UNITED KINGDOM
Christian Catholicism
Jerry Slevin
2015 begins with some hopeful developments:
* A prominent UK judge and and former head of a national investigation panel admits that the UK establishment covered up child abuse by members of the establishment’s elite. This adds a powerful impetus to the increasing calls for a thorough and transparent UK investigation, including of the Vatican’s seeming complicity in UK priest child abuse cover-ups.
* The USA’s Minneapolis Archdiocese appears about to explode. It reportedly is seemingly drifting into imminent bankruptcy that will possibly lead to a new bishop being put in charge. This likely could have negative repercussions for a key former official, Fr. Kevin McDonough, brother of President Obama’s Chief of Staff Denis McDonough.
* A Belgian bishop has boldly and squarely called on the Vatican to recognize gay relationships. Will the Vatican respond soon? Will any journalists ask them about this? Are things really about to change for the Vatican and elsewhere? For more information, please see my remarks below and see:
* [Express]
* [Bilgrimage]
* Significantly, on his present path, Pope Francis will in ten months after his October Synod likely be “flushed out” on changing sexual morality teachings. Thereafter, unless he acts decisively, his folksy public relations spin will probably lose much of its appeal and seem even more contrived, as reality raises its truthful head.
* The previous “media star” pope, John Paul II, experienced a similar decline in public image among many, as reality overtook his rhetoric. He benefited during much of his papacy, of course, from the absence of the current Internet and the 24/7 cable news cycle, so it took longer for reality to overtake John Paul II’s well performed rhetoric.
* Interestingly, Pope Francis has had a long ‘honeymoon period” with Catholics. He followed “bad acts” from the era of “popes can do no evil” — two failed popes about whom we are learning much that is disturbing. They evidently presided over an often immoral, if not at times criminal, operation at the Vatican. Francis could only “go up in the polls” initially after them. For almost two years, his folksy rhetoric, winning smile, symbolic gestures and vague promises have offered faint hope for many of the millions of disgusted, even despairing, Catholics whom he inherited upon his election in early 2013.
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