Kirk Skeptic 3/04/2017 7:19 PM
John: just what can [Pope] Jorge [Bergoglio] do with the Vatican bureaucracy; ie what are the limits of his authority over those folks' employment?
John Bugay3/08/2017 9:06 PM
If it were important to him, he could move laggard bishops around the same way he's moving Burke around.
As it turns out, Bergoglio has been moving in precisely the opposite direction with bishops who have shielded pedophile priests:
When on January 10, 2015 Francis promoted to the diocese of Osorno, Chile the bishop Juan de la Cruz Barros Madrid, [Marie] Collins [a victim of sexual abuse by a priest] and other members of the [Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors] protested strenuously.
The new bishop, in fact, was under substantiated accusations from three victims of sexual abuse, who charged him with having shielded the priest Fernando Karadima, for many years a celebrity of the Chilean Church but in the end condemned to “prayer and penance” by the Holy See for his countless verified misdeeds.
The new bishop’s installation in his diocese was heavily contested. But on March 31 the Vatican congregation for bishops stated that it had “attentively studied the prelate’s candidacy and had not found objective reasons that would block his appointment.”
So in April, Collins and other members of the commission for the protection of minors went to Rome to ask the president of the commission, Cardinal Sean Patrick O'Malley, to urge the pope to revoke the appointment.
But they got the opposite result. One month later, in May, Pope Francis responded to questions from a former spokesman of the Chilean episcopal conference he met in Saint Peter’s Square. And he went after the bishop’s accusers, in his most indignant words ever.
The video of the encounter was made public afterward. And these are the pope’s actual words:
“It is a Church [that of Osorno] that has lost its freedom because it has let its head be filled up by the politicians, judging a bishop without any proof after twenty years of service. So think with your heads, and don’t let yourselves be led by the nose by all those leftists who are the ones who drummed up the business.
“Furthermore, the only accusation that there has been against this bishop has been discredited by the judicial court. So please, eh? Don’t lose your serenity. Yes, [the diocese of] Osorno is suffering, because it is stupid, because it is not opening its heart to what God is saying and is letting itself get carried away by the stupidities that all those people are saying. I am the first to judge and punish those who have been accused of such things. . . But in this case there is a lack of proof, or rather, on the contrary. . . I say it from the heart. Don’t let yourselves be led by the nose by these people who are seeking only to make ‘lío,’ confusion, who seek to calumniate....”
The “leftists” - “zurdos” in Argentine slang - who had particularly irritated the pope included the 51 Chilean deputies, for the most part of the socialist party of president Michelle Bachelet, who had signed a petition against the appointment of Barros as bishop of Osorno.
So then, when the video with Francis’s words were made public, Marie Collins said she was “discouraged and saddened when you see the claims of Karadima’s courageous victims categorized in this way" by the pope.
That of the bishop of Osorno is not the only case in which Jorge Mario Bergoglio has commandeered judgment for himself, nullifying or sidestepping canonical procedures.
In Italy there has been an uproar over the act of “mercy” with which he has graced Fr. Mauro Inzoli, a prominent priest of the movement Communion and Liberation, reduced to the lay state in 2012 by the congregation for the doctrine of the faith for having abused numerous young people, but restored to the active priesthood by Francis in 2014, with the admonishment that he lead a life of penance and prayer. In the civil arena, Inzoli has been sentenced to 4 years and 9 months in prison.
Marie Collins also protested against such indulgences: “While mercy is important, justice for all parties is equally important. If there is seen to be any weakness about proper penalties, then it might well send the wrong message to those who would abuse.”
great post, but what benefit could Jorge derive from his current actions, which fly in the face of all of his (empty) promises? is this, like with proddies and their blocked courts, merely a reaction to protect his fellow good old boys, or is something more sinister afoot (ie, what dirt said bishops might have on Jorge)?
ReplyDeleteI have no idea. If I had to guess, I'd say most likely it's the old boys network, keeping an eye out for each other. That's what the original charge was from Marie Collins.
Deletethis must be reflexive then, as Jorge stands to lose a lot of ground should another sex scandal arise - which it inevitably must. conscience aside, the political and liability consequences of shielding pedophiles must be less than throwing them under the bus (which they so richly deserve). this must really be the case in latin america where the papists continue to lose ground. what/how is that boy thinking?
DeleteKirk, I just don't know, and the thing is, nobody really knows. I just saw a slew of articles this morning suggesting that he's going to open up the possibility of ordaining married men. He's 80 years old and he still seems to be in decent health. I'm not sure how Rome is going to unscramble his eggs.
DeletePer ordaining married men, the RC's have been doing that via the ordinariat so the groundwork for doing what the other catholic churches have been doing since day 1. Besides, he's going to face up to the vocations crisis and married men are great stopgaps. Also, ism't all this celibates-only stuff mere Cluniac reform than conciliar decree, and a mere imposition of discipline at that; ie ther is no canonical barrier i', aware of stopping this.
DeleteLet's hope the Babylonish Whore never unscrambles Jorge's eggs, which are best served with tripe.
Kirk, yes, they are letting in married Anglicans like Dwight Longenecker. And the Eastern Orthodox accept married men as priests/presbyters (a priest can’t marry while a priest). And I think you're right about mandatory celibacy being a Cluniac thing.
DeleteAnd like you, I hope the eggs never get unscrambled. It seems that Rome is becoming so unattractive that the "convert" population is going way down, and those who did convert are getting buyer's remorse.
https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2013/08/catholic-converts-and-buyers-remorse.html
great prior posts; are you aware of any reversions?
DeleteHi Kirk -- you may have seen this:
Deletehttp://triablogue.blogspot.com/2016/12/bryan-cross-ordinary-catholic-life-just.html
I just popped over to "Called to Confusion" -- there's basically about one new Bryan Cross comment there each of the last six weeks, just to post an article at the tail end of a 600-comment thread. He's still (or was recently) honking on the problem of transitioning from a tradition in which feelings, emotions, and sentiments are the measure of faith and spirituality, to the Catholic tradition, in which faith, hope, and charity (and thus closeness to God) are supernatural virtues of the intellect and will, and therefore do not entail any particular feeling or emotion or even spiritual consolation.
Stellman, of course, is worthless now as a "Drunk Ex Pastor", though he still claims to be nominally Roman Catholic. I'm only aware of one really public "reversion", a commenter here named "john" who had once set up a discussion board devoted to Roman Catholic apologetics, where I took part in some of the discussions. He later reverted, took down the board, and stopped by to let me know.
There must be some red faces that we haven't seen among the Roman Catholic "apologetic community" over this pope.