Why is Pope Francis Still So Afraid of Oversight By the Catholic 99.99% ?

UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Common sense, and accumulated experience, tell us that organizational problems can only be fixed, long term, by changing the organizational structure that caused the problems. The Catholic Church has had escalating and scandalous problems that have resulted, since the 1870 First Vatican Council “proclamation on infallibility”, largely from the Vatican’s top down and unaccountable monarchical structure, regardless of which Church officials handled, or more likely mishandled, specific problems.

Yet, Pope Francis in two years as pope has mostly just recycled some officials, leaving the flawed top down structure intact. Pre-Constantine, early Catholics oversaw their religious leaders directly for three centuries. Catholics must do so again, soon! Who and/or what follows Pope Francis? Please see The Crisis Pope Francis Faces , “Pope Francis Is Still Failing Too Many Abused & Abandoned Children, No?‏” and Pope Francis vs. Shadow Pope Benedict — Who is Infallible .

The obvious flaw in Francis’ current approach was again just noted by Gerald Posner in an NPR interview, “From Laundering To Profiteering, A Multitude Of Sins At The Vatican Bank” here

[NPR]

discussing former Wall Street lawyer Posner’s explosive new 750+ page book, “God’s Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican” , see at Amazon link:

[Amazon]

God’s Bankers covers the astounding saga marked by poisoned business titans, murdered prosecutors, mysterious deaths of private investigators, and questionable suicides; a carnival of characters from Popes and Cardinals, financiers and mobsters, kings and prime ministers; and a set of moral and political circumstances that make clear the Vatican’s real aims and ambitions.And Posner even looks to the future to assess if Pope Francis can succeed where all his predecessors failed: to overcome the resistance to change in the Vatican’s Machiavellian inner court and to rein in the excesses of its seemingly uncontrollable and insatiable hierarchical greed.

Asked in his NPR interview about Pope Francis’ Vatican financial reforms, Posner responded, in pertinent part: “I’ve been impressed by him … {but} What could upend it? He needs to be there long enough that these changes can’t be reversed by a new pope who gets in and can be pushed around by the strong dominant bureaucrats.”

Pope Francis has not yet even selected an international auditing firm for the Vatican’s own huge proprietary assets. As eminent historian of the papacy, Eamon Duffy recently noted in the New York Review of Books, in pertinent part: ” … A pope with a long time in office can ensure that those around him share his vision. Rome appoints all the world’s Catholic bishops; the pope himself decides who will be a cardinal. The long pontificate of John Paul II and the succession of his right-hand man, Benedict XVI, have created a hierarchy who share much of their vision for the church. Gerhard Müller, still head of the Vatican’s most influential department, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is also the general editor of Benedict XVI’s collected writings … Francis himself is unlikely to have a long pontificate: he is an old man, with only one functioning lung.”

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