Did Pope Francis Post a Turkey to a Bishopric in Chile?

By Frank Weathers
Why I Am Catholic
March 26, 2015

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/yimcatholic/2015/03/did-pope-francis-post-a-turkey-to-a-bishopric-in-chile.html

It’s looking like it, if you asked me. But nobody asked me, nor would they ever. One thing is for sure, and that is that lots of local folks were unhappy with the appointment, and the installation, of Bishop Juan Barros.

Kevin O’Brien has a lot of the background on how this came about over at his blog, Waiting For Godot To Leave. It seems like lots of folks in Chile are waiting for Bishop Barros to clear out, even though he just took the chair.

The thing that really gets me is that it seems that there was absolutely zero oversight regarding the Fr. Barros appointment. Folks who sit on Pope Francis’ sex abuse advisory board are starting to wonder why they even bother, and frankly, so am I. Here’s what they told reporters from the Associated Press,

The five commission members spoke to the AP in their personal and professional capacity and stressed that they knew about the case only from news reports and were not speaking on behalf of the 17-member commission, which Francis formed in late 2013 and named Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley to head.

“I am very worried,” said commission member Dr. Catherine Bonnet, a French child psychiatrist and author on child sex abuse. “Although the commission members cannot intervene with individual cases, I would like to meet with Cardinal O’Malley and other members of the commission to discuss a way to pass over our concerns to Pope Francis.”

Another commission member, Marie Collins, herself a survivor of abuse, said she couldn’t understand how Francis could have appointed Barros given the concerns about his behavior.

“It goes completely against what he (Francis) has said in the past about those who protect abusers,” Collins told AP. “The voice of the survivors is being ignored, the concerns of the people and many clergy in Chile are being ignored and the safety of children in this diocese is being left in the hands of a bishop about whom there are grave concerns for his commitment to child protection.”

Read the whole piece.

Sure. Joe Six-Pack, USMC, is a knucklehead for wondering what is the purpose of these “sex abuse advisory boards” if they are never given any teeth to insure candidates with a checkered past don’t get the nod to be promoted upstairs.

You know what that would be like? It would be like the President, or the Governor of your state, just appointing folks to officerships in the military willy nilly, based on what family they are from, or who they know (like in the olden days) instead of professionalizing the process via promotion boards. You know, the type that don’t rubber stamp promotions, or fail to weed out bad candidates.