s offer of full absolution to those who volunteered to fight in the Crusades. The bulk of the book focuses on the mid-20th century and includes the Papacy’s accommodations to the Nazis. While this is familiar terrain, Posner convincingly buttresses his unusual position that money swayed Pope Pius XII ‘to remain silent in the face of overwhelming evidence of mass murder.’ And the author’s access to previously undisclosed documents enables him to flesh out the Vatican Bank scandal, which reached its nadir with the mysterious hanging—from London’s Blackfriars Bridge—of Italian banker and convicted fraudster Roberto Calvi. Accessible and well written, Posner’s is the definitive history of the topic to date.”

The Kirkus Review report on God’s Banker is also incisive (In italics):

A dogged reporter exhaustively pursues the nefarious enrichment of the Vatican, from the Borgias to Pope Francis.

In one of his previous works, Mengele (1986), former Wall Street lawyer–turned–accomplished historian and author Posner (Warlords of Crime; Hitler’s Children, etc.) followed the money connection from the Nazi criminals fleeing the Third Reich to Argentina—and struck Vatican gold. Laundering Nazi booty extracted from the Jews, protecting Nazi criminals as they found refuge across the globe, providing hush money for egregious cases of pedophiliac priests—these are just some of the tentacles of Vatican bankrolling since World War II. Having overcome its aversion to moneylending and capitalism as being practices of Protestants and Jews after Italian unification, the Vatican later established a stabilizing appeasement policy with secular leader Mussolini in the form of the Lateran Pacts. Pope Pius XI’s financial adviser, Bernardino Nogara, diversified Vatican finances through the Depression era, entangling Vatican and Fascist ties. The Reichskonkordat, a series of pacts signed by Hitler, extracted taxes from Catholic churches and guaranteed the Vatican’s silence regarding the Holocaust; it also funneled “blood money” from Nazi victims and supported the “ratline” for escaping Nazi criminals. Posner tracks the formation of the Institute per le Opere di Religione (the Vatican bank) in 1942 through its troubled survival into the present era, as it has battled accusations of mob ties, “gay lobby” scandals, WikiLeaks disclosures, lawsuits by victims of sex abuse and the insistence by the European Union on more transparency in the bank’s dealings. Pope Francis’ promises of reform are going to be closely watched. Posner bases his massive research on extensive interviews and documents found in the archives of governments and private companies across the world (the author was barred from the Vatican’s own Secret Archives).

A meticulous work that cracks wide open the Vatican’s legendary, enabling secrecy. (My emphasis)

See also:

[huffingtonpost.com]

[finance.yahoo.com]

[inserbia.info]

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Ironically, the 8% government subsidy Posner refers to that Hitler’s aides negotiated over with Pacelli and his aide, later Cardinal, Ottaviani, is at the heart from all indications of the German bishops’ push at the current Synods for communion for divorced and remarried Catholics. These remarried German Catholics are leaving the Catholic Church often with their families and taking their German subsidy dollars with them. Pope Francis and his top theological adviser, German Cardinal Walter Kasper, may be sincere in their exhortations about “mercy”, but they appear also to have a close eye on the German subsidy.

Pope Francis, of course, facing escalating outside government pressures, had no choice but to begin major reforms of the Vatican’s financial empire. Pope Francis, however, has not yet even selected an international auditing firm for the Vatican’s own huge proprietary assets. As eminent historian of the papacy, Eamon Duffy recently noted in the New York Review of Books, in pertinent part: ” … A pope with a long time in office can ensure that those around him share his vision. Rome appoints all the world’s Catholic bishops; the pope himself decides who will be a cardinal. The long pontificate of John Paul II and the succession of his right-hand man, Benedict XVI, have created a hierarchy who share much of their vision for the church. Gerhard Muller, still head of the Vatican’s most influential department, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is also the general editor of Benedict XVI’s collected writings … Francis himself is unlikely to have a long pontificate: he is an old man, with only one functioning lung.”

Focusing on Francis, Duffy also noted in his above article: ” …, Bergoglio {Pope Francis} himself has acknowledged that as {Jesuit} provincial, ‘I had to learn from my errors along the way, because, to tell you the truth, I made hundreds of errors. Errors and sins.’ Significantly, however, he attributes those sins not to religious or political reaction, but to inexperience and failure to consult: ‘I have never been a right-winger. It was my authoritarian way of making decisions that created problems.’ ” Francis’ inexperience as pope, and authoritarian style still plague him as pope, it appears.

Despite the Vatican spin machine’s 24/7 effort to present the pope as an easy going “happy go lucky” guy, he still seems to fall back too often to his authoritarian default position. If this seemingly oblivious strategy continues to dominate much longer, it is likely to be all moot anyways. Outside government prosecutors and regulators will then likely write the final Vatican chapter.

Australia’s Royal Commission is now projecting it will cost its citizens over $4 billion to clean up the clerical child abuse mess that Vatican’s financial czar, Cardinal Pell, helped create. The UK is now gearing up for a massive Australian style investigation. The USA’s Minneapolis investigations are seemingly closing in on the cover up scandals surrounding President Obama’s Chief of Staff’s brother, Fr. Kevin McDonough. The Vatican has fiddled too long. Rome and its empire is aflame.

Napoleon locked up a pope who died incarcerated. Popes may think they are infallible, but they sure as hell are not invincible. How long can Western democracies be expected to sit quietly for a pope who pushes with his contraception ban a population explosion in desperately poor Catholic countries, who still oversees worldwide priest child abuse cover-ups and who calls as a major religious leader, in effect, for a military solution, a crusade, in Iraq and Syria as he reportedly did last August?

Yes, with Western democracies facing serious internal threats from internal Islamist terrorists, how long do you think the Western leaders are going to sit for Francis calling for another Middle East invasion? The crusades are history, and so will the Vatican be if Pope Francis fails to get realistic soon.