UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
Jerry Slevin
************** “Oh what a tangled web we weave, **************
*************** When first we practise to deceive!” *************
Sir Walter Scott’s apt words clearly applied today. The Vatican vainly sought, seemingly inconsistently in Geneva and Rome, to preserve Pope Francis’ fragile credibility on curtailing priest child abuse. As a religious emperor primarily, and not some mere “pastoral parish priest creation” of his PR handlers, Francis’ credibility here is critical. It is an essential prerequisite for Francis’ establishing credibility on all other key Vatican challenges.
To date, a surprisingly docile media have often been slow to realize that Pope Francis’ tunes on critical issues like child abuse, women’s equality, contraception, divorced Catholics and gay marriage remain quite similar to his failed predecessors’, even if the new pope’s public relations’ tone differs.
As the Francis’ honeymoon period winds down, the fundamental question for Catholics arises ever sharply— how “good” can the new pope really be, if he would shelter child predators and their complicit bishops much like his shameful predecessors did? How Good is a Shepherd who does not effectively protect the youngest lambs among the sheep, especially when Jesus clearly mandated the need to ptotect children?
Francis’ subordinates in Geneva today often desperately evaded UN representatives’ questions, even trying to divert some blame to the Irish government and to downplay the current Vatican protection being afforded to an alleged child abusing Polish Archbishop who, under Pope Francis, fled prosecutors’ clutches in the Dominican Republic last August.
At the same time, Francis met today in Rome with Los Angeles’ Cardinal Mahony, the USA’s most unaccountable hierarch for priest abuse cover-ups. According to Mahony’s own blog, Francis’ principal concern today was not the abuse scandal. Rather, Francis’ main focus apparently was on US Latinos, a group that had long viewed Mahony as “the Man”. Meanwhile, Mahony’s former Diocese of Stockton yesterday filed for bankruptcy, after paying $3.75 million less than a year ago to a single abuse survivor, seemingly to avoid Mahony’s having to testify.
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