Pope Benedict XVI & the Next Pope: What’s the Rush?

By Jerry Slevin
Christian Catholicism
February 11, 2013

http://christiancatholicism.com/pope-benedict-xvi-the-next-pope-whats-the-rush/

What is Pope Benedict XVI’s rush? If the Catholic Church can survive a month without a new Pope, it can survive six months as well. In the past decade, it has survived with a seriously ill Pope, John Paul II, and a very old Pope, Benedict XVI. The Catholic Church needs to be fixed and 120 Cardinals in red dresses marching around St. Peter’s Square on short notice is no way to do that.

Of course, Pope Benedict and his Vatican clique of mainly Italian Cardinals must know this and apparently intend to try to stampede the many shell-shocked Cardinals. Are Cardinals all that naive? Are they so impressed with Pope Benedict’s performance that they are prepared to rubber-stamp his hand picked successor? A mere third of the voting Cardinals can forestall any Vatican clique favored candidate until the Catholic Church structure is fixed.

Many Cardinals are likely to face criminal prosecutors during the next Pope’s reign. Unlike in the Reformation, they have no European monarchs protecting them from imprisonment. As an experienced Harvard Law trained and now retired international lawyer, I would advise any Cardinals who were my clients to go slower here. Fix the Church now. You will not be able to do that if you are behind bars. This is likely to be many Cardinals’ last chance to save themselves. Look what happened to Cardinal Mahony, who apparently has just been fed, in effect, to the Los Angeles prosecutors by a public shaming evidentally with the Pope’s blessing. Who will be next?

Yes, go to Rome, but demand first that a conference be convened soon before any election to be held far away from Rome to address seriously and comprehensively the Church’s major problems, which are just getting worse with the recent decades of papal inattention.

Pope Benedict XVI had to resign. The public objections of Cardinals Meisner and Mahony, the political rejections in the USA, the Philippines, Ireland, Australia and in other countries, the priests’ revolts in Austria, Ireland, the USA and elsewhere, the bank regulators steady pressure on the Vatican Bank, and who knows what will soon be revealed, all made it clear that the Vatican clique’s power was diminishing rapidly.

But the Pope has only been an ornament on a hierarchical structure that remains. Unless and until that Catholic Church’s structure returns to the pre-Constantinian consensual style that Jesus and his first disciples left behind, a new Pope will likely just continue business as usual.

Catholics are not waiting on Cardinals. Australian and Irish Catholics have already gotten their governments to act.Now many from different faiths and no faith all across the USA, and even worldwide, including some of those harmed by the abuse of the deaf victims in Milwaukee, have already signed my petition calling on President Obama to step up. They have indicated they have had enough with the domination of local prosecutors and legislators by the Catholic hierarchy and its well paid apologists and lawyers. More signatures, including yours, will help accelerate the establishment of the U.S. national investigation commission, especially important now when the Vatican may be at a turning point.

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Please, as well, ask those you respect and who value children to sign it also. If you are active in a U.S. advocacy group, like SNAP, CTA, VOTF, ARCC, Dignity, CORPUS, WomenPriests, ask your leadership to support the petition. Similarly reticent, so-called progressive Catholic voices, like the National Catholic Reporter and Commonweal, seem dumbfounded by the positive prospects of President Obama establishing a U.S. national investigation commission. They must now take a stand.

What are they all waiting for? Blogging, writing, talking and prayer, however admirable and well intentioned, have barely influenced the Vatican clique and their subservient U.S. Bishops to date and will likely do little more in the future, certainly in the near term as more children are raped by priests, while duped Catholics continue to contribute enabling compicit bishops to protect priest pedophiles and predators perpetually.

I have separately proposed that President Obama consider appointing First Lady, Michelle Obama, to chair the new Obama commission. She is well respected as a Harvard lawyer and devoted mother. She would be an ideal choice with her established credibility if she were willing to accept the appointment.

The First Lady of the USA could consult with another effective former practicing lawyer, Julia Gillard, Australia’s Prime Minister, who just established a national investigation commission that already has the Catholic hierarchy and the Vatican running for cover.

Prime Minister Gillard recently disclosed that the tipping points in her decision to call for a national commission were the numerous disclosures that the Catholic Bishops, as part of their cover-up, moved predatory priests to avoid prosecution to other states and even other countries, where the predators continued their sexual abuse of more trusting and innocent children. The multistate and multinational dimensions of the crimes against children apparently convinced Prime Minister Gillard she had to take action at the Federal level.This moving of predatory priests interstate and across national borders has, of course, happened repeatedly in the USA as well, necessitating a Federal response in the USA as well.

If the First Lady would oversee this, President Obama would still be able to focus on his many other priorities, including resisting the Vatican’s and its plutocratic Republican contributors’ unrelenting and opportunistic efforts to derail Obamacare over contraception insurance and immigration reform over gay marriage.

U.S. voters recently made clear their rejection of the Vatican’s lobbying efforts to deny marriage equality for gay U.S citizens. Now the Vatican appears to be trying to deny it for gay immigrants. As to the Vatican’s relentless and futile anti-contraception crusade, 79 year old conservative Cologne Cardinal Meisner, recently approved a “morning after” pill of the type that, only a few months ago, many U.S. Bishops were condemning President Obama for helping U.S. women gain affordable access to. Does the Vatican understand how contraceptive pills work? Does the Vatican understand that President Obama has been re-elected?

If there tragically were not over 200 million “unplanned” children living miserably in countries where Vatican lobbying effectively denied their parents access to affordable contraception, a dispute among octogenerian celibates over permissible forms of contraception would make good political satire! But sadly, the Vatican’s anti-contraceptive efforts, apparently mainly to please the Vatican’s plutocratic Republican donors by keeping family planning wedge issues in political play, will very likely only fail again, while these efforts continue nevertheless to burden families and children.

Does the right hand talk to the left among Cardinals and the Vatican clique? Do the unprecedented, selective and well orchestrated shaming by an Opus Dei Archbishop of Cardinal Mahony, and the unexpected support from Cardinal Meisner for contraception that is reportedly starting to stir up German Bishops, indicate a Cardinals’ revolt is brewing. Will this revolt affect the papal elections next month? We may soon find out.