UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
Jerry Slevin
Pope Francis showed much of his hand this week, and his priority is cardinals before children from key indications. It has been almost a year since the ex-pope shocked, if not also frightened, many cardinals by suddenly resigning amidst escalating scandals. This led to the unexpected selection of Pope Francis to save the cardinals, at least by changing the subject from the scandals and gaining time for the Vatican to try to find a path that eluded the ex-pope through the scandals.
The cardinals had been picked by the ex-pope and Pope John Paul II as men who apparently would mostly follow orders unquestionably. In exchange, the popes provided these men with the generally unaccountable power and considerable wealth inherent in most cardinals’ permanent positions.
It appears evident that the trigger for the ex-pope’s abrupt resignation was the esclating priest child sexual abuse scandal that he mismanaged so badly. The financial scandals could likely have been fixed eventually by spending more money, which popes have plenty of access to and which appears to be happening now, as noted here at: [Chiesa] ; but the abuse scandal raises possibilities of the imprisonment of some cardinals and bishops, money notwithstanding. This was quite clear at this week’s disturbing UN hearings in Geneva as shown here at: [The New York Times], and further reported here at: [The Globe and Mail]
It also became clearer this week that Francis, and his Secretary of State Parolin, a former longtime top aide to Cardinal Sodano, are following a geopolitical survival strategy very similar to the one that Sodano and Parolin followed in 2004 to help secure President Bush’s relection as discussed further below. The Vatican’s UN response was also led by another longtime subordinate of Cardinal Sodano, Vatican diplomat, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi.
Relevantly, John Allen, a well informed Vatican reporter and CNN commentator just perceptively noted, as follows: ” … the sex abuse crisis is where two powerful narratives about Catholicism collide. One is that the church is a secretive institution devoted above all to protecting its own interests, so that claims of turning over a new leaf are viewed through a lens of suspicion; the other is that Francis is a reforming pope genuinely committed to the poor and the vulnerable, and people seem hungry to believe that he’ll do the right thing” .
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