Do Pope Francis & His Synod Value Families Enough?

By Jerry Slevin
Christian Catholicism
September 11, 2014

http://christiancatholicism.com/do-pope-francis-his-synod-value-families-enough/

Pope Francis indisputably showed this week that the welfare of families, especially of children, is less important to him than protecting Vatican cardinals and worldwide bishops from prosecution. Francis’ latest actions irrevocably raised publicists’ carefully crafted curtain on the latest Papal Wizard’s “Happy Pope” illusion. The Vatican spin machine has finally run out of mystical smokescreens to Tweet.

Pope Francis has now shown beyond any objective doubt that he is “one of the boys” at the Vatican. It is now too clear that Francis was elected a year and a half ago by frightened cardinals, primarily, to save themselves from outside government prosecutors investigating numerous child abuse and corruption scandals.

Neither Francis’ billionaire “allies”, Francis’ “heavy hitter” investment banker supporters, nor even Francis’ seemingly captive new “cheerleaders” at the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) and the Boston Globe’s new Crux websites, will likely be able “to put lipstick” on Francis’ latest shameful actions. But surely they will try! Money still talks loudest.

Argentina’s team lost the World Cup recently and its most famous fan is about to lose the world’s media. For some additional background see below and my recent remarks at :

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Francis signaled strongly this week that:

(1) on “contraception’, Catholic couples must keep “mass producing Catholic babies”, especially in light of the “escalating Islamist threat”, no matter what is best for couples’ other children. This dangerous farce is clearly directed at salvaging the “papal power myth” of infallibility tied to recent popes’ “infallible banning” of birth control, and at buttressing, pre-the US November elections, Francis’ right wing US political allies’ contrived fear of a growing radical Islamicist “threat” to the Vatican; and

(2) on curtailing priest child rape, Francis’ new “child abuse commission” will continue to try to protect clerics before children. Just to make sure, Francis appointed two hardliner priests as the key staffers on Vatican child abuse handling.

Jesus ordered all of us to protect children first, last and always. Francis, following his recent predecessors now says, in effect, we must protect children, unless it puts cardinals and bishops at risk of criminal prosecution.

Even Francis’ usually loyal Jesuit apologist and Vatican expert at NCR, Tom Reese, and as well as some perceptive and honest bloggers at NCR, appear to be throwing in the towel on Francis.

Ironically, Francis’ medieval Vatican and the radical Islamist mullahs seem engaged in a bi-polar worldwide struggle often about “whose God and whose religious hierarchy will rule the world” without accountability.

As Andrew Bacevitch noted at Reuters today: “Traditionalists, especially numerous in but not confined to the Islamic world, cling to the conviction that human existence should be God-centered human order. Proponents of modernity, taking their cues from secularized Western elites, strongly prefer an order that favors individual autonomy and marginalizes God. Not God first, but we first — our own aspirations, desires and ambitions. If there’s a core problem afflicting global politics today, that’s it.”

Andrew Bacevich is author of “Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country,” just out in paperback. He is a former Army colonel and a veteran of the Vietnam War. His full relevant and perceptive Reuters remarks are linked below.

Please see also, especially the independent and honest comments by bloggers, in the links below.

[ncronline.org]

[ncronline.org]

[ncronline.org]

[ncronline.org]

[blogs.reuters.com]