A Woman, Angela Merkel, Speaks – A Man, Pope Francis, Listens, No?, by Jerry Slevin, Christian Catholicism (February 24, 2015)

What happened between last Friday’s papal prohibition of Ukrainian bishops’ making further political speeches and, less than 100 hours later, the Ukraine’s top bishop’s blasting of Russia, with help from Vatican Radio, and even help through the occasionally papally favored USA outlet, the Boston Globe’s CRUX website. Yes, CRUX even reported the Ukraine bishop’s blasting of the pope for using Soviet style propaganda!

On Friday (2/20/15), as reported, “Pope Francis tells Ukrainian bishops to stay out of politics” here, [National Catholic Reporter] .

On Saturday (2/21/15), Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, fresh from her futile efforts with Russia’s President Putin over the Ukraine invasion, met with Pope Francis, along with 15 of her aides and the pope’s key foreign policy aides, reportedly to discuss the conflict in eastern Ukraine, women’s rights and equality, children’s health issues in developing countries, etc., as considered further below.

On Monday (2/23/15), the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, held a press conference about his Vatican meetings last week, as reported by Vatican Radio, in “Ukrainian Archbishop calls on Christians to help end conflict” here, [Vatican Radio] .

Also on Monday, the Vatican’s often favored US media promoter, the CRUX website, reported “Ukrainian Catholic leader urges pope to be tougher on Russia” here, [Crux] .

The Ukrainian Archbishop denounced at his press conference the occupation of his country by Russian forces, as reported by Vatican Radio. Moreover, the Ukrainian Catholic leader also reportedly urged the pope to be tougher on Russia.

Specifically, CRUX reported in pertinent part (in italics)as follows:

“Calling a recent line from Pope Francis about fighting in eastern Ukraine reminiscent “of Soviet propaganda,” the head of Ukraine’s Greek Catholic church has urged a tougher line on Russian aggression in his country both from the pontiff and the international community.”

“Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk said on Monday that a Feb. 4 statement from Francis, in which he called the conflict between the Ukrainian government and pro-Russian separatists “fratricidal,” was “particularly painful for all the people in Ukraine.”

“The pope’s words, he said, “reminded us of Soviet propaganda.”

“The line rankled Ukrainians who see the violence on the Crimean peninsula not as a civil conflict, but an act of foreign aggression stirred up by Russia.”

“In the same spirit, Shevchuk voiced regret that Francis did not specifically point a finger at Russia in his Feb. 20 remarks to a group of visiting Ukrainian bishops, instead referring only to a “situation of grave conflict.” (emphasis mine)

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Importantly, what happened over the 100 hour weekend period apparently was an ominous and decisive visit to the Vatican from the world’s most powerful woman, the daughter of a Lutheran minister, German Chancellor Angela Merkel. For a recent superb and incisive overview of the remarkable Angela Merkel, please see “Angela’s Assets” here, [Vanity Fair] .

Germany still has a religiously divided Christianity, as it paradoxically prepares to celebrate the 500th Anniversary of Luther’s “revolt” in less than two years. As the pope, who studied in Germany, and the Lutheran Chancellor, both must know well, many of the Vatican’s sins that Luther challenged are still pervasive in Rome. These “sins” are funded now by direct German subsidies, rather than through sales of indulgences . Moreover, but for Luther, Merkel’s father likely would never have been able to have been a married cleric.

The pope should have been on guard, perhaps, when he received as a gift from Merkel a box of CDs of the music of the Lutheran genius, Bach, (and not of the Roman Catholic born German genius, Beethoven).

The pope had been preparing, before Merkel arrived, for a week long Lenten retreat with his Vatican officials. This was to be a “spiritual break” after an intense period that began with the pope’s public Christmas shaming of his administrative team, continued with his failed Philippine trip, and ended with his unusually secretive meetings with all of his cardinals.

Did Pope Francis and his likely successor, Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, really want to or even need to spend so much time now with Merkel and her entourage of 15 German officials?

Given the pope’s seeming flip flop on his Ukraine policy in less than 100 hours, can the pope still claim that the Vatican after three decades needs more time to figure out how to hold bishops accountable for protecting priest child abusers? The pope should order all his bishops, not just Ukrainian ones, and including US bishops as well as himself as Bishop of Rome, to stay out of actual politics!

Of course, the Pope and Parolin did have to listen if Merkel insisted on it. Germany is the largest single “guaranteed source” of Catholic Church financial support, with over $7 billion in annual direct governmental subsides. Money still talks loudest at the Vatican, it appears.

The talks, as indicated, reportedly (in the words of the polite diplomatic script mutually agreed likely by Merkel and the pope) focused on international crises, including the conflict in eastern Ukraine, women’s rights and equality, children’s health issues in developing countries, etc.

The pope talked to a woman about women and family issues? Almost unprecedented, no? Are these terms “code words” for issues like changing the ban on the Pill and for holding bishops accountable for protecting priest child abusers?

Merkel may have had trouble pushing Putin, Russia’s president, but Germany pays many of the pope’s bills. As Greece is learning, she surely knows how to apply her economic power. She also recently met in Washington with President Obama so likely knows where he stands on reining in this popular, but internationally inexperienced, pope, no?

Hopefully, Pope Francis and his Vatican team will now concentrate at their retreat on the curing the Vatican’s centuries’old obsession with power — power over women, children, divorced and gay persons, etc.

The pope needs to consider reversing the Vatican’s modern strategy adopted initially at the First Vatican Council in 1870. The strategy is built on an all powerful infallible pope who controls clerics through his own rules (the Code of Canon Law) and controls Catholics through popes’ own “dogmas” (the Catechism) pounded into Catholic children’s minds beginning with First Confession at 7 years old.

Sharing power with the Catholic 99% majority is the only way to save the Catholic Church. The pope must accept this now. Hopefully the Merkel visit helped him to understand this better.

For a relevant discussion of what Pope Francis needs to do, if he truly wants to save the Catholic Church, please see my related reform remarks, “The Crisis Pope Francis Faces” here, [Christian Catholicism]

My considered reform remarks are based on my lifetime experience as a Catholic and decades experience as an international lawyer. Jesuit educated Fr. Hans Kung, whom Pope Francis has honored recently with replies, etc., and whose former assistant, Cardinal Walter Kasper, reportedly is the pope’s theologian of choice, has complimented me on these reform remarks. Perhaps Chancellor Merkel consulted with Fr. Kung before meeting with the pope? Fr. Kung had been consulted occasionally by Merkel’s mentor, Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

These remarks, unlike some of my other ad hoc advocacy intended remarks which Hans Kung has not endorsed, are my considered and best effort to point Pope Francis to an efficacious path to required reforms. But the “Holy Father” thinks he knows best! Time will tell, soon!!

This disarming pope’s plan or strategy up to now has been fairly simple: Protect at all costs Church leaders and wealth, not by making Church leaders accountable and law abiding, but mainly by shoring up alliances with major world political and financial players. Hopefully, the Merkel visit has helped the pope to see the folly of his plan. As European leaders refused to protect Pope Pius IX’s ongoing folly in 1870, so they appear now to be distancing themselves from the Vatican’s ongoing current follies, as is evident with Ireland and even now the UK, as well as Germany.

The pope’s plan has failed already. Child abuse and financial scandal revelations keep generating more bad press and intrusive investigations faster than the pope’s spinners can find more babies for him to kiss.

The pope clearly has earned and needs a “retreat”, especially after such a tough past week, no? First, Francis’ initial Secretary of State, disgraced Cardinal Bertone, tried to lay his luxurious apartment on the approval of the pope. Then the Bishop of Bling arrived at the Vatican, while the Cardinal Archbishop of Cologne “found” almost $4 billion at home and Cardinal Pell “found” almost $1.5 billion in some Vatican “cookie jar”, it seems.

Then respected Jesuit political scientist and Vatican expert, Tom Reese, bravely declared that Francis and his Council of Cardinals do not know what they are doing on hierarchical management reforms, assuming they were even trying to be serious and not just stalling.

And now a “mere woman“, the most powerful of the world’s “Adam’s Ribs” ( a favored Francis term), and 14 of her advisers, showed up Saturday (2/21/15) likely to press the pope on his misguided international political meddling, it appears.

This, as the pope seems to be almost publicly calling for a new crusade against the Middle East terror group, ISIS (the Islamic State). Does the world really need “Papal Crusaders” to go to war with “Islamist Fanatics” ? Has George W. Bush’s obscene Iraq War taught us nothing? Incidentally, Germany opposed the Iraq War from the outset.

Why did the pope drop everything to listen to this woman, yet he cannot even appoint at least one of the half billion women Catholics worldwide to attend as a full participant his absurd Final Synod on the Family in a few months? Money, no?

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in the middle of her Ukraine, Greek, internal Muslim and other major crises, had an unusually long talk privately with Pope Francis at the Vatican.

Germany currently chairs the G7 major industrial nations, consisting of Germany, Britain, France, Italy, the United States, Canada and Japan. A summit of the group’s leaders is set for June in the southern German state of Bavaria. The media spin was that Merkel bought 15 members of her foreign policy team to the Vatican in the midst of her several serious crises to prepare for a conference four months away. In the present crises environment, four months is a lifetime away, no?

Possibly the June G7 conference was the main trigger for this major meeting, but unlikely. Merkel evidently had messages she wanted to get across now to the pope in person and privately. As leader of a nation that has provided the Catholic Church since at least Hitler’s time apparently with its largest automatic annual governmental subsidies, when Merkel talks, the pope likely listens closely.

Merkel told journalists that the conflict in eastern Ukraine was at the center of discussion. Francis had given Merkel’s nemesis, Russian President Putin, a big prestige boost some months ago, shortly before the Ukraine invasion, with a well publicized, gratuitous and unwise Vatican welcome. As the Ukrainian Archbishop makes clear, the pope also tilted more to please Putin than seems justified, even by the Vatican’s narrow self interest.

Of course, the $7 billion annual German governmental subsidies to Catholic Church bishops, and the continued stonewalling of German (and Vatican) Catholic Church officials on holding bishops accountable for child abuse scandals, could never have been far below the surface, no? Germany has a large Catholic population. Merkel is also head of the Christian Democratic Union, which has a strong Catholic component. By contrast, less than 1% of Russians are Catholic and Russia does not generally subsidize the Catholic Church. Pope Pius XII made his subsidy deal in 1933 with Hitler, not Stalin.

Pope Francis gave Chancellor Merkel a medal depicting St. Martin of Tours cutting off part of his cloak and giving it to a poor man. The pope told the Chancellor, “I like to give this image to heads of state, because I think it’s their work to protect their poor.” Merkel quickly replied to Francis saying that “we try to do our best.. ”

Given the annual $7 billion German subsidies to Catholic bishops, the Catholic “Bishop of Bling’s” obscene expenditures in Germany and Cologne’s nearly $4 billion in wealth, it took some nerve for Francis to lecture Merkel about her protecting the poor, no? Reportedly, the Bling Bishop needed two moving vans to cart his belongings and ‘bling” to the Vatican. Really amazing, no? Do these guys ever learn?

Interestingly, St. Martin lived during the initial “de facto takeover” of the Catholic Church by Emperor Constantine and his successors in the Fourth Century. Chancellor Merkel, daughter of a Lutheran scholar and minister, graciously let this all pass with the pope, it appears. By now she seems evidently quite comfortable dealing with patriarchs.

For a less “diplomatic” yet more direct view of the Vatican by a top Merkel foreign policy official, please consider the remarks expressed after Francis’ election by Harald Braun. He is now the Permanent Representative of Germany to the United Nations, a key post. He was State Secretary of the German Foreign Office (U.S. equivalent: Deputy Secretary of State) at the time he made these remarks, unofficially. Please see his pointed remarks here:

“Hardly a day goes by without reports in the media criticizing the internal state of the Roman Catholic Church. Every month another topic hits the headlines: sexual abuse in schools, hospitals’ refusal to treat rape victims, discrimination against homosexuals and divorced members of staff at Catholic institutions … ”

“Let’s take a look at the world as a whole: the fact that Islam is on the advance worldwide is not in itself a worrying phenomenon. That this advance sometimes involves violence, terrorism and the persecution of members of other faiths (all too often Christians), however, is extremely worrying. At a time like this, what Christians actually need is a high degree of global cross-denominational unity. And our Churches need to be close to the faithful in the practical basic questions of life; they should be a source of strength in dealing with the challenges of today and tomorrow, and provide guidance on day-to-day “moral” issues. People are demanding common solutions to the global problems and challenges. Unfortunately, ecumenism is not fashionable at the moment; the renewed rejection of full communion between Catholics and Protestants at the end of the twentieth century leaves many members of both denominations speechless. …”

“Christians around the world are in competition with the phenomenon of moderate, popular Islam. A comparable readiness to engage with ordinary people and their day-to-day lives is painfully lacking in many of our churches today. Both our everyday concerns and the global challenges are crying out for leadership and guidance from the main Christian denominations and their institutions and leaders. Some of what we have been hearing from the Vatican or from the pulpit, however, has absolutely nothing to do with real life … “.

Chancellor Merkel travelled to Rome exclusively to meet the pope. She then met with Vatican Secretary of State (and likely Francis’ successor), Pietro Parolin, accompanied by Vatican Secretary for Relations with States, Archbishop Richard Gallagher, and with German ambassador to the Holy See, Annette Schavan, German Undersecretary of State, Steffen Seibert, and foreign policy adviser, Christoph Heusgen and eleven more German officials. A big meeting, no?

Schavan, a former German education minister, was considered one of Merkel’s close confidantes before she resigned from her post amid a plagiarism scandal in 2013.

Gallager had recently “exited” his papal ambassadorship position in Australia, reportedly after refusing to turn over to the Royal Commission there, some Vatican records relating to protecting specified priest child sexual abusers. Like Cardinal Pell, Gallagher also seemingly got a “reward promotion” after resisting the Royal Commission’s legal pressure.

Yes, a tough last week for the pope. As Pope Francis approaches his second papal anniversary, he has finally shown his plan to save the Catholic Church. He has shown at least enough to indicate why his plan will fail. Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Francis poses with soccer stars endlessly and “globetrots” aimlessly, while the Vatican sinks. Hopefully, Chancellor Merkel tried to set the pope straight on cleaning up the Vatican’s house of cards.

A prominent and informed Jesuit has already, in effect, declared that the Pope, and the Council of Cardinals the pope picked and leads, do not know what they are doing !!!

Indeed, Pope Francis’ latest desperate distraction, to try to salvage his doomed plan, appears to be to drum up support for a new “Christian crusade” against the ISIS terrorists.

Unfortunately for the dangerous plans of the pope and his likely latest US culture warrior, Jeb Bush, ISIS’ days as a serious Western threat appear to be already numbered, even without a new crusade. ISIS should be well contained by the time Hillary Clinton defeats Jeb and his brother’s old war prone foreign policy team in next year’s US presidential elections — bad news for the Vatican and its billionaire donors, as discussed here, “The cracks in Islamic State’s business plan are starting to show” at [Reuters] .

Catholics will now need to stop wishful thinking. They need to press their governments to clean up the Vatican promptly. Catholic Church leaders, we now know for sure, will never do so unless compelled to do so by outside democratic forces.

Very significantly, a devastating two year report card was just delivered to the pope, by a brave Jesuit no less! Fr. Thomas Reese, the world’s leading expert on Vatican organizational structure with a UC Berkeley Ph.D. in political science, just gave the pope a failing grade. Reese is the author of the highly regarded, “Inside the Vatican: The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church” discussed at Amazon here, [Amazon]

Reese’s most startling observations, in his brave two year assessment here, [National Catholic Reporter] , is that “ … the Council of Cardinals [taking] two years to come up with this reshuffling of boxes on the organizational chart simply shows they really don’t know what they are doing… . A conspiracy theorist would say that getting the Council of Cardinals to focus on this reorganization was a way of distracting them from any real reform in the [Vatican leadership structure] Curia. …” (emphasis mine)

As one would expect, the Jesuit Reese’s preferred bias is towards merely more clerical structural reform, which will also fail in my view. Sharing power, as Reese seems to want, among more unaccountable men worldwide, is hardly likely to end the child abuse and financial scandals. The Vatican has blown it. It has run out of time! Catholics, especially parents and women, have had enough.

Catholics seem mesmerized by papal mythology. Myths are over simplified stories with a supernatural twist — believed deeply and docilely by many, often from their youth. These “mythical stories” tend misleadingly to “frame” problematic issues for believers, even when unsupported by sufficient facts and/or contradicted by realities that believers irrationally overlook.

Papal myths are ones that modern popes have propagated to Catholics, like papal infallibility, beginning at seven years old during initial sacramental indoctrination, if not earlier through their Catholic parents and teachers. These myths promote papal power and prosperity with no questions asked, even when questions are rationally warranted — Pay, Pray & Obey!

Many Catholics habitually and irrationally accept these myths, thereby avoiding the need to make tough decisions, to act as real Christians, that are honestly called for by viewing papal reality unfiltered by papal spin. Even some purported Catholic scholars and journalists, often seemingly out of ambition and/or intimidation, are influenced by these mythical “frames” when viewing papal reality.

Pope Francis is unsuccessfully trying to preserve, as did his immediate predecessors, Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, by similar tactics (internal intimidation, external propaganda and media manipulation), the crucial papal myths underlying current papal power and wealth.

Evidently, Pope Francis fears that the present risks, of prosecution and imprisonment for Catholic Church leaders arising out of child abuse and financial scandals, will increase even faster than they presently are, if the full and unvarnished truth of some Church leaders’ misdeeds were to be uncovered.

Hence, for example, alleged child abuser, Archbishop Wesolowski, is being managed secretively by Francis.

The Vatican seems clearly to be relying heavily on these papal myths to try to obscure reality, as it faces a major and plausible “once in 150 years” threat. Francis had been expected by the frightened cardinals who elected him, it appears, to try to meet this threat and buy time, as an interim “media friendly, globe trotting” papal distraction — like John Paul II also was.

Francis has already failed. The Internet, social media and 24/7 news cycle have now begun to use the truth to pick the papal bones.

Even disgraced Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, in effect, has recently and ignobly pointed the finger of blame, for some of his main misdeeds, at his former longtime boss, ex-Pope Benedict, as well as at the former Vatican Bank directors, and even at Pope Francis, for whom he worked for seven months.

The Vatican Bank directors evidently include Carl Anderson, still the head of another financially oriented organization, the Knights of Columbus (USA). Anderson reportedly was a key mover in the sudden ouster of Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, the Vatican Bank’s ex-head, who subsequently cleared Italian government financial investigators unscathed.

Anderson was abruptly replaced by Francis on the Bank’s board as more Bank scandals became public.

Anderson appears to continue to have influence with Francis, as they evidently work together to help elect as US president next year a right wing “low tax” Republican, probably the latest Bush candidate, Jeb. For Anderson’s continuing role, please see “How One Religious Organization Bankrolls America’s Social Conservative Movement” here,

At the same time as Bertone tries to lay blame on others, including Pope Francis, Bertone has subtly and publicly taken credit for several positive Francis’ actions, including on Cuba/USA relations, as mostly his and Benedict initiatives per Bertone’s telling.

In his recent “softball interview” in the Huffington Post , Bertone offered a truly pathetic example of “bureaucratic buck passing” and “revisionist history.”

Bertone’s interview version of Vatican Bank scandals differs considerably from the remarkably revealing expose (1/8/15) of Tedeschi, the Vatican Bank’s ex-head, under the Catholic Herald banner headline, “HOW I WAS BETRAYED BY THE VATICAN” here, [Catholic Herald] , discussed further in my “Ex-Bank Head Presses Pope, ex-Pope & Cardinal Bertone” here, [Christian Catholicism] .

Bertone had spent almost two decades, often with considerable authority as the evidently “management adverse” ex-Pope’s top aide. This included the period when ex-pope Ratzinger was in charge as Cardinal of seemingly covering up some priest child abuse scandals, such as the Milwaukee priest who reportedly sexually abused over two hundred deaf boys, as well as the Fr. Marciel Maciel scandals after Cardinal Sodano reportedly weighed in.

Bertone confirms that he knew by mid-2012 that Benedict XVI was planning to quit “at least seven months” in advance of his mid-February 2013 public resignation announcement.

This means Bertone learned about the pope’s planned departure about the time the International Criminal Court prosecutor indicated she was giving the ex-Pope and Cardinals Bertone, Sodano and Levada a free pass on filing “crimes against humanity” charges related to the priest child abuse scandal, at least in the short term. That seems plausible enough. At 85 years of age, the ex-pope’s short term was long term as well !

Bertone reportedly indicated that he told Benedict: “Holy Father, you must bestow upon us the third volume on Jesus of Nazareth and the encyclical on faith, before you sign things over to Pope Francis.”

Of course, Francis was only selected in March 2013 AFTER Benedict left. Or was he selected earlier? By whom? Very interesting !

Still very revealing, though. The Vatican Titanic was already sinking in 2012 on child abuse, gay lobby and financial scandal icebergs. Bertone now expects us to believe he emphasized to the pope that he should stick around to write more books few would read after he resigns. Will Bertone’s memoirs also contain such seeming fiction?

Similarly, when asked if it was difficult to make a pope change his mind, particularly a German one… , Bertone reportedly almost incredibly replied, “When they [popes] make certain decisions before God, how can we humans presume to interfere?” Amazing, no? Was Joseph Ratzinger fully human as Cardinal? Is he now as ex-Pope? The papal mythology never quits, it seems.

In the interview, Bertone said his relationship with Pope Francis was very positive. Regarding Bertone’s lavish — and widely criticized — retirement complex: a 2500-square-foot luxury apartment with a view of the city, Bertone reportedly stated “When this apartment was first criticized, he [Pope Francis] called me up and said, ‘Look, I do not have anything against you going to live on the third floor of Palazzo San Carlo.’ ” Francis, according to Bertone, even went further: “The pope [Francis] was informed about everything, even the small secretary’s office. He [Francis] said to me, ‘It’s perfectly fine and you are entitled to it, seeing as you need to write your memoirs, given you have been witness to three papacies… ‘ ” (emphasis mine) .

Perhaps Pope Francis thought Bertone would be “grazing sheep” on his infamous terrace, to get their smell? Really! What a double standard, no?

According to Bertone’s carefully chosen words in the interview, “The terrace, which has views across Rome, is intended for everyone”.

Intended for everyone, perhaps, but who actually uses it? Somehow, I have trouble visualizing the ex-pope’s butler’s children hanging out on His Eminence, Bertone’s terrace. Can you?

Francis should ask Bertone to share his apartment with the recently “resurrected” Bishop of Bling, who could then park his motorcycles on Bertone’s terrace, no? What hypocrisy?

Bertone in the interview said he acted in line with the committee that oversaw the bank and was not a “puppeteer or despot”. Every decision he made, he said, was “in accordance with the Holy Father”, he reportedly said. What does the non-excuse, “I was only following orders” remind you of? If he were following the ex-pope’s orders, we can safely conclude that at least papal financial decisions are not “infallible”. (emphasis mine).

For the “mythical premises” underlying Bertone’s revisionism, please see my “Five Crucial Myths Pope Francis Preaches: Why?” here, [Christian Catholicism]. For the overall negative implications of, and fatal flaws in, Pope Francis’ continuing protection and rewarding of men like Bertone and the ex-Pope, notwithstanding the papal mythology that seeks to obfuscate what is really happening, please see my “The Crisis Pope Francis Faces” here, [Christian Catholicism] .