Cardinals & Pope Must Get Past Their Delusions

By Jerry Slevin
Christian Catholicism
February 12, 2015

http://christiancatholicism.com/cardinals-pope-must-get-past-their-delusions/

The rising waves from government investigations, from Australia, to the UK, to Minneapolis USA and elsewhere are hammering the Vatican Titanic. And the international priest abuse survivor group, SNAP, has finally called for US Federal officials to pursue a national investigation, like Australia has and the UK is just beginning. A USA investigation is coming in due course, unless Pope Francis is successful in getting a right wing ally like Jeb Bush elected US President next year in the expectation of burying any US national investigation.

Yet Catholic Church leaders this week are continuing to sail blindly, full steam ahead, into the priest child abuse iceberg, with their latest secretive meetings of over 150 Cardinals in their full red dress uniforms. The Cardinals are meeting to discuss re-arranging the crews’ deck chairs on the sinking Vatican Titanic to enhance papal power.

Please see “Pope Francis Must Fire Cardinal Pell Now?” here, [Christian Catholicism], “NY Times Pulls Punches As SNAP Jabs Pope & US Pols On Abuse Ploys“, here, [Christian Catholicism] “Will UK Probe of Teresa May Compel Ex-Pope Benedict To Testify????” , here [Christian Catholicism] and The Crisis Pope Francis Faces. Please see also 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]

By now many Cardinals must be worried that they jumped too fast out of ex-Pope Benedict’s overheating frying pan into Pope Francis uncontrolled fires. Authoritarian Francis is often wrong but rarely in doubt.

Just follow some of the latest papal wizard’s meanderings down the Yellow Brick Road. Don’t breed like rabbits, just don’t use the Pill. It is selfish not to have children and more are better. Help the poor, but honor, like he seems to do, the crony capitalist billionaires from Wall Street, Big Oil and Big Media who help keep the poor, well poor, and the Catholic Church’s leaders rich. Protect children, but don’t report priest child abuse to the police unless legally obligated to do so. Say that bishops should be held accountable, then study how to do so forever. Slap your kids, but do so respectfully. Protect women, but oppose treaties that actually seek to do so. Be nice to abuse survivors, but go bankrupt to avoid compensating them justly, or if you are Cardinal Pell, grind the victims into unconditional surrender. Don’t judge gay folks, just ostracize them from Church institutions as Archbishop Cordileone is now doing in San Francisco..

Is Pope Francis really shrewd, or just opportunistic, or even duplicitous and hypocritical? Perhaps his advanced age and overwork and excessive traveling has caught up to him? He had planned to retire several years ago. He may have to soon enough.

The Cardinals began with greetings today (2/12/15) from Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals and the dominant Vatican bureaucrat for most of a quarter century. His longtime protege and likely next pope, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, was at Pope Francis’ right hand during the past two days as the elite Council of Cardinals rubber stamped the pope’s reorganization plans to consolidate the pope’s power.

The pope had a basic choice: he either could have worked to return power to the Catholic 99.99%, as in the early Church, or he could have worked to maximize popes’ control of the 0.01% Church leaders under the pope, while also maximizing papal wealth. Unwisely and futilely, the pope has elected to maximize his power in a secretive setting, while cynically calling for “absolute transparency”. Now he must get the world’s Cardinals to help him circumvent the Vatican bureaucratic forces who oppose him. None of the 99.99% of the world’s Catholics were even invited to the closed door meetings!

Incidentally, the pope’s spokesman, Jesuit Father Lombardi, after the Cardinals’ secret session today, when asked if a new “congregation for the laity” being proposed, might be led by a layperson, Lombardi said no. “It is not realistically thinkable that a layperson might be named the head of a congregation,” the spokesman said, saying that heads of congregations are normally Cardinals. Of course, Lombardi is also on record as confirming laypersons, even women (of all things!), can be made Cardinals.

So, in effect, Lombardi is saying that the Vatican department dealing with the 99.99% Catholic lay majority will be headed by a member of the 0.01% clerical hierarchy because that is what Pope Francis wants. Touching the sheep seems OK with Francis, just so long as he doesn’t have to listen to them. Let’s be honest!

And you know what? When government investigators begin prosecuting Cardinals as they will, if not before then, lay people will be running several Vatican departments. Just wait and see.

Pope Francis gave a brief address to the 150+ Cardinals present today saying in pertinent part (in italics): “Welcome to this communion, expressed in collegiality”, he began, thanking the Commission of the nine cardinals … . The aim is always that of promoting greater harmony in the work of the various … offices, … to achieve more effective collaboration in that absolute transparency that edifies authentic synodality and collegiality”, he continued, commenting that “reform is not an end in itself, … Reform, strongly advocated by the majority of Cardinals … before the Conclave {that elected Francis two years ago}, must continue to enhance the identity of the Roman Curia itself, that is, that of assisting Peter’s Successor in the exercise of his supreme pastoral office for the good and in the service of the universal Church and the particular Churches, in order to strengthen unity of faith and the communion of the people of God, and to promote the mission of the Church in the world, … ” continued the pope. Francis concluded. “ …. With this spirit of collaboration our meeting begins; it will be fruitful thanks to the contribution that each one of us is able to express … fidelity to the Magisterium and the awareness that all this contributes to the supreme law … . Thank you”. (emphasis mine)

My translation as a lawyer of Pope Francis’ message to the world’s Cardinals : Francis is telling the world’s Cardinals, in effect, that: “I have demoted and/or eliminated selected officials in the Curia — please rubber stamp and approve that here and now, or else!” Ex-bouncers are impatient with long debates. The Cardinals remember well the pope’s Christmas tirade against and to Vatican officials. including Cardinals, as Pope Francis surely knew they would.

Father Federico Lombardi, the pope’s spokesman, interestingly indicated after today’s session that the Vatican is considering setting up an environmental think tank, which could influence the opinion of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics on such issues as climate change. He indicated, in effect, that the proposal was discussed secretively at the closed-door meeting of Cardinals.

Francis is unable and/or unwilling to address sensibly, honestly and openly the pressing issues he can address — like priest child abuse and shortages, women’s equality, respect for same sex couples, divorced and remarried Catholics, et al. He errs on issues like spanking children, planning families, etc. Now he is going to pontificate on the science of global warming. Is he losing it or what?

Then again Big Oil and the Saudi’s, Chinese, et al. have Big Bucks and a keen interest in wrapping global warming in a papal mystical smokescreen.

Has Pope Francis’s top economic adviser, Peter Sutherland, former BP Chairman and Chairman of Goldman Sachs International been whispering into Francis ear?

The Bush family is also very close to the leaders of Saudi Arabia. Francis called six months ago for new Western troops on the ground in Iraq/Syria, a key beneficiary of which new invasion would be the Saudi’s.

What’s up Pope Francis? Why not fix your own house before you start meddling in areas you have little competence in?