Pope Francis’ Hero: Cardinal Pell & The “Money First” Approach

By Jerry Slevin
Christian Catholicism
April 9, 2014

http://christiancatholicism.com/pope-francis-hero-cardinal-pell-the-money-first-approach/

As Pope Francis continues apparently to try to fool Catholics with his “bait and switch” strategy, it is helpful to consider Cardinal Pell, Francis’ new choice to maximize the Vatican’s considerable wealth. Pell’s recently revealed and ruthless treatment of victims of Australian priests’ child abuse makes some Wall Street investment bankers’ approach to making money seem beneficent, it appears.

Pell’s significance has been captured well recently by Fr. Thomas Doyle, O.P., the leading worldwide advocate for over a quarter century of justice for priest abuse survivors.

Fr. Doyle in the 1980′s had futilely advised Pope John Paul II’s US representative, Cardinal Pio Laghi, on priest child abuse curtailment policy. Laghi had just finished overseeing the Argentina Catholic Church’s self serving cooperation with a brutal military in the “Dirty War”, while Pope Francis assisted him, as the local Jesuit provincial, by trying to suppress prophetic local Jesuits who challenged the military.

Doyle in his below article uses his unique hierarchical insights, canon law expertise and long advocacy experience to zero in on Cardinal Pell’s “save the money first” approach that seemingly Francis and his cardinal clique now want Pell to apply to maximize the Vatican’s assets mainly, it appears, to benefit the hierarchy. So much for the “preferential option for the poor”, including abuse survivors, it appears.

It is hardly surprising Pope Francis has not appointed Fr. Doyle to Francis’ long delayed and still illusory advisory committee on child abuse, the latest Vatican public relations façade for covering-up the priest child abuse scandal.

Fr. Doyle’s remarks make amply clear why President Obama must set up now a US national commission, like Australia has, to investigate US child sexual abuse in institutions, including in the various churches. If Obama fails to do this, and if Catholics and others fail to demand that he do so, they are also failing in their Gospel mandated duty to protect children by reasonable and readily available means.

More US children, beyond the currently estimated 100,000+ US child victims of priest abuse, and their families will suffer unnecessarily and end up barely surviving on government assistance, while Catholic bishops continue to live like medieval princes accountable to no one, unless Obama acts. Francis’ recent endorsement, of the policy that continues to enable Italian clerics to avoid reporting to the police cases of priest abuse of children, makes clear Francis is clearly part of the priest child abuse problem. His illusory advisory commission fools few.

The Vatican will not change unless compelled to do so by governmental pressure. Feckless Catholic advocacy efforts, such as the Voice of the Faithful and Call to Action, and purportedly progressive Catholic publications, like the National Catholic Reporter and Commonweal, have unwittingly played into the hierarchy’s hands by giving Catholic rage frequently harmless and innocuous outlets, as bishops continue to do whatever they please, while they seemingly encourage shameless and opportunistic apologists to neutralize even further these already weak reform organizations.

It likely will take some courage for US politicians to challenge the Pope Francis mythmaking machine, especially with key US Congressional elections barely six months away. Of course, Obama may be forced to speak up, as Francis’ US subordinate bishops aggressively help right wing Republicans and their tax avoiding billionaire backers reach conservative US Latino voters. Francis’ cynical “Our Lady of Guadalupe” strategy may help conservatives gain control of the US Senate in November and of the US Supreme Court majority for many years to come.

Since Francis’ continuation of the Vatican’s stonewalling policy, on holding bishops accountable for protecting child predators, will likely land some more bishops in Federal bankruptcy, and even criminal courts, the US bishops may well need some “friends” on the US Supreme Court.

Instead of really facing the abuse problem, Pope Francis instead usually just tries to change the subject, for example, by more mystical propaganda ploys like the upcoming canonizations of Popes John Paul II and John XXIII. Of course, neither of their abysmal records on holding bishops, or even priests, accountable for abusing children has even been addressed in the “rush to sainthood”. How long does Francis think he can go on trying to change the subject? Although many Catholics sometimes appear to be overly docile and wishful thinkers, most of them are not that naïve, as the 30 plus million US Catholics who have left the Church appear to indicate.

Moreover, Obama’s Chief of Staff’s brother, Fr. Kevin McDonough, is still in the midst of a well publicized litigation struggle in Minneapolis related to the priest child abuse scandals there. This struggle could erupt at any time and force his Chief of Staff, as well as Obama himself, to take a public position on the scandal and on an Australian style US national commission to curtail the priest child abuse cancer.

At the same time, the priests’ scandal is also pervasive elsewhere, especially in Obama’s home state of Illinois, including in Chicago, Springfield, et. al., where numerous stories of priest abuse have recently filled the local media. Now Springfield’s Bishop Paprocki has doubled down on denying Holy Communion to Catholic Dick Durbin, US Senate Democratic whip up for re-election in November. Since Durbin got 68% of the vote on 2008, he could afford to risk taking on the local Catholic hierarchy, especially given their disgraceful record on abuse cover-ups. Time will tell if he has the courage to do so.

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GEORGE PELL IN THE BOX: SCANDALOUS BUT CONFIRMING WHAT WE ALREADY KNEW

By: Thomas P. Doyle, J.C.D., C.A.D.C.

George Pell, outgoing archbishop of Sydney and incoming overlord of Vatican money, has been in the witness box of the Royal Commission in Australia for the past few days. The reaction of most decent people to his testimony probably runs from revolting to infuriating to disbelief. In his statement he said that “sexual abuse of children by clergy is particularly abhorrent.”

True, and equally abhorrent is the way Pell and his lawyers treated victims. The sentiments he expresses about concern for victims, justice and healing would sound almost believable were it not for the harsh reality of how John Ellis and other victims were viciously mistreated because they had the audacity to challenge the almighty archdiocese in court.

Pell’s testimony is valuable because it was subject to cross-examination by attorneys for the Royal Commission who were obviously not in the slightest bit awed by his cardinalatial rank. He revealed details about how he approved the legal strategy used against victim John Ellis and others, a strategy that Pell claimed was “a legally proper tactic” but which he admitted he regretted.

True to form, Pell blamed his lawyers for the horrific way Mr. Ellis was treated but he explained this by telling the commission that the “vigorous defense against abuse victim John Ellis was seen as an opportunity to show future claimants they should think twice before litigating against he Catholic Church.” He actually had the temerity to characterize Ellis’ claim as an “attack on the trustees of the Catholic Church by people who were not entirely reasonable.”

Pell publicly apologized to John Ellis, a perfunctory act that gave off no vibes of sincerity. The apology was done from the safety of the box. Pell did not meet Ellis face to face. Was he afraid of the man he had come close to destroying?

Pell and the archdiocese’s role in the Ellis case is a glaring example of the darkest and most destructive dimension of the clergy sex abuse phenomenon. The Royal Commission has forced into the open what has happened countless other times in dioceses around the world. The Commission has the power to bring otherwise hidden and privileged documents to light and this it did in the Ellis case.

As David Marr said in his excellent article on TheGuardian.com, “They show the evolution of a pitiless strategy to defeat Ellis.” {{For Marr’s recent related article, see:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/28/a-cup-of-tea-with-the-cardinal-what-george-pell-did-in-the-ellis-case }}

What we see in the Ellis case is the rule and not the exception though the circumstances may differ from case to case and there certainly are exceptions to this degree of legal violence and abuse. Yet this is why victims and those who support them cannot help but view the institutional Church as an evil empire.

Pell admitted they believed Ellis had been abused yet he and his lawyers mounted a brutal campaign against him to protect the archdiocese’s assets but also to punish him for standing up to them. Pell was asked to explain why he directed such a bloodthirsty campaign against Ellis if they actually believed he had been abused. His response was beyond repulsive. It was chilling in its lack of humanity.

Pell thought Ellis would see this simply as an exercise in disputing his claim: “We were dealing with Mr. Ellis as a senior and brilliant lawyer. I think he, as a lawyer, would have understood the distinction.” So, in Pell’s mind the dishonest, vindictive and abusive campaign to reduce Mr. Ellis to human rubble is just an exercise!

The story goes on and in legal terms, gets more complex but in the end although Ellis did not succeed at the level of the supreme court because of a legal technicality, Pell, the episcopacy in general and the institutional Church lost because the entire saga, exposed to the light by the Commission, revealed what Jimmy Breslin wrote about in 2002, The Church that Forgot Christ.

Pell and company probably would have won, at least in the short run, were it not for one simple yet powerful fact: today’s victims are not going to take it any longer. They, coupled with a power the Church can’t control, the civil legal system, are changing the Church’s history.

It was no surprise when Pell described the Vatican’s attitude in similar terms. “The attitude of some people at the Vatican was that if accusations were being made against priests, they were being made exclusively or at least predominantly by enemies of the church to make trouble and therefore they should be dealt with skeptically…there was more of an inclination to give the benefit of the doubt to the defendant [cleric] rather than listen seriously to the complaints.”

In spite of Benedict XVI’s assurances to victims, this fundamental attitude remains and it won’t change as long as the church is a monarchy and priests and bishops believe themselves to be the privileged ones with immunity from real accountability.

No commission imaginable will make a serious difference until its members and the powers they answer to begin to recognize that underlying the Church’s history of destructive responses to victims is a motivation that is totally devoid of the spirit of Christ. /END.

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Cardinal Pell appears to be the right man to protect and maximize the Vatican’s wealth mainly to benefit the cardinals who elected Francis to save their necks and purses. This is laid out well in the unique and new analysis of Betty Clermont, the incisive author of “The Neo-Catholics”, set forth here:

http://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2014/04/05/pope-francis-increases-opus-dei-power/