• Astute Catholic Church critic, Gary Wills, when asked in a recently reported interview whether he believes Pope Francis will push for real change on key issues facing the Church, responded with his typical directness, “Yes, because he has to. They are overdue and are already occurring throughout the church. ” Ever self confident, Wills added that he believes “the changes, in order of likelihood, are easing off from the condemnations of contraception, divorce, and homosexuality … ” {My emphasis}
• Gary Wills may be right, but as discussed below, these changes alone cannot and will not preserve the almost 150 year old top-down papal domination of the Church. Pope Francis must choose — the Vatican must either share power effectively with the Catholic 99.9 %, the so-called People of God, or the Catholic 0.01% leadership will soon lose its power to outside liberal democratic governmental intervention.
• This is not 1870 or even 1960. In 1870, Pope Pius IX shrewdly maximized papal control by getting himself, in effect,  declared “infallible” as the Vatican lost its Papal States Kingdom in 1870 and all of its earlier outside monarchical masters by 1918, with the end of the First World War. By 1960, Pope John XXIII realized this “Wizard of Oz-like approach” would no longer play in the post-Second World War democratized world and he sought to make key changes. The Vatican bureaucracy stymied some of these key changes for a half century, but have been neutralized now by unending Vatican scandals. Now, the Vatican will either democratize itself directly and voluntarily or it will most likely be democratized indirectly and involuntarily, sooner rather than later. Yes, the Vatican must either democratize now or face a slow institutional death at the hands of investigators and prosecutors. It is either/or!
• The current Catholic Church crisis, and the several challenges the crisis has provoked, have been occasioned by almost unending scandals. Catholics no longer trust their leaders and it is getting worse, not better. For example, Pope Francis purportedly is trying to “prosecute” secretly his former colleague, disgraced Archbishop Weslowski, while the UK’s Prime Minister Cameron cannot find an investigator who is independent enough to investigate alleged child sex abuse by prominent British insiders. Is the UK Prime Minister, who regularly publicly faces the House of Commons on his actions, less trustworthy than Pope Francis, who faces occasional staged interviews? Why the double standard? Why should Francis investigate his own subordinates?
• And his new financial czar, Cardinal Pell, just reported astonishingly that he “found” hundreds of millions of Euros not previously reported on the Vatican’s books.  Will the “miracles and nonsense” ever end? Writing reportedly in the Catholic Herald, Pell, who is now the Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy – an entirely new post – says he was recently asked by a member of a British parliamentary delegation: “Why did the authorities allow the situation to lurch along, disregarding modern accounting standards, for so many decades?”
• Pell’s reported response repays close examination. My emphases in bold. “I began by remarking that this question was one of the first that would come to our minds as English-speakers (lumped together by the rest of the world as ‘Anglos’) but one that might be lower on the list for people in the another culture, such as the Italians “. Pell reportedly added: “Those in the Curia were following long-established patterns. Just as kings had allowed their regional rulers, princes or governors an almost free hand, provided they balanced the books, so too did the popes with the curial cardinals (as they still do with diocesan bishops)”. Thank you, Cardinal Pell! I rest my case! Set, point, match!! Was it “King Ratzinger”, “Prince Bertone” or “Prince Sodano”? We can just wait until the prosecutors make the pending  investigation results public or until the Vatican’s independent international auditors complete their first audit, if they ever do, I suppose.
• Of course, Pell, who left Australia as a diocesan bishop, after considerable heat from the ongoing Royal Commission investigation over his seeming waste of a lot of money on, among other things, lawyers to “break” John Ellis, a priest abuse survivor, is hardly, it appears, in a position to cast stones at the “Italians“, no?. Please see:
• http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/12/cardinal-pell-financial-mess-i-found-in-the-vatican-made-it-seem-easy-pickings-for-thieves/      and
• http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-26/lawyers-instructed-to-defend-church-to-send-a-message/5346110
• These scandals involve priest child abuse, bishop misconduct and financial corruption and have no end in sight, it appears. The yet uncontrolled scandals have caused the ongoing crisis, while the insatiable 24/7 media cycle and the Internet are accelerating it non-stop.
• The scandal fallout is even leading many Catholics to question the previously accepted assumption that “The Holy Father knows best.” Basic questions now arise about infallible papal authority, judgment and integrity, as well as the Vatican’s hierarchical structure and unquestioned control of biblical and moral theology, especially regarding sexual and gender matters.
• Garry Wills, a one time Jesuit seminarian and a Pulitzer Prize-winner professor of history  and bestselling author (Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit; Why Priests?), has shown for decades some honest insights into the needs and prospects for reforms in the Catholic Church. John Allen reportedly considers Wills to be “perhaps the most distinguished Catholic intellectual in America over the last 50 years” (as of 2008). Perhaps, yes.
• This recently reported interview related to Wills’ new book due in a few months, entitled “The Future of the Catholic Church under Pope Francis”. Wills indicated in this interview that, while the Church is seemingly immovable, it has in fact remained vital exactly because it has changed over the centuries. As mentioned, asked whether he believes Pope Francis will push for real change on key issues, Wills says, “Yes, because he has to. They are overdue and are already occurring throughout the church.”
• Asked about how Francis will do that without contradicting core Catholic values, Wills reportedly said , “If he follows the example of {Pope} John XXIII, he will not make changes by his own personal fiat, but will encourage bishops to move in new directions, as John did with the Second Vatican Council.” Wills added, as noted above, that he believes “the changes, in order of likelihood, are easing off from the condemnations of contraception, divorce, and homosexuality.” As with long-ago practices such as “interdicts, indulgences, and the ban on usury,” Wills reportedly predicted that “church authorities [will] rather let practices lapse than end them with formal decrees.”
• I agree with Wills, at least as far as the changes he sees coming, I think, however, as an experienced international lawyer who once advised Wills’  “intellectual home”, The New York Review of Books, that Francis must do more or he will fail. Specifically, Francis must end the top down coercive Church management structure and return to a bottom up consensual structure, in effect, like the structure that flourished for centuries before the Emperor Constantine and his successors commandeered the Church for imperial purposes.
• On the other hand, both Wills and I may be overly optimistic about Pope Francis, given his continuing mishandling of issues relating protecting children from priest predators, to holding bishops accountable,  to treating women equally and treating gay folks with respect. Please see:
• http://ncronline.org/blogs/just-catholic/block-metaphor   and
• http://ncronline.org/blogs/grace-margins/pope-s-rhetoric-women-regretfully-consistent
• A prominent conservative Catholic priest suggested that in Wills’ mind, when faced with a tension between liberal democracy and Roman Catholicism, Wills’ always believed liberal democracy should prevail.On this score, John Allen reported in 2008, that Wills is happy to concede: “I like liberal democracy, there’’s no doubt about that,” he reportedly said, arguing that so does Catholic tradition. In the councils of the early church, Wills insisted, matters were settled on a “one man, one vote” basis.
• I will await Wills’ book to see if he presses Pope Francis to act concretely now to democratize the Catholic Church. Again, if Francis, who will be starting his 79th year in a couple of weeks, is unwilling or unable to move boldly in this direction very soon, he will fail, I expect. Tinkering with the Vatican bureaucracy, secretive trials for alleged episcopal child abusers and meandering discussions at all celibate male Synods are too little too late.
• The overarching Vatican “framework” at present, based on current Vatican assumptions, appears to be mainly that (A) Jesus endorsed popes as supreme papal monarchs, (B) who are accountable only to God, (C) who uniquely interpret infallibly matters of “faith and morals”, including New Testament moral themes, and (D) who appoint as unaccountable bishops superior men, exclusively, (E) to implement and enforce unchangeable dogmas and practices mandated by popes. The Vatican currently, in effect, requires a billion plus Catholics to operate within this framework as well. This framework does not stand up well to close scholarly scrutiny.
• Pope Francis indicated as the new pope at the World Youth Congress in July 2013 that he wanted a “mess” to stimulate change, and now he has one he helped create. He cannot now avoid confronting and attempting to defuse the expanding crisis, since it has unleashed unstoppable international legal and political responses. Previously, modern popes could discuss some pressing issues, while also deferring other important issues, and then sit on or even avoid the implications of these discussions, even for a half century as with some of the key issues discussed in the 1960’s during the Second Vatican Council period, such as married priests, power sharing among bishops and contraception.
• No more! With the pressure from the current crisis increasing, the Vatican can no longer just table these issues, and must address them now, along with additional significant issues, like (A) holding bishops accountable to the 99.9% faithful majority, (B) ordaining women priests, (C) celebrating gay marriages, (D) welcoming divorced and remarried Catholics at Mass, and (E) protecting children.
• These scandals in today’s wide open media world have created unprecedented reputational, political, financial and competitive risks and also generated related challenges for the Vatican. One pope has already resigned under pressure, the first to do so in almost 600 years. Many tough questions, rarely asked earlier, are now proliferating rapidly and are being raised constantly and publicly. The days of popes on pedestals are over permanently, notwithstanding the rapid acceleration of Pope Francis’ new pope saint making spree as part of his crisis response.
• Will Pope Francis be next to resign under similar pressure? Who will succeed him? How many Vatican officials are now being investigated by outside government prosecutors? Could the Vatican financially go broke, as over a dozen US dioceses and religious orders already have, under the weight of rising scandal related legal costs and declining donations and subsidies? Will even more Catholics now leave the Church seeking greener pastures and truer shepherds?
• Until recently, the Vatican’s decades’ old strategy aimed simultaneously and defensively at protection and preservation. Protecting, as the Vatican’s highest priority, its top leaders from governmental legal accountability, has meant employing media management tactics with help, it appears from billionaire media masters and seeking opportunistic arrangements with powerful political leaders and wealthy financial barons.
• Preserving Vatican wealth and membership statistics, both to maximize its eroding income worldwide and to reverse declining Catholic birth and retention rates in key countries, has meant continuing to pursue a “pro billionaire” fundraising approach and a “pro-pregnancy” population policy. This population policy had been earlier declared in Pope Pius XI’s 1930 anti-birth control papal encyclical occasioned by both the rising threat of atheistic Soviet communism against a declining Western European birthrate and the military ambitions of Pius XI’s key protector, Mussolini. Today, the Vatican’s pro-baby policy appears directed at the Vatican’s near obsession with the threat of radical Islam and Muslims’ high birth rate.
• The Vatican’s defensive instruments of power currently include (A) endlessly quoting in Vatican public relations releases from Jesus’ appealing message of brotherly love, while avoiding the message too often in actual Vatican actions,  (B) constantly fronting a smiling  “semi-divine infallible pope”, preferably hugging babies, (C) shrewdly managing a self interested, obedient and self perpetuating hierarchy, (D) carefully applying its significant worldwide wealth advantage,  and (E) tightly controlling its considerable political influence in key countries, like the USA and Germany.
• Pope Francis faces many daunting challenges, including the following.
•  A leadership challenge — diminishing papal authority and declining adherents, as millions of older Catholics are leaving the Church, many due the Vatican’s rigid sexual policies and its mismanagement of the scandals, while many younger Catholics are similarly disaffected and are increasingly marrying in non-Church ceremonies, are having and baptizing fewer Catholic babies, and are even avoiding or deferring the early introduction of their children to the Church’s formative indoctrination process associated with First Communion/First Confession.
• A political challenge — to the Vatican’s modern immunity from outside governmental oversight and to the Vatican’s opportunistic arrangements with plutocratic political promoters.
•  A financial challenge — declining personal donations and governmental subsidies while facing unending legal expenses and litigation penalties — fewer Catholics are donating, while billions in scandal related expenses are still being incurred, as more dioceses go broke and bankrupt and more Churches and schools are closed and sold off.
•  A competitive challenge — increasing competition from other faiths and from secularism, ranging from Christian pentecostals, to Islamic converts, to the growing category of “nones”, unaffiliated with any faith group.
• Many of the world’s billion Catholics worry increasingly about the future of their scandal infected Church. While many millions still support the Catholic Church devoutly, millions of others, including women, children, poor couples, divorced and remarried, gay folks and even non-Catholics, suffer under Vatican policies that often seem unchristian and unnecessary.
• Pope Francis must currently confront this crisis and these challenges. He needs a comprehensive strategy to do so. His individual actions cannot really be assessed adequately or intelligently, except in the context of his overall strategy.
• Pope Francis has given many Catholics new hope for a Church cure, for positive changes and for overdue reforms. Recent developments make clear that major changes for the papal monarchy are underway and that more are coming. When and how the newest changes may come surely raise complicated questions that demand responses, even if “final answers” are yet unavailable.
• Some Catholic Church changes may come voluntarily and others involuntarily, but come soon they will to the current papal monarchy, as they long ago came to other European monarchies. Depending on the specific change, either voluntary consensus among many Catholics or involuntary coercion from outside governments (as has already occurred in the financial area), or both, are driving these changes relentlessly. As a Catholic, I hope the changes come voluntarily. As an international lawyer, I expect the major changes will come involuntarily in any event, if needed voluntary changes are not implemented soon.
• Of course. the Church’s future options necessarily depend on, and are limited by, its present situation, as influenced by its unique history and traditions. Pope Francis cannot start afresh. He also faces considerable opposition from many sides. In some respects, Pope Francis’ situation today is like that of Pope Pius IX, who lost his large Papal States’ kingdom a century and a half ago to outside Italian governmental forces. Pius XI tried to recover some lost power by being “declared infallible” at the 1870 First Vatican Council. That move, however, may have created more problems for the Church than it solved.
• Pope Francis appears similarly desperately to be trying, with recent papal saint making spectacles and his Synods of Bishops, to make changes to try to head off some of the likely changes he may anticipate being imposed on the Church by escalating outside government pressure. His fine tuning the rules recently on his power to remove bishops suggests he does not plan on endless debates with the likes of Cardinal Burke.
• Moreover, Pope Francis must try to follow Jesus’ message closely if he wants to succeed. But traditions about Jesus, especially the all important “Good News” of the four Gospels, have been interpreted in different ways, prophetically, theologically and even politically, by earlier Catholic leaders and thinkers. These influential leaders and thinkers and their specific interpretations have generally dominated Church dogma and practice over much of its 2,000 year history, often in unpredictable ways at times with unanticipated consequences.
• For much of this long period, popes benefited from considerable protection from powerful monarchs, and at times even tyrants. But this has generally no longer been the case since the end of Fascist hegemony in Germany and Italy by 1945. Since then, the Vatican has had to nimbly weave its web of political protection by trading Vatican support on an ad hoc opportunistic basis for national arrangements. These alliances ranged from close ties since the 1980’s with elected US Republican leaders to alliances with military dictators in Latin America and Africa.
• Importantly, the Bible, including the Catholic New Testament, has a complex and complicated origin and multiple textual, linguistic, and cultural sources. It is now well known by scholars that the Bible is no straightforward guidebook on many modern problems. Early Church history also is poorly documented, quite diverse and easily manipulated by selective sourcing and quotations.
• Indeed, millions of words have been written by modern biblical and church history scholars. Nevertheless, in recent years, there has frequently been greater rather than less uncertainty about some important aspects of Jesus’ reported words and deeds and about some of his “clear mandates”, than had sometimes been assumed as beyond question by earlier popes. “The Tradition is …”, is at times much more complicated than modern popes have sometimes suggested in their encyclicals and the Catechism.
• Modern popes, including Francis, in their key dogmatic and moral pronouncements and proclaimed pastoral policies and practices, rely on many assumptions, occasionally unstated ones, sometimes selectively derived from preferred “in house” Catholic scholarship on scripture, history and theology. There are several assumptions in essential areas that are less certain than at times presented by self interested Vatican officials and their opportunistic apologists.
• These assumptions are a major part of the foundation for the Vatican’s claims about the Church’s (A) origins and sources, including some key New Testament mandates, (B) structure, leadership and management, and (C) dogma and practice. On closer inspection, these assumptions are more doubtful than modern popes, including Pope Francis, have at times indicated and the propositions popes construct on these assumptions are often more uncertain than not.
• By acknowledging these uncertainties now, some “unchangeable” dogmas and practices at variance with the lived experiences and informed consciences of hundreds of millions of Catholics can, and will be, changed voluntarily or involuntarily by the Vatican, to conform truthfully and honestly to Catholics’ current knowledge of, and daily experience, with reality. These truthful acknowledgements are often, as well, an essential prerequisite for the Vatican to survive the crisis and challenges it must face to survive.
• The Vatican can no longer avoid addressing the current relentless questioning of some of its key assumptions, given the growth in the Catholic scholarship community beyond Vatican control, as well as the 24/7 media coverage and Internet revelations that at times undercut Vatican positions. And future papal pronouncements, without ample underlying independent scholarly support, are hardly going to influence many Catholics for long. The Vatican can no longer address modern day “Galileos” solely by placing them under house arrest.
• Acknowledging honestly the uncertainty of the Vatican’s assumptions is fundamentally important, and also provides additional reasons to hope that positive changes in Church structure and doctrines are likely in the near term. If, as Jesus reportedly said, the truth makes us free, it is  mandatory that the Church’s options for change henceforth be pursued based honestly on truthful assumptions, and not opportunistically on “selective truths”, as at times still occurs and has also occurred in the past.
• Pope Francis had as a young Jesuit provincial in Argentina direct experience with the outside government power of a military dictatorship. He understands well that the Vatican he inherited from the ex-Pope was and remains in several areas, especially priest child abuse, on a collision course with outside governments armed with a coercive rule of international law. Longtime Vatican players, that had been accustomed until recently to living in a Vatican bubble in an Italy run by a seemingly billionaire swinger, do not yet seem to understand, as Francis appears to, that the days of “The Holy Father says … ” are over. Francis appears to know that either the Vatican reforms itself now or it risks being forced soon to reform, with the chaos and divisions that forced reforms would likely entail.
• These assumptions, in varying degrees, have shaped much of the Catholic Church’s present. They will also influence significantly its future, no matter what Pope Francis decides to do. Understanding better these often unstated assumptions creates hopeful opportunities for adopting long overdue positive reforms by eliminating non-essential and questionable “certainties” that at times have been impediments to needed changes.
• The evidence is building that Francis window of opportunity to make essentially needed changes is closing. For example, TIME Magazine led last year’s “Francismania” outbreak by making Pope Francis “2013 Man of the Year”. Perhaps Francis had a little help from his top media adviser who had worked for TIME earlier. In any event, increasingly, many in the media are ending their “see no evil” honeymoon with Pope Francis, ranging from some at the Boston Globe, Reuters, CNN, Washington Post, the UK Tablet, the Christian Science Monitor, and perhaps even ZENIT!

• The Boston Globe’s editorial board has, in effect, called on Pope Francis to fire his new Vatican “top cop”, American Jesuit, Fr. Robert Geisinger, only recently assigned by Francis to police predatory priests. The Globe also indicated some skepticism about the “zero tolerance” claims of Francis’ new priest child abuse “czar”, Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley, and of Pope Francis.
• A Reuters’ editor has noted the Catholic hierarchy has in the main dealt badly with the priest child abuse mess.
• CNN has prominently featured a well respected UK human rights’ lawyer, who called for a massive UK child abuse investigation, like the one underway in Australia, and who observed that Pope Francis has yet to really begin seriously to investigate the abuse scandal.
• An experienced advocate in a Huffington Post column has called for a special child abuse investigation commission that engages all 28 member states of the European Union, including the Vatican. Meanwhile, a call has also been made by an Australian survivors’ advocate for a similar USA commission to be set up by President Obama.
• The Washington Post has in an “op ed” column by papal financial supporters described some parallels between the economic policies of the Koch brothers and Pope Francis.
• The UK Tablet has reported on an address, by a world class economist and expert on helping the poor, that criticizes the economics approach of Pope Francis for lifting the poor out of poverty.
• The Christian Science Monitor has reported on the failure of Pope Francis’ outreach to Turkey’s Muslim political leaders on the Middle East crises.
• ZENIT has reported on the Vatican press officer’s ineffective attempt to negate a report by a well connected UK author indicating that, in the days leading to Francis’ election,  Cardinals Murphy O’Connor of the UK, Walter Kasper and Karl Lehmann of Germany and Godfried Daneels of Belgium – “ first secured  Bergoglio’s {Pope Francis} assent” before his eventual election. It also indicates their work on campaigning for his election.
• The return of the Boston Globe, big time, to reporting and commenting on the Catholic Church’s abuse scandal is significant. The Globe’s earlier Pulitzer Prize winning reporting, of disgraced Boston Cardinal Law’s overseeing seemingly of a priest pedophile paradise, was the break in the secretive Catholic priest abuse dam. In its editorial (12/2/14), the Globe asked pointedly of Pope Francis: “Why put a priest who covered up sexual abuse in charge of policing it?” The Globe then added directly: “That’s exactly what Pope Francis did when he appointed the Rev. Robert J. Geisinger as the Vatican’s ‘promoter of justice.’ While the pope has met with abuse victims and pledged himself to zero tolerance, the appointment of Geisinger is a step backward. To signal his resolve on an issue that has deeply wounded so many, he should rescind the appointment.”
• The Globe continued: “The job calls for Geisinger, an American Jesuit, to prosecute priests accused of sexually abusing minors. Yet, according to a report by the Globe’s Michael Rezendes, Geisinger was one of several Catholic officials who let the Rev. Donald J. McGuire remain in the ministry for years, despite detailed knowledge of egregious sexual abuse complaints about him…. “.
• Finally, the Globe noted: “Geisinger was appointed “promoter of justice” in September, at the same time Boston Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley was named president of an anti-abuse advisory commission. During a recent “60 Minutes” interview, O’Malley said the pope is now committed to a “zero tolerance” policy when it comes to sexual abuse. If so, Geisinger is the wrong priest for the job. He should be replaced by someone who understands the meaning of “zero.”
• Please see the below links for the various media reports referred to above:
• http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2014/12/02/pope-vatican-watchdog-abuse-wrong-priest-for-job/s3dFDN4mjNggk85RkGZprM/story.html#
• http://blogs.reuters.com/john-lloyd/2014/10/23/pope-francis-and-his-season-of-struggle/n
• http://amanpour.blogs.cnn.com/2014/11/19/star-power-bewitches-those-vulnerable-to-abuse-says-human-rights-lawyer/
• http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/felicity-gerry/child-sex-abuse-inquiry_b_6245166.html?utm_hp_ref=uk
• http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2014/11/aletha-blayses-essay-on-child-abuse-war.html
• http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/pope-francis-the-kochs-and-how-the-wealthy-can-help-the-poor/2014/11/28/958fbac2-770a-11e4-a755-e32227229e7b_story.html
• http://ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/pope-and-koch-brothers
• http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/koch-brothers-pope-francis
• http://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/1442/0/economist-questions-francis-ideas-on-helping-the-poor
• http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2014/1130/Pope-Francis-fails-to-find-common-ground-in-Turkey-video
• http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/vatican-press-director-denies-papal-election-details-in-new-book?utm_campaign=dailyhtml&utm_medium=email&utm_source=dispatch
•  
• The media’s awakening from its “Francismania” slumber in not Pope Francis’ only challenge currently. The powerful waves, created especially by the Vatican’s widely publicized mistakes in dealing with the moral, if not criminal, failures of priests and bishops to protect children, are continuing to pound and put pressure on the Vatican to admit its errors in other areas as well. How could popes have been so wrong on protecting children? How can any pope’s judgment now be trusted, even in any other areas? Catholics and others are demanding answers to these crucial questions now. It is not enough for a pope to admit error, in effect, by quitting and hiding in a Vatican convent as the ex-Pope has done. Pope Francis must address the pressing questions openly and honestly now, while he still has some time left.
• Instead, Francis’ top adviser, the Cardinal from Honduras, which has its own serious situation with suffering children, has recently indicated Pope Francis has other priorities. Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, the coordinator of the “C9,” the committee helping Francis restructure Vatican offices, said that the reform of Vatican finances had been the Pope’s first priority. Now that the process is seriously underway, attention is turning to the reform of the Vatican government. What about the kids, Cardinal? Please see:
• http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/12/02/Pope-to-Shrink-Papal-Cabinet-Fewer-Cardinals-in-Rome
• Francis is running out of time to make needed changes as he and his C9 temporize by rearranging the curial deck chairs on the sinking Vatican Titanic. Interestingly, only one pope, Pius XII, has expressly claimed to speak infallibly since a desperate Pope Pius IX seemingly invented “papal infallibility” less than 150 years ago. The last two popes tried slickly to apply a “creeping infallibility” to many issues, such as ordaining women priests and blessing homosexual relationships. Significantly, Pope Francis in recent remarks about Pius XII said: “I am not saying he did not make mistakes. He made a few. I get things wrong often too”. At last we have in Francis a pope who admits popes are fallible, at least on some matters. But what exactly will Francis actually do to correct these mistakes? So far, Pope Francis’ words far outstrip his deeds here, no?
• Perhaps Pope Francis has been paying attention to the recent pointed and relevant remarks of world renowned Catholic moralist, Fr. Charles Curran. Ex-Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II had failed to intimidate or silence Curran over a quarter of a century ago. Curran recently, in an interview, “Papacy Should Admit Some of its Teachings Are Wrong”, in effect, called on Pope Francis to admit squarely that popes have been wrong. Please see:
• http://ncronline.org/news/accountability/some-kind-gradualism-curran-says-papacy-should-admit-some-its-teachings-are
• In this important interview, Curran  indicated: ” … I think it is necessary for the papacy to admit that some of its present teachings on sexuality are wrong. But that is going to be a very difficult task to do. When Paul VI came out with his encyclical Humanae Vitae, condemning artificial contraception, he recognized there were some significant arguments in favor of accepting contraception, but he could not accept them because they went against the traditional authoritative teaching of the church.”
• Curran added: “Without doubt, it will be very difficult for papal teaching to admit that its teaching in the past has been wrong. Catholics believe that the papal office is guided by the Holy Spirit. Could the Spirit ever allow the papal teaching to be wrong? On the other hand, history has shown that such teachings have been wrong. Perhaps the problem has been that the papacy has claimed too much certitude for its own teaching. …”
• Curran also noted in pertinent part: “The problem with the Catholic approach is …. {o}ne can never see the power or faculty of sexuality apart from the human person and the human person apart from one’s relationship to other persons. Thus, for example, for the good of the person or the good of the marriage, one could and should at times interfere with the procreative purpose of the sexual faculty. In the same manner then, one could justify homosexual relations and unions on the basis of what is good for the human person and the human person’s relationships.”
• Curran added: “It is interesting that in other areas, the papal teaching has accepted the criterion of the human person and given more importance to it. Thus, for example, Pope Leo XIII condemned all the modern freedoms, but the Second Vatican Council accepted religious freedom. The decree on religious liberty of Vatican II … says that contemporary human beings are becoming increasingly conscious of the dignity of the human person and demanding that human beings should exercise fully their own judgment and responsible freedom, not subject to the pressure of coercion, but inspired by a sense of duty…  Thus, this document accepts the criterion of the dignity of the human person. If one were to accept the moral criterion of the good of the person and the person’s relationships, one would come to a very different approach to sexuality than that found in papal documents at the present time.”
• Pope Francis’ candid remarks about Pius XII’s mistakes were part of Pope Francis’ weak effort to rationalize, to an Israeli reporter in an interview, the Vatican’s continuing and unjustifiable failure to release fully Pius XII’s important records over a half century after his death. Please see: http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/vatican-to-reveal-truth-about-hitler-s-pope-1-36207710
• Pope Francis evasiveness about releasing Pius XII’s records is especially significant in light of a recent scholarly book, “The Pope and Mussolini” by David I. Kertzer, a Brown University scholar (see at:   http://amzn.com/0812993462 ). Kertzer makes clear, from other recently released earlier papal and other records, the shameful acceptance, if not support, of both Popes Pius XII and Pius XI of Mussolini’s disgraceful efforts to mimic some of Hitler’s anti-Semitic policies.
• Kertzer also helps in this excellent book to explain the context for Pius XI’s shameful secrecy order in 1922 prohibiting disclosure of confessional child abuse by priests. Kertzer’s book also gives some helpful context for Pius XI’s disastrous 1930 ban on contraception, apparently issued mainly out of Pius XI’s seemingly obsessive fear of the rising population pressure on Western Europe from Stalin’s atheistic Soviet communism. Pius XI had personally witnessed a decade earlier in Poland how the Soviets were trying to destroy the Catholic Church there.. Pius XI and Pius XII appeared to conclude that they could do business with the likes of Mussolini and Hitler, but not Stalin, who seemed to hate priests, especially Catholic ones.
• Of course, to his permanent discredit, Pope John XXIII in 1962 doubled down on Pius XI’s confessional secrecy order, likely to keep consideration of  the priest sex abuse scandal away from public discussion by the 2,500+ bishops soon to arrive to begin the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).
• Of course, Pope Francis will likely also be concerned, as his last two recent predecessors were, to preserve his claim to personal infallibility and to its associated symbolic power. Professor John F. Pollard, a leading Cambridge University authority on the modern papacy, has recently noted: “{I}nfallibility gave the Roman pontiffs an enormous moral and spiritual authority over the worldwide Church and created the basis for the practice of increasingly frequent papal pronouncements on a wide variety of subjects of significance to the laity”.
• Yes, papal infallibility is about power, plain and simple.
•  Please see Pollard’s extensive and important new history of a critical period for the modern papacy, to be released later this month, entitled, “The Papacy in the Age of Totalitarianism (1914-1958)” at:   http://amzn.com/0199208565
• This papal authority over the laity and others is rapidly diminishing. Pope Francis likely realized this again after his recent failed effort to engage Turkey’s top leaders to buy into Francis’ approach to the Middle East crisis, see:
• http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2014/1130/Pope-Francis-fails-to-find-common-ground-in-Turkey-video
• The waves, as indicated, of public indignation against the Vatican’s mistakes and cover-ups of scandals are still rising and pounding even more. Pope Francis, a modern media master, has mostly garnered public adulation for almost two years. That may be changing, for example, with an important new Hollywood film, “Spotlight”, about the Boston Globe’s massive investigation of the Catholic Church’s child abuse scandal. The Boston Globe’s award winning efforts to investigate clerical child abuse had led to the current critical juncture in the Catholic Church’s, and even in world religious, history.
• The Globe began documenting extensive child sexual abuse by Catholic priests and the related cover-up by Catholic bishops, especially Cardinal Bernard Law, in January 2002. Law and Pope Francis have an extended history, including serving together on a standing papal commission on the family after Law fled Boston.
• Since 2002, this abuse story has sadly exploded, first in Boston, then nationally and now in many countries around the world. The escalating disclosures continue, and have shaken the very foundation of the Catholic Church, even leading last year to the first papal resignation in 600 years.
• As Pope Francis struggles to contain this explosion through secretive Vatican proceedings, Francis is currently facing, as discussed below, an ongoing and thorough governmental investigation in Australia and will likely soon face a similar investigation in the UK. Now Hollywood will soon amplify and likely exacerbate Pope Francis’ child abuse scandal woes.
• In September, a cast of Hollywood stars, including Film Critics’ Best Actor award winner Michael Keaton (who reportedly was raised in Pennsylvania as an Irish American Catholic), Liev Schreiber,Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, and Stanley Tucci, began shooting the movie titled “Spotlight,’’ about the Globe’s earlier Pulitzer Prize winning investigation of Boston Cardinal Law’s massive priest child abuse cover-up. Keaton, famous for his Batman role, had been raised in Pennsylvania, a state with a reportedly high incidence of priest child abuse of children. Will Batman tame the Catholic hierarchy?
• The film is scheduled for release late next year. See here: https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/2014/11/29/spotlightfilm-intro/d8Tp3MQ4Y0OQA3JZgABkeO/story.html
• As the world will soon be celebrating Martin Luther’s 500th reformation anniversary, perhaps it may also see by then an Academy Award for Best Picture for “Spotlight”, and savor the modern reformation it will likely help foster. “All the President’s Men” got that award for its story about the Watergate cover-up scandal involving US President Nixon. The Vatican’s “cover-up plot” in Boston is more riveting and historically consequential, it seems, so who knows? 
• “Spotlight’s” scheduled release timing seems just right. Pope Francis will be finished with his US tour and his Final Vatican Synod by the end of next year, as he then begins his 80th year in December. He will have to decide “infallibly” in 2016 if he is serious, or just delirious like recent popes, about effecting real reforms.
• All this is a prelude to the 2016 US presidential elections, which likely will have major implications for the Vatican’s continuing efforts to “back burner” the abuse scandal. This will be especially so, given the international UN, and national Australian and UK, scandal investigative pressures, discussed below, that will likely heat up to the boiling point by the time the movie is released. A US national investigation will not likely be far behind. “Spotlight” will surely add to that pressure for a US national investigation.
• Pope Francis goes back a long way with Cardinal Law, including having served together on a Vatican Commission on the Family after Law fled Boston. Law may know a lot about families, especially shattered ones. Hopefully, Pope Francis is not still getting advice from Law, but who knows? Francis’ present key Vatican canon lawyer on abuse matters, Fr. Robert Oliver, had reportedly been working for Law in Boston when the Globe was initially reporting on the scandal. Coincidence? Please!! Perhaps Fr. Oliver can play himself in Spotlight!
• I personally still have some fond memories of the Boston Catholic Church (St. Paul’s in Cambridge) from 50 years ago when I attended Harvard Law School, where I had the good fortune to have worked as a law student for Archibald Cox, later the Watergate prosecutor. Of course, the Globe expose was almost four decades later, so who knew then what was really happening behind rectory doors?
• The Vatican has run out of diversions to distract and places to hide, thanks considerably to the aftermath of Globe’s remarkable efforts, including its recent fine investigative report on Pope Francis’ new Vatican “top cop”, Jesuit Fr, Robert Geisinger. For Geisinger’s troubling prior record on seemingly facilitating a notorious Jesuit abuser , please see the discussion below. A dozen years later and the Vatican and its current Boston showpiece, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, seem still to be lip-synching “zero tolerance”, and not much more.
• “Spotlight” appears likely to cause even more grief for the Vatican than the earlier documentaries on the Vatican’s internal sex and other scandals (PBS/Frontline) and the abuse of over 200 deaf boys by a Milwaukee priest (HBO). Please see: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/secrets-of-the-vatican/
• http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/mea-maxima-culpa/video/mea-maxima-culpa-promo.html#/

Hollywood is not Pope Francis’ only current challenge on the child abuse scandal. On Tuesday (11/25), Pope Francis rebuked legislators in an address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg as follows: “As the European Union has expanded, there has been growing mistrust on the part of citizens towards institutions considered to be aloof, engaged in laying down rules perceived as insensitive to individual peoples, if not downright harmful …” Ironically, his remarks reminded some of criticisms of the Vatican.

And Francis’ negative allusion in his address, to Europe as an old grandmother, did not go over well with some women who are keeping score on Pope Francis’ unsatisfactory approach so far to women. Please see:

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/blogs/1/508/what-is-francis-problem-with-grandmothers-

On the papal return flight from France, Francis responded as follows to a reporter’s question about a newly reported ongoing priest abuse scandal in Grenada, Spain:

“I received this news with great pain, very great pain, but the truth is the truth and we should not hide it.”

But, of course, unless Pope Francis is committed to an independent and transparent abuse investigation process, which he does not appear to be yet, he and his Vatican staff are, in effect, “hiding it”, at least in some respects, no?

Three days after the pope’s nice sounding “no hiding” remark, in a report issued in Geneva on Friday (11/28), the United Nations Committee Against Torture reportedly directed that the Australian national government under Prime Minister Tony Abbott should take on the Vatican over documents, requested by the Australian Royal Commission into institutional child abuse, that the Vatican has refused to produce.

The documents relate to, among other matters, the cases of several priests who allegedly abused over 100 Australian children. The UN Committee, acting under the so-called Torture Treaty that both the Vatican and Australia have agreed to follow, indicated that the Australian government should take “all appropriate measures” to get “all evidence” from the Vatican to ensure meaningful investigations can be carried out.

Australian Cardinal George Pell, who was called to Rome and promoted in February to be Pope Francis’ economic czar,  had earlier told the Royal Commission that such a document production request was unreasonable because some documents are private and internal to a sovereign state – the Vatican. The Vatican’s local ambassador to Australia, UK Archbishop Paul Gallagher, had then refused to produce these documents when requested to do so by the Royal Commission. Gallagher was called to Rome also and was promoted earlier this month to be the Vatican’s new foreign minister.

Pell and Gallagher, seemingly, may both now claim sovereign immunity status now as senior Vatican officials if Australia presses them..  Coincidental promotions? Perhaps. Surely, an odd way to fill the Catholic Church’s top financial and foreign affairs positions, no? Apparently, neither Pell nor Gallagher have heard about Pope Francis’ “no hiding” approach?

The international legal pressure on the Vatican over the priest child abuse scandal seems to be escalating rapidly. Last week (11/19), Geoffrey Robertson, QC, the world renowned no-nonsense Australian/UK international human rights lawyer, in a Christiane Amanpour CNN interview, boldly called for a massive UK national investigation, in effect,  of all sexual abusers, in both church and state institutions, like the extraordinary Royal Commission one currently underway in Australia. This call by a prominent international lawyer on a prime international cable network for a UK national investigation is a major event. His call, in principle, applies to the USA as well. Perhaps, more US lawyers also will now call on President Obama to act as well.

Both the UK and the USA have agreed to the Torture Treaty, as well.

Earlier in November, a delegation from the national government under Prime Minister Abbott  had indicated to the UN Committee that the Royal Commission was legally independent and it was up to it to pursue the Vatican. Abbott is an ex-Catholic seminarian, who is reportedly personally close to Pell and to Australian media magnate and seemingly strong Vatican ally, Rupert Murdoch.

However, the UN Committee reportedly has now responded that Australia “has the responsibility to ensure that all reports of breaches of the convention (the Torture Treaty} are promptly and impartially investigated”.

The UN Committee also indicated that it “remains concerned as to whether the outcome of its (the Royal Commission’s) work will result in criminal investigations, prosecutions and redress and compensation for victims”. It also urged Australia to ensure that the work of the Royal Ccommission supplemented criminal prosecutions and court proceedings and “is not a substitute for them”. . Please see:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/united-nations-says-the-abbott-government-should-push-vatican-on-child-sex-abuse/story-e6freuy9-1227138998923?nk=48aeda47aeddf866e4263f459d5e34e7

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2828462/British-archbishop-claimed-diplomatic-immunity-avoid-handing-documents-paedophile-investigators-promoted-highest-role-Vatican-Pope.html

Meanwhile, the Attorney General of the Dominican Republic has stepped up his efforts in the abuse case of Vatican diplomat, Archbishop Wesolowski. And the call for a broader and stronger UK investigation keep growing. Please see:

http://www.dominicantoday.com/dr/local/2014/11/28/53474/Top-prosecutor-off-to-Europe-in-Catholic-prelates-pedophilia-cases

http://theconversation.com/abuse-survivors-are-showing-theresa-mays-inquiry-the-way-34222

Meanwhile, many Catholics worldwide have now tempered with caution their earlier almost blind hope for Pope Francis. After 20 months with this cryptic pope, many Catholics are becoming less optimistic. They are beginning to doubt that Pope Francis will make a real difference, either in updating the Catholic Church’s teaching in light of new scholarship and data or in cleaning up the “holy mess”, especially the child abuse scandal.

Many Catholics realize Pope Francis’ papacy faces a unique challenge in the Vatican’s desperate struggle to survive as the last absolute monarchy in Europe no longer protected by other powerful rulers. Pope Francis faces both an unprecedented crisis and an unexpected opportunity as he tries to change a top down and unaccountable Church structure against resistance from its entrenched and self interested management. These managers’ power appears to be tied to their historically indefensible claim of being part of an  an “unchanging and unchangeable” institution. So almost any change presents some risks of undercutting these managers’ power. Ironically, as discussed below, they will likely lose even more power if they fail to change by sharing their power, sooner not later!

This crisis (A) erodes Catholics’ trust in light of the widely reported and longstanding gap between the Vatican’s words and deeds, (B) invites outside governmental intervention at a time when the Vatican lacks powerful international protectors like it had for centuries, and (C) underscores the urgent need for key changes in the Church’s unworkable top down structure and misinformed moral teachings. The crisis has also contributed, as indicated below, to one pope’s unanticipated resignation and to the replacement pope’s unpredictable revolution.

Significantly, the Catholic majority appears intuitively to understand that these risks generated by the present crisis, especially from rapidly escalating governmental pressures on the Vatican, have paradoxically also generated an unprecedented opportunity to restore the Church to an earlier condition — to a Church that Jesus’ first disciples would have recognized as completely consistent with Jesus’ Gospel message of love of God and of neighbors, even of enemies. This is an opportunity for a welcoming Church again that satisfies the needs of both conservative and progressive Catholics.

Before his 80th birthday in barely two years, Pope Francis can successfully seize the opportunity, follow his conscience and apply his unique status, forceful temperament and popular appeal. Most importantly, he can declare “infallibly” key changes. By then, he will have received new input from his two advisory Synods of Bishops. He has already been enlightened by his valuable almost two years of  experience as pope. He now also is unhampered by his prior pastoral positions and unfettered by his earlier ideological constraints as an obedient cardinal, bishop and Jesuit.

If Pope Francis fails to act effectively soon, the consequences will likely be quite negative for the leadership of the Catholic Church. Some senior Church officials are increasingly facing risks of governmental, even criminal, investigations that the Vatican currently lacks the political power to  prevent.

Pope Francis can accomplish much if he wants to and finds the wisdom and courage to do so. Equally important, it seems unlikely any of his successors will get a more propitious opportunity in the foreseeable future to adopt long overdue changes. It may be now or never for Pope Francis and the Vatican.

At a minimum, Pope Francis could change Canon Law almost instantly if he chooses to do so. For a recent “inside” view on the current “mess” on holding bishop accountable under the current Canon Law Code by a former Minneapolis’ Archdiocesean Chancellor, whistle blower Jennifer Haselberger, please see her insightful “Judging and Firing Bishops” at :

http://canonicalconsultation.com/blog.html

Any needed changes that Pope Francis leaves uncompleted, whether by choice or circumstances, Catholics can then push to complete soon thereafter, with or without Vatican support. Catholics can really be expected to do so, given the current Catholic majority’s momentum for change and mounting democratic governmental pressures. The Catholic majority can expect help in effecting these changes from powerful forces, outside the Church structure, that are now pressing harder for key Vatican changes, like greater accountability and transparency.

The Catholic Church is in the throes of its worst crisis since the Reformation. Vatican leaders in the 16th Century, aided by powerful outside military protectors, had mainly evaded making overdue structural changes, and their successors also managed with outside protection to avoid such changes mostly during the four centuries since.

Nevertheless, changes to the Catholic Church’s misinformed moral teachings and unworkable top down structure are badly needed now. Importantly, the Vatican no longer has any dominant outside national protectors like emperors or dictators willing to help it avoid the changes.

The changes cannot be deferred much longer if the Vatican wants to avoid both (1) further Catholic Church membership decline, accompanied by splintering into competing factions, and (2) constant interference  and unrelenting pressure from outside governments, like Australia’s Royal Commission.

Pope Francis’ confident and bold approach, and the Vatican’s evident need to avoid further negative repercussions from the current crisis, are both generating some hope now, as well as creating what appears to be the best opportunity since the Reformation for the worldwide Catholic majority to press the Vatican successfully for key overdue changes.

There are now hopeful indications (A) that the Catholic Church may restore some of its management structure to its earliest consensual, bottom up and distributed form, from its current coercive, top down and hierarchical form, and (B) that some questionable traditional Church teachings may change to fit mercifully the actual lived experience of sincere Catholics and to conform honestly to current biblical, historical and scientific scholarship, all with or without the Vatican’s affirmative assistance.

The scandals underlying the crisis have deeply discouraged millions of concerned Catholics, yet many of them now also see a new ray of hope. This hope springs less from Pope Francis’ skillful public relations efforts than from the likelihood that the present crisis will necessarily help accelerate Church changes. Moreover, some of these changes are ones that the usually silent Catholic majority can and likely will play a key role in bringing about. This would be a refreshing change in itself for the Catholic majority, a change from only being able to react passively to misguided and even misinformed top down Vatican decisions dictated by a celibate, aging, conflicted and self perpetuating all male leadership.

It appears likely now that the Pope Francis will soon make, or be induced by outside pressures to make, major structural, teaching and other changes — changes that the Vatican had been able to resist making for centuries under earlier better positioned popes. Powerful governmental, legal and media forces are now pressing from the outside for changes, whether the presently permanently weakened Vatican wants changes or not.

While Pope Francis mostly can only play the bad cards that ex-Pope Benedict dealt him, he can use both his powerful papal authority over bishops and the Catholic majority and this mounting outside governmental pressure, enhanced by the power of his personal popularity and his strong will, to help convince his entrenched Vatican opposition that voluntary Church changes are more in their interest than the otherwise inevitable involuntary changes could be expected to be.

Paradoxically, these anticipated changes can also help restore the Catholic Church to one that is much closer, in essential structure and compassionate spirit, than the current Church is to the Church that Jesus’ earliest disciples, including prominently some women, left behind for over three centuries.

The tempering of enthusiasm currently about Pope Francis stems from his lack of concrete progress on key scandals, especially the scandal of priests who abuse children and bishops who with impunity protect these predatory priests. This decline of enthusiasm will only increase as long as Pope Francis fails to address this scandal effectively and transparently, while more in the media shed their Francis’ blinders.

In assessing Francis’ disappointing record on addressing the child abuse scandal, parents should consider carefully the following horrible hypothetical scenario. Your find out that your child has been raped by a government employee in the course of his work activities. You call the employee’s boss, say, UK Prime Minister Cameron or USA President Obama and tell him this. He tells you he is unhappy to hear that and for you to report it to his senior staff. He does NOT tell you to report this alleged crime to, or to cooperate with, appropriate law enforcement who are trained to deal with such allegations, independently and transparently.

In modern constitutional democracies worldwide, for over a century now, even top leaders generally are subject to the independent rule of law. So this scenario, that lacked even the semblance of an independent investigation and effective accountability, is very unlikely to occur. Indeed, right now the UK’s Cameron faces a crisis over finding an independent and transparent investigator of government employees’ alleged sex abuse of children. And even President Obama is facing threats of public impeachment proceedings over some of his executive actions. The few accountability exceptions among world leaders today include popes. It seems that popes purport to be above any oversight, even though their powerful European imperial protectors, with their earlier limited oversight of popes, have been gone for a century now.

A similar scenario, to the above hypothetical one, recently happened according to Pope Francis. He indicated with his Jesuit press agent, Fr. Lombardi, to a group of reporters on the papal plane on Tuesday (11/25) that Francis told an abuse survivor he had called in Grenada, Spain to tell his bishop about the alleged crimes against the survivor. Three alleged Grenada priest perpetrators had been arrested the day before by Spanish police, so a Spanish reporter asked him about this in the plane press conference. Apparently, Francis omitted telling the abuse victim to contact, and to cooperate with, Spanish police. Interestingly, Lombardi had less than 48 hours earlier tried to spin past other reporters’ troubling related questions about the Vatican’s new “top cop”, Jesuit Fr. Robert Geisinger, who would likely review these allegations.

Of course, the local Spanish bishop under the Vatican’s current procedures is, in effect, subject to two Francis’ staffers, Fr. Geisinger, and Fr. Robert Oliver. Fr. Oliver had earlier been infamous Boston Cardinal Law’s canon lawyer. These two Americans reportedly have questionable records on diligently assisting past, and protecting potential, priest abuse survivors, especially when the interests of protecting accused priest predators are also involved.

Pope Francis and Lombardi obviously cannot hide from what the media is already reporting, but the real test is whether these new Grenada allegations will be pursued by independent prosecutors who transparently follow effective modern criminal procedures. Too often popes have failed to follow this essential approach and Francis’ recent key Vatican appointments suggest little has really changed.

Please see:

http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2014/11/26/pope-francis-says-orders-investigation-into-clergy-sexual-abuse-in-spain/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2846700/Theresa-warns-worse-come-Westminster-child-abuse-claims.htm

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/11/22/vatican-new-top-prosecutor-abusive-priests-implicated-past-failure-stop-notorious-abuser-donald-mcguire/gPaBPJUdvuTy5PSTl1j5sM/story.html

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/sex-abuse-different-pope-same-strategy/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/11/24/the-vaticans-new-sex-abuse-prosecutor-previously-failed-to-report-abusive-u-s-priest/

And now former US President Carter, long a human rights’ advocate, has called on Catholics to push for real Church changes, while renowned UK international human rights’ lawyer, Geoffrey Robertson, QC, has on CNN boldly called for the UK to set up a comprehensive national sex abuse investigation commission like Australia has already done. Will the UK do so? Very likely, in my view. Will the USA follow? Time will soon tell, but likely in my view.

These modern constitutional oversight provisions developed in response to centuries of lawless behavior from unaccountable absolute monarchs, which sometimes included popes. So far, however, popes have successfully evaded constitutional oversight. It is unlikely that popes will be able to evade these constitutional controls much longer. The Vatican’s financial misdeeds are now already being subjected to the compulsory rules of international law and its pervasively reported facilitation of priest child abusers will likely soon be as well.

And why should popes continue to be exempt from the rule of law? Surely any honest review of reliably reported earlier and recent papal misdeeds makes clear that popes can be as prone to evil as some of the worst of other world leaders, no?

Pope Francis said on Tuesday he had personally ordered an investigation into a case of sexual abuse of a minor by priests in Spain because he felt the church should not hide the truth. Significantly, a recent new report indicates Pope Francis may have been contacted by the alleged abuse survivor a half year ago. For Francis to address publicly this serious new scandal six months later in response to a reporter’s direct question is hardly prompt disclosure of the truth, no?

Three Spanish Catholic priests and a lay person were arrested in Granada on Monday. The case emerged after a man wrote to the pope, reportedly a half year ago, telling him of how he had been molested when he was an altar boy.

“I read it. I called the person and I told him ‘go to the bishop tomorrow’ and then I wrote to the bishop and told him to start an investigation,” Francis said in response to a question by a Spanish reporter on his plane from Strasbourg, France, where he had addressed the European Parliament.

“I received this news with great pain, very great pain, but the truth is the truth and we should not hide it.” But unless the pope is committed to an independent and transparent investigation process, which he does not appear to be yet, he and his staff are, in effect, hiding it in some respects, no?

Pope Francis has promised a policy of zero tolerance for sexual abuse of minors by clerics, after church scandals in many countries over many years, but many say he has not done enough. His latest reported actions on the Grenada scandal are especially troubling, as Francis publicly reports under questioning that his approach was evidently to keep the alleged abuse claims under his bishop’s wraps. Francis missed a big opportunity, it seems, to have told the alleged abuse survivor to contact police authorities. If Francis did tell him that, it seems odd this has not been disclosed by Francis.

Francis’ approach here seems to be quite similar to what many other bishops, including Bishop Robert Finn have for so long been denounced for doing, with no effective response from the Vatican so far. And now this.

Interestingly, with respect to Finn, the prominent US Jesuit journalist, Tom Reese, has recently reported: ” Bishops who lose the support of their brother bishops … are in trouble. One observer noticed that during the breaks at this month’s USCCB {US Bishops’ semi-annual} meeting in Baltimore, Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City, Mo., was standing alone while other bishops were in clusters talking. Finn was convicted of not reporting to the police a priest who had child pornography on his computer. “

Of course, Pope Francis is planning to visit the US in a matter of months and needs to deal with Finn before then. That now seems to signal to US bishops that their boss, Francis, is closing in on Finn, so it is now permissible to shun Finn. What hypocrisy!

It does not appear, however, that Finn’s actual cover-up differed much from cover-up misdeeds that have been reported about many bishops worldwide, including in Argentina, or even differs much from Pope Francis’ current seemingly secretive approach to alleged priest abusers. The difference, of course,  is the specific and uncommon local reporting law applicable to Finn, which hardly morally excuses other clerics who are not subject to that local law.

And predictably, the reporters on the papal plane failed to follow up on the pope’s response about the Grenada scandal, it appears, with the obvious questions here that they should have asked Pope Francis. These questions likely would have been asked of other national leaders in similar circumstances. Why the different media standard for popes? Vatican reporters seemingly are more interested in preserving their seats on the pope’s plane on future trips by pulling their punches, no?

As far as we know, Jesus said clearly he wanted children to be protected and, in major matters, Jesus obeyed Roman laws. It is thus both pro-Jesus and pro-children for Pope Francis and his subordinates to be held accountable under legitimate and reasonable laws intended to protect children, no? It is neither anti-Catholic nor anti-papist to demand that. Hopefully, more reporters will understand that over time and begin to apply to Pope Francis the same reporting standards as are applied to other leaders .

Meanwhile, the controversy over Pope Francis’ anti-child abuse team remains on-going. “It’s astonishing …”, was the reaction of well respected Philip F. Lawler,  a top conservative Catholic journalist, formerly the Director of Studies at the US right wing Heritage Foundation, to Pope Francis’ recent appointment of Chicago Jesuit, Robert Geisinger, as the Vatican’s new “top cop” on child abuse crimes.

The Boston Globe, which over a decade ago won a Pulitzer Prize for thoroughly exposing Cardinal Law’s seeming oversight of a priest pedophile paradise in Boston, has now reported (11/23):  “It’s astonishing that, for such a high-profile, sensitive position, the Vatican wouldn’t want someone whose background is unassailable, in the sense that there shouldn’t even be questions raised,” that Lawler, the editor of Catholic World News, candidly said of Geisinger.

Pressures beyond Vatican control, as I discuss in detail below, can be expected soon to compel much more severe changes if Francis fails to act now effectively and transparently both to curtail child abuse and to make the hierarchy, including himself,  accountable to independent Catholic oversight.

This governmental pressure has already begun to be applied with respect to Vatican finances, as a result of the continuing European investigations of multiple misdeeds involving both the Vatican Bank and the Vatican’s own significant portfolio assets, as well as with respect to the investigation of the child abuse scandal by the remarkable Australian Royal Commission thoroughly investigating child abuse in organizations, including the Catholic Church.

Prospects worldwide for criminal prosecutions of Catholic Church officials have seemingly caused the Vatican to focus on overdue reforms in ways that earlier financial penalties and even shameful publicity had rarely done, but have Pope Francis and his advisers yet gotten enough of the message? One must be skeptical here.

The UK child abuse cover-up crisis, in particular, is reaching a boiling point, as the UK Home Secretary, Theresa May, has recently indicated that the “star power” child abuse scandal and cover-up are still ongoing and that the horrific public revelations to date are only the “tip of the iceberg”. Please see her visible angst in the video in the Daily Mail link about her above.

The Vatican and its protected UK prelates will likely all get scalded when the UK pot boils over, no?

Moreover, relating to the  Lawler reaction, the Boston Globe news team has recently reported, based on legal documents the Globe examined, that Pope Francis’ choice to replace Fr. Robert Oliver as the Vatican’s top prosecutor of clerics accused of child abuse, a prominent American Jesuit, was himself one of several Catholic officials who allowed a notorious abusive priest to remain in ministry for years after learning of his long history of sexual abuses.

Fr. Geisinger, named in September as the Vatican’s “promoter of justice,’’ was the second-highest-ranking official among the Chicago Jesuits in the 1990s when leaders were facing multiple abuse complaints against Jesuit Donald J. McGuire.

Of course, Francis’ key US Jesuit appointment here also must be considered in the context of the US Jesuits’ western US province’s $166 million settlement in 2011 of child abuse claims against other US Jesuits, described at the time as “the largest settlement between a religious order and abuse victims in the history of the United States.”

Many of Francis’ US Jesuits must be a disappointment to him as a former Jesuit provincial earlier in Argentina. But why didn’t Francis see this criticism coming of his US Jesuit appointment of someone with such troublesome baggage? Is Pope Francis getting good advice? One must wonder if he is getting any advice here.

And, as the Globe further reported, the Chicago Jesuits failed to notify police or take effective steps to prevent McGuire from continuing to molest minors. 

Documents examined by the Globe reportedly show that Geisinger had detailed knowledge of the complaints against McGuire as early as 1995, and advised officials in Chicago on how to discipline McGuire as late as August 2002. McGuire was finally convicted in 2006 by a Wisconsin jury of molesting two boys who had notified civil authorities. He was also convicted on federal charges in 2008 and is serving a 25-year-prison sentence.

Yes, it is astonishing that this Chicago Jesuit, with questionable credentials, has joined Fr. Robert Oliver, who apparently early learned how to handle abusive priests as Cardinal Law’s former canon lawyer, as Pope Francis’ main two man Vatican priest/bishop child abuse response team. Could Francis not have found, among the world’s 400,000+ priests, two competent priests with “cleaner hands”? It would almost seem more appropriate that Fr. Geisinger and Fr. Oliver be subjects of independent Vatican investigations, rather than to be the Vatican’s purported independent investigators, no?

After a year and a half as pope, is this the best Pope Francis can do to curtail the worst scandal facing the Catholic Church since the Reformation?  The current papal approach seems almost impossible to conceive, yet it is happening, as Pope Francis’ meager efforts after 20 months to curtail child abuse suggest a real “papal blind spot”. Pope Francis needs to address this scandal effectively now, while he still has time. He can do better and he must, very soon!

Predictably, Pope Francis’ new “papal protector of children”,  Cardinal Sean O’Malley, when contacted by the Globe, declined to answer questions about Geisinger’s failure, along with his Jesuit colleagues, to report McGuire to civil authorities.

Cardinal O’Malley had been featured recently on the USA’s CBS’s 60 Minutes’ mostly “photo op” look at the  the Vatican’s  “go slow” approach to curtailing priest child abuse and making complicit bishops accountable.

Please see the recent detailed, and documented, information, from Anne Barrett Doyle, the excellent researcher at BishopAccountabillity.org, on Cardinal O’Malley’s poor history on child abuse prevention efforts, described in her “Six Ways Cardinal Sean O’Malley Has Mishandled the Abuse Crisis” at:

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/OMalley_Fact_Sheet.htm

To date, after a well publicized announcement almost a year ago, O’Malley has mainly had only a few photo ops with Pope Francis and some perfunctory meetings of his inchoate priest child abuse commission, usually timed to deflect negative publicity from UN committee condemnations of the Vatican’s priest child abuse cover-ups and the like.

Now in his CBS interview, O’Malley has indicated he will visit the Vatican every two months apparently to check in for the latest photo ops, presumably when he attends the more important Council of Cardinals meetings. It appears the abuse commission will be run by Fr. Robert Oliver, who as mentioned learned the ropes early as a canon lawyer under Boston’s  infamous Cardinal Law. It seems O’Malley will in the interim communicate with Oliver by FAX ! Are children any safer now? Please!

A year after first announcing this advisory commission, O’Malley amazingly stated on 60 Minutes that the go-slow commission was working on some “protocols”, which his subsequent statements seem to suggest will focus more on protecting bishops than children. And CBS did not press him on the commission’s inexplicable and unacceptable organizational delays. It appears to be another instance of a media “pass” for the Vatican’s conflicted approach to holding clerics accountable for harming defenseless children.

It seems quite clear that Pope Francis is intentionally pursuing effective child protection reform measures very slowly, at best,  and almost secretly with this new advisory committee (A) headed by Cardinal Law’s successor, Cardinal O’Malley, who is well experienced with “handling” abuse investigations secretively and slowly, and (B) aided now, as top staffer, by Fr. Robert Oliver, who has been successively Cardinals Law’s, O’Malley’s  and Mueller’s predictable and seemingly pliable longtime canon lawyer. Fr. Geisenger now is serving now as the Vatican’s “top cop”, succeeding Fr. Oliver in that position. Priests presumably will like this “priest friendly” lineup more than innocent children and their parents will, I suspect.

CNN is a prime example. It appears, in effect, still to be giving Pope Francis and UK clerics a continuing pass on Vatican controlled secretive investigations, while pressing for an independent and transparent UK investigation of sex abuse allegations involving UK political leaders and celebrities.

A double standard, no? Do UK politicians’ opposition parties have more media clout than Pope Francis’ disorganized opposition that evidently is too often overwhelmed by Pope Francis’  media machine and his seeming support from opportunistic multi-billionaire media magnates in the UK/Australia/USA/Latin America and elsewhere? It appears so.

Pope Francis is clearly running out of time, as he seemingly is only going through some public relations motions on curtailing priest sex abuse. He must now either act decisively and transparently or he can expect to face more governmental investigations that he will most likely be unable to control. He no longer enjoys the support of major international powers that have protected the Vatican for centuries.

I discuss in detail Pope Francis’ dire overall predicament in my recent analysis also included below under “The Crisis Pope Francis Faces” . My analysis relies heavily on my study of the work of Fr. Hans Kung. He is a leading world authority on Catholic theology,  history and interreligious dialogue, a former mentor to Cardinal Walter Kasper (Pope Francis’ preferred theologian), and an occasional confidante to world leaders, including the former longtime UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair. Fr. Kung has over a five year period generously given me by constant example and occasional e-mail some encouragement, including with respect to my recent  analysis. Of course, I am an international lawyer, not a professional scholar, and Fr. Kung is not responsible for my judgments.

I have also benefited from the courageous work of Fr. Charles Curran, a worldwide authority on moral theology. Fr. Curran, like Hans Kung, also felt the Vatican’s inquisitorial whip for thinking freely and openly. Fr. Curran significantly has just boldly called on Pope Francis to admit that the Vatican has made mistakes in the area of its sexual morality teachings.

Who present the bigger threat to those vulnerable to sex abusers — a limited number of celebrities and politicians or an indeterminate number of potential predators from among 4,000+ bishops and 400,000+ priests. Catholic clerics mainly are unaccountable to any independent and transparent oversight. They also have literally unlimited access to vulnerable victims. And, sadly, they have already shown a disproportionate tendency to abuse, no? Why the disparate journalistic treatment? It makes no sense.

As mentioned above, Geoffrey Robertson, QC, the world renowned no-nonsense UK/Australian international human rights lawyer, unexpectedly in a  recent Christiane Amanpour CNN interview, seriously undercut CNN’s seemingly  papal “star power” exception. Robertson boldly, in effect, called for a massive UK national investigation of all sexual abusers, in both church and state institutions, like the extraordinary one currently underway in Australia. This call by a prominent international lawyer on a prime international cable network for a UK national investigation is a major event. His call, in principle, applies to the USA as well. Perhaps, more US lawyers also will now call on President Obama to act as well.

Another bold Australian human rights advocate, Aletha Blayse, had already similarly called on President Obama to do likewise with a comparable national investigation commission in the US modeled on the Australian Royal Commission. The need for a US national investigation commission appears even greater than the UK’s need.

Indeed, even former US President Jimmy Carter is getting on the expanding bandwagon. As reported by the National Catholic Reporter, he recently addressed by video, the Call To Action at a large convention of Catholic seeking change. Carter, a prominent evangelical Christian, in surprisingly direct and prophetic words, told the Catholic attendees that they faced “a church that models our society in marginalizing many of its women, its people of color and, in fact, all those who question any interpretation by male leaders of Jesus’ mission.” Carter added: “I urge you to give witness to the possibilities that society will change. You are agents of that change. And I stand with you in the valued struggle to move our faith, our country and our planet forward … “.  Does Carter have President Obama’s ear on these matters? He may.

As to evident journalistic double standards, CNN in an important segment on sexual abuse looked at  the fundamental subject of equal justice under the law, in the context of a “Tale of Two Cities” — Rome/Vatican versus London/Philadelphia, as shown here:

http://amanpour.blogs.cnn.com/2014/11/19/star-power-bewitches-those-vulnerable-to-abuse-says-human-rights-lawyer/

CNN’s segment involves implicitly two interrelated questions: (1) whether alleged sex abusers should receive special treatment if they are famous and powerful, and (2) should the independence of the related criminal investigation vary if it is conducted in Rome at the Vatican as opposed to places like London or Philadelphia?  CNN, in effect, answered “No” to the first question, yet made an exception for Pope Francis’ investigation of accused clerical sex abusers,  and skipped past the second question, which, of course, should have also been asked squarely and answered “No”.

Occasioned by unfolding multiple sex abuse allegations involving several  political leaders, celebrities and Catholic clerics, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour  raised the hot topic of “star power” — whether the famous and powerful were beyond independent investigation and above  laws that cover sexual abuse that apply to everyday people.

Amanpour referred to the escalating tsunami of allegations of sex abuse  involving men ranging from celebrities like TV’s most famous “father figure”, Bill Cosby,  to UK political leaders and celebrities and to worldwide Catholic clerics who have preyed on innocent victims, mostly children. Her informed guest was Geoffrey Robertson, QC.

Robertson has written a classic and fair case study of the Vatican’s conduct in the priest abuse scandal, “The Case of the Popes: Vatican Accountability for Human Rights Abuse” (2010). He may also have personal insights here as well, as he describes his wife as having been “once a Catholic”.

When Amanapour, who reportedly had been instructed as a child at a UK convent school, gratuitously and revealingly volunteered that Pope Francis wanted to address priest child abuse, Robertson seemingly snickered and interjected, “He hasn’t yet”. This lead Amanpour to amend her statement about Francis quickly to: “He {Pope Francis} says he will, we’ll see and we’ll have to hold him accountable”. She did not reveal how Pope Francis would be held by CNN or anyone else to account if he fails to address the abuse scandal independently and transparently, as he and his predecessors have mostly failed to address it effectively for over a century or more. No one has held a pope accountable for anything significant during that time.

Amanpour, a mother, to her credit, directly asked Robertson what specifically needs to be done in the future to protect those most vulnerable. He replied significantly and pointedly: “I would think the Australian experience of a Royal Commission, which has got total powers to reveal what’s gone wrong and to make recommendations, that’s a very good start,” He added,  “Here {UK} we haven’t got started.”

Robertson, in the short interview, did not have the opportunity to elaborate on the subject of the extent to which a UK commission should investigate the Vatican’s conduct, as the Australian commission is trying to do. Pope Francis is currently trying, as his predecessors had, in effect, to investigate and judge his own bishops and priests secretively, clearly neither an independent nor transparent process like the Australian Royal Commission or even the standard UK, Australian or US criminal process.

As it stands now, alleged clerical sex abusers enjoy favorable treatment from a conflicted Vatican process. This cannot, and in my judgment as an international lawyer, will not stand much longer, for the reasons I discuss under “The Crisis Pope Francis Faces” below. Famous performers, powerful politicians and protected priests should, under modern jurisprudence, be subject to the same basic laws and comparable criminal procedures as the people whose lives are destroyed by their crimes. That is referred to worldwide as equal justice under the law for all.

Of course, from Robertson’s statements in his book, his considerable experience and simple logic, he would have to concur, I submit, that priests, bishops and even popes, should not be entitled to legal exemptions or special treatment when charged with serious crimes, especially against children. Even US Presidents Nixon and Clinton were not above the law.

Both Amanpour and Robertson also focused on the UK’s Home Secretary’s widely reported difficulties finding an chief investigator who satisfied the public’s desire for an independent and transparent sex abuse investigation. What is worth observing here is how the media, even a highly regarded and experienced TV commentator like CNN’s Amanpour, just accepted at face value the pope’s statement he would investigate, without even trying to consider discussing how to assess whether it would be an independent and transparent investigation. Given the Vatican’s poor record to date, it seems unacceptable to rely so much on Vatican’s bald statements. Pope Francis surprisingly still seems to get a free media pass after 20 months as pope, with little to show on curtailing clerical child abuse. That will not continue indefinitely, for the reasons as I discuss below under “The Crisis Pope Francis Faces”.

Robertson’s clear call on CNN for a broad national Australian style investigation commission is, as mentioned, a major development. Hopefully, he will be personally involved, given his fine record and unusual ability. Indeed, after his considerable work on famous legal cases involving, for example, holding Chilean ex-president General Pinochet to account, to defending WikiLeak’s  Julian Assange, Robertson has some star power of his own.

Indeed, Robertson’s chambers’ own  “star power ” has just been greatly enhanced by the marriage of actor/activist, George Clooney to Robertson’s able colleague, Alam Alamuddin, who earlier practiced at Sullivan & Cromwell, where I also earlier practiced.

Who knows? Perhaps, George Clooney, a strong advocate for Africa’s poor and for gay rights worldwide, might even decide to add his own considerable star power to secure protection for more children by calling for full accountability under the law for Catholic clerics of all ranks.

Raised reportedly a traditional Irish American Catholic family, Clooney would likely be knowledgeable about the Vatican’s shameful record on protecting children and its anti-contraception and anti-marriage  equality crusades.

These crusades have added to the miseries of many Africans, among others. including many children. Now that Pope Francis has appointed conservative South African Cardinal Wilfrid Napier as one of the four leaders of Francis’ Final Synod for next October, Clooney’s advocacy here could be especially important for desperate Africans and others.

As “star power” sex abuse scandals are being revealed continually in the UK, the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg recently and significantly said: “We are at an early stage of a reckoning with our past that is on a scale and gravity that just a few months ago might have seemed unimaginable and almost too horrific to contemplate. The task is to peel back the layers of deception that appear to have happened in the past.”

It seem clear that major “star power” sex abuse investigations in the UK are only in their infancy, which should concern Pope Francis. It is unclear whether the recent alleged sex scandals involving, among other matters, exploiting their position of power, that led to the resignations of two of the UK’s Catholic Church’s highest officials, Scotland’s Cardinal Keith O’Brien and the UK’s Bishop Kieran Conry, will be included in any UK public investigation. Given their key national positions, they should be included. They would likely be if Geoffrey Robertson’s call for a national commission is heeded.

 Incidentally, Pope Francis thanked Fr. Hans Kung for sending him his important new book on how to reform of the Catholic Church, “Can We Save the Catholic Church” (2013). Here is an excerpt from his book:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/07/save-the-catholic-church-_n_4740030.html

For more, see:

http://amzn.com/0007522029

Hans Kung, a Swiss priest, has for over a half century been a world recognized Catholic scholar, a best selling author on church history and theology and even an occasional adviser to top political leaders. As mentioned, Pope Francis’ preferred theologian, Cardinal Walter Kasper, served as a younger scholar as an assistant to Fr. Kung at Tuebingen University, Germany’s foremost theological faculty.

Hans Kung has for more than a half century engaged with, or influenced, several popes, including his former university colleague, Joseph Ratzinger (ex-Pope Benedict XVI), as well as John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II and even during his student years at the Jesuits’ Gregorian University in Rome, Pope Pius XII. Cardinals and bishops have sought his advice, at least as early as his time serving as a key theological expert with Joseph Ratzinger and Jesuit Karl Rahner at the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Fr. Kung has for decades offered to many interested Catholics worldwide, including Cardinals Bergoglio (Pope Francis) and Kasper, his own well articulated and scholarly supported alternative vision to that of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

For Hans Kung’s full warning to the effect that letting the ex-Pope, Joseph Ratzinger, stick around the Vatican would be a real mistake, please see: