UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
Jerry Slevin
* Defenseless children paradoxically may defeat the overly defended and childless Vatican. Pope Francis’ seeming smokescreen on contraception was almost blown away, in a “David and Goliath moment”, by a courageous 12 year old former Manila street child victim of sexual abuse. She movingly asked the pope in front of the world’s media, in effect, how can an omnipotent God (and powerful popes) permit sexual abuse to happen to innocent children. This is not a question of theodicy, but of moral theology — the short answers are “lust” and “greed”, mostly of powerful men.
* Francis, evidently taken by surprise, tried to give the girl a 30 minute Jesuitically evasive and woefully inadequate dissertation on suffering, followed shortly thereafter by his latest missteps on doubling down on his contraception ban. This is further discussed wonderfully by prophetic theologian Jamie Manson, at [National Catholic Reporter] , and here where contraception expert Patricia Miller calls the bluff of Pope Francis, as well as by incisive theologian, Bill Lindsey, here, and by me in earlier remarks here, Curtain Up On Pope’s Veto of Hillary C’s Pill
* And as luck would have it in a tough week, Pope Francis’ “secretary” and the ex-pope’s “convent mate”, Archbishop George Gänswein, even weighed in gratuitously according to Crux. by expressing regret over cases in which Vatican spokesmen have had to issue clarifications about things Pope Francis has said or done. What was that all about — criticizing the boss publicly?
* And the objections to Pope Francis’ plan to canonize 18th Century Franciscan, Father Junipero Serra, who had been a very harsh taskmaster of Native Americans, continue to be heard, see,
* [SFGate]
* Nevertheless. Pope Francis still seems almost oblivious to the frequent and obvious connection between millions of abandoned and unaffordable children worldwide and their sexual exploitation. whether by sex traffickers or predatory priests. The shameful public relations ploy during Francis’ visit (that Cardinal Tagle likely was aware of), of locking up street children, and even putting homeless families in expensive resorts, until Francis left, failed totally, as reported here [Daily Mail] and here So the Vatican media machine now tries to pivot and instead hypes that Pope Francis had more spectators at his free final Mass than rock stars and sports teams have at their paid events, which proves what exactly?
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