Marx “mauls” Pell; Parolin “bombs” Libya – Will Pope Retire Soon?

By Jerry Slevin
Christian Catholicism
February 19, 2015

http://christiancatholicism.com/marx-mauls-pell-parolin-bombs-libya-will-pope-retire-soon/

The pope’s meetings with the world’s Cardinals are over. Who is in charge now at the Vatican? Has the ex-bouncer pope lost his tight grip? Perhaps Pope Francis is getting ready to retire?

The pope has buried for now all bishop accountability demands in a “do nothing sex abuse commission”. The over studied abuse and accountability issues will now be studied further endlessly at Rome’s Jesuit run Gregorian University.

Most importantly, Pope Francis has added more supportive Cardinals now, apparently enough to tilt the next papal election to Cardinal Pietro Parolin, his heir apparent.

Francis’ new Cardinal and longtime pal from Argentina has also indicated that Francis will change no teachings at the absurd “all celibate male” Final Synod on the Family in eight months. Is Francis already packing his bags? Is he also going to quit like his incompetent predecessor had to do two years ago?

Cardinal Parolin just publicly called, in effect, for a major military escalation in Libya. Is a mere Cardinal (not a pope, not yet at least), Parolin, now calling for a new Middle East crusade? It sounds like it, no? Why do the leaders of the USA, Germany, France, Italy, the UK and elsewhere, with substantial Muslim citizen populations, and escalating internal religious tensions, tolerate this seeming war mongering from a cleric?

Parolin reportedly said on Feb. 17 that a recent staged and provocative ISIS atrocity against 21 Egyptian Christians was “terrifying,” (as surely it was !), but that the men’s fidelity to Christ “provides a wonderful testimony of Christian martyrdom. … May God give us the grace to die in the same way.” [emphasis mine]

Parolin reportedly added in pertinent part: “We are usually today led to underline the aspect of cruelty — and it is an unspeakable cruelty … [B]ut we look to the other part, the part of the testimony these martyrs gave. It has always been like this in the history of the Church.” Parolin stressed that “a quick response” is needed because the “situation is grave, … “.

Does Parolin speak for the pope here, or for US neo-con Republican war mongers or both? Has Parolin learned nothing from the Vatican’s 2004 blunders that helped get George W. Bush re-elected, as Parolin, and his mentor, Cardinal Sodano, apparently helped extend the Iraq War for years, while millions ( Christian and Muslims) were killed, injured and/or forced to re-locate?

Coincidentally. today (2/19/15), the man Cardinal Sodano and his the protege, Parolin, helped Gerge W. Bush defeat in 2004, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly said countries needed to promote tolerance and peace, while addressing social and economic inequality that militants use to recruit. “You have to do everything. You have to take the people off the battlefield, who are there today,” Kerry reportedly said. “But you’re kind of stupid if all you do is do that, and you don’t prevent more people from going to the battlefield,” he added.

Nick Rasmussen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, a U.S. spy agency, reportedly also said today that the threat of Islamist militants was constantly changing and the United States and its allies faced “more frequent low level attacks against all of us.” Islamic State (ISIS) has demonstrated an “agile and highly capable use of social media,” Rasmussen reportedly said. The group’s messaging has included both horrifying videos of executions and more enticing images of Islamic State fighters and their families, he said.

As the pope’s likely US presidential favorite for next year’s election, Jeb Bush, currently re-assembles as advisers many of his brother’s failed foreign policy team, including Paul Wolfowitz, are we going to see again another rush to war like with Iraq that was mainly subtly supported by the Vatican in 2004? Will Parolin “duck” if Jeb Bush goes there and mentions Iraq? He should! Is Parolin planning to send in the Swiss Guard to Libya as well?

Separately, top German Cardinal Reinhard Marx recently, in effect, publicly told Vatican money czar, Cardinal George Pell, to shut up about new found Vatican wealth.

For the “mythical premises” underlying these surprising developments, please see “Five Crucial Myths Pope Francis Preaches: Why?” , here, [Christian Catholicism]

For the overall implications and fatal flaws of Pope Francis’ present plans, notwithstanding the papal mythology, please see “The Crisis Pope Francis Faces” here [Christian Catholicism] .

Marx seems overly sensitive about money, but he also seems to have a job to do — to protect the $7 billion annual German subsidy to Catholic bishops that Hitler earlier topped off in 1933 for Pope Pius XII in exchange for, among other benefits, advancing Hitler’s rise to Fuhrer status.

Marx is struggling to salvage his German bishops’ maximum automatic German tax subsidies, even by getting a change allowing communion for divorced and remarried Catholics, who are leaving the German Church along with their subsides.

US bishops, led by Cardinal DiNardo and Archbishop Cordileone (with help from new US “money-man liaison” Cardinal Burke!), are resisting the German push, since “preserving pure marriages” is seen evidently to be crucial for the anti-gay marriage wedge issue that “low tax” US billionaire donors to US bishops need to elect a Republican to the US presidency next year.

Marx is also sensitive likely because of the revelations about the fortune he spent on his new Munich headquarters and his personal residence, while the pittances that Marx Munich archdiocese is paying to desperate priest abuse survivors is becoming better known.

Marx’s money problems. of course, are not helped by the recent revelations that his Cologne colleague, Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelski, is reporting on the almost $4 billion Cologne wealth he controls. Woelski reportedly is also being investigated about possible criminal charges related to a local priest’s alleged sex abuse crimes.

Pell, who likely is still reeling from the recent severe criticism by the Australian Royal Commission over his brutal handling of priest abuse victims, seeks evidently to change the subject by “finding”, it seems, millions of dollars of Vatican assets under almost every Vatican rock he overturns.

Significantly. the silence of Pope Francis and some of his media shills on Pell’s outrageous behavior in Australia is revealing. Neither the pope, nor as best I can tell, the National Catholic Reporter or the Boston Globe’s CRUX website have really reported on the Royal Commission’s severely adverse recent findings about Pell.

By contrast, the Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis (whose wife reportedly is a senior child protection worker) for the UK and the British Commonwealth, surely aware of the impending UK abuse scandal investigation, has strongly and publicly warned Jewish communities of the danger of sheltering Jewish child abusers.

Acknowledging the “shockwaves” caused by the sex abuse scandal engulfing Jewish (and Catholic and Anglican, as well) institutions in Australia, he reportedly said recently that pedophiles must be brought to justice “however embarrassing for our communities”.

As more details from the Australian inquiry emerged, Rabbi Mirvis reportedly recently also said: “Let there be no doubt: it is a legal, moral and religious imperative to report cases of sexual abuse to the police.” (emphasis mine).

Oh, if Pope Francis only had the courage and wisdom to say that convincingly! Perhaps, it would also help if he had a wife and children, or at least listened more closely to a few mothers.

Perhaps, in an ecumenical gesture, the pope can offer the rabbi the use of the Vatican’s secret trial apparatus that is sheltering Archbishop Wesolowski? How did popes, who purport to be directly guided by the Jewish Rabbi Jesus, stray so far from Jesus’ clear mandate to protect children?

Mirvis reportedly added: “Nobody is above the law and no institution is greater than its members or followers. The impact of bringing sexual predators to light, however embarrassing for our communities, pales into insignificance when the alternative would result in the shame of protecting criminals, abandoning victims and risking the safety of so many others.”

The Australian Royal Commission has spent considerable time investigating whether Jewish leaders in Melbourne and Sydney ignored claims of sexual abuse. Three senior rabbis resigned this week as a result of the Commission’s findings. Pell apparently got promoted to a top Vatican post instead.