Dumping Finn for “friendly” US President (not Hillary): Who Goes Next??

By Jerry Slevin
Christian Catholicism
April 21, 2015

http://christiancatholicism.com/dumping-finn-for-friendly-us-president-not-hillary-who-goes-next/

“We all know there are other U.S. bishops wondering ‘who is the next?’ ” reportedly tweeted Catholic Church historian, Massimo Faggioli, after Pope Francis, likely under pressure from “low tax” US billionaire donors, “dumped” U.S. Bishop Robert Finn.

Bishop Finn had become a symbol of the Vatican’s decades’ old stonewalling approach to addressing the priest child sexual abuse crisis.

Paradoxically perhaps, frequent bishop defender, Bill Donohue, fairly listed today Finn’s sins, which while detestable, seem almost minor when compared to those reported reliably with respect to many other bishops in the USA and elsewhere.

If Finn is sacked, how can the pope justify keeping so many others with “even dirtier hands”? What say you Pope Francis?

Yes, who is next? If the pope fails on curtailing child abuse, he becomes a US political liability, in next year’s US presidential election, for his “low tax-less regulation-least safety net” US billionaire supporters that appear to be depending on him considerably.

Finn was an easy case. Finn is the only U.S. bishop ever convicted in court of failing to report a suspected abuser he supervised, Fr. Shawn Ratigan, who was later sentenced to 50 years on federal child pornography charges.

Ratigan had hundreds of lewd pictures of children from local parishes on his computer, and he attempted suicide when the diocese learned of them in 2010. But Finn waited six months to report Ratigan to authorities in violation of a local law. Finn pleaded guilty in 2012 for failing to report Ratigan timely, after a legal battle that cost his diocese over a million dollars. In short, Finn was low-hanging fruit.

The day before Finn’s resignation was announced, the Irish “Joan of Arc” and priest sex abuse survivor, Marie Collins, who is a member of the panel Francis established to address the abuse crisis, reportedly wondered “how anybody like that (Finn) could be left in charge of a diocese.” “Things are moving slowly, as I have said many times, but they are moving in the right direction!” as Marie Collins boldly tweeted Tuesday (April 21) after hearing news of Finn’s resignation.

Also, Collins reportedly said this week a plan for hierarchical accountability is on Francis’ desk now. What in God’s name is the pope waiting for?

Francis will be making his first visit to the USA in September, a highly anticipated trip to a crucially powerful and wealthy Church where media mesmerized Catholics have welcomed his new style as much as anywhere.

But it’s also a US Church whose members have been traumatized by the abuse scandal, which they see as a priority for the pope to curtail, at least as much as the Catholic protesters in Chile appear to see it. Will US Catholics protest similarly in Philadelphia, New York City and/or Washington DC this summer? Who ever expected Chilean Catholics to protest so strongly against their Argentine neighbor, Francesco?

On Finn’s sacking, see also the National Catholic Reporter’s Joshua J. McElwee, Brian Roewe and Dennis Coday report and the informative comments thereto. See also my Electing Bishops & Jeb Bush Too , A Pope, A New US War, Jeb Bush Neocons & Big Oil and Hillary Clinton vs. Pope Francis in 2015 USA Politics .

Will Pope Francis now sack also the bankrupt Minneapolis Archdiocese’s Archbishop John Nienstedt, who is enmeshed in several obscene scandals involving alleged priest child abuse cover-ups and gay relationships with some of his priest subordinates. The child abuse cover ups allegedly also extensively involve Fr. Kevin McDonough, brother of US President Barack Obama’s Chief of Staff, Denis McDonough.

Significantly, Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) has now garnered a Peabody Award for its outstanding documentary, Betrayed By Silence: An MPR News investigation , which took an in depth look into the priest child sex-abuse scandal in Nienstedt’s Minneapolis Archdiocese. The coverage, led by a diligent and tenacious young journalist, Madeleine Baran, had already received wide recognition, including a Alfred I. duPont—Columbia University National Award.

While many opportunistic journalists were reporting on countless planted papal tweets and planned photo ops, Madeleine Baran and her colleagues earned investigative journalism’s two top awards the old fashioned way — by exhaustively and persistently following the facts without regard to the Catholic hierarchy’s shamefull spin and subtle threats.

Bishop Finn was the first Catholic bishop worldwide criminally convicted of mishandling a child abusive priest predator. The “Finn protected” child pornographer priest, who created his own porn library from unsuspecting young children he “ministered to”, is serving his 50 year sentence in a US federal prison after an aggressive prosecution by President Obama’s Justice Department.

The US federal prosecution of the priest felon contributed critically to Finn’s criminal conviction. Prosecutors could not “duck” the bishop’s crime, as they almost always have done previously, it appears, in the USA and elsewhere. Yet Finn remained in office overseeing his diocese’s purported “child protection procedures” for another three years — over two years under Pope Francis!

International outrage over worldwide lack of bishop accountability, including an ongoing and spreading revolt of Catholic parents and grandparents in Chile, has finally forced the pope to set a precedent — criminally convicted bishops who protect predatory priests, at a minimum, will be removed by the pope.

So Francis must, it appears, now try to make sure US Federal prosecutors avoid aggressively pursuing cases that could potentially lead to bishops’ criminal convictions, as happened with Finn. Yes, Francis appears determined to continue his two predecessors’ efforts to maintain a protective alliance with right wing US Presidents (anyone but new grandmother, Hillary Clinton), as his predecessors had done effectively with the prior Bush presidents.

Indeed, powerful and still active Cardinal Angelo Sodano even brazenly asked George W. Bush’s Secretary of State for help in stopping US court proceedings involving the Vatican’s role in facilitating priest child abuse. Of course, this was after the ex-pope, Sodano and Cardinal Raymond Burke helped in 2004 re-elect GWB — despite his disastrous and duplicitious Iraq War that led to over a million deaths (including many Christians and Muslims) and over $5 trillion in unnecessary expenditures so far.

Cardinal Burke is back stirring up right wing fundamentalist US voters for the current US presidential campaign, as another “Vatican friendly” Bush (Jeb), and a new unnecessary and dangerous Middle East invasion, move almost incredibly into the forefront.

Pope Francis’ priority, it appears, in order to avoid more Finn-like sackings, is to continue his considerable efforts to help get a right wing US president elected next year before he retires as pope, as I expect he will do soon after the US elections. In 2011, I predicted the ex-pope would quit — old men can only bear so much.

Francis (and Cardinal Burke) are evidently doing all they can do to draw out key right wing US voters, including with appeals to fundamentalist US Latinos and evangelicals (e.g., pushing crusades against gay marriage and contraception insurance coverage, adding Hispanic saints like Archbishop Romero and Junipero Serra, targeting social media references to Our Lady of Guadalupe and the devil, calling for another Middle East war to benefit Big Oil and “save Christians”, etc.).

Even the pope’s recent capitulation to the American LCWR sisters appears driven by US politics as the pope tries to keep the Nuns Off the Bus as an election year distraction — as they were “on the Bus” in 2012 when Sr. Simone Campbell was a keynote speaker at President Obama’s successful re-election convention.

Sacking Finn was therefore critical for Pope Francis’ election crusades, especially after his mishandling of the Bishop Barros’ appointment that led to the continuing Chile revolt. Pope Francis has evidently carefully avoided the Barros subject publicly, even though he reportedly was involved in Barros’ appointment and likely knows him. Please see the superb and relevant analysis, “Vatican Defends the Chilean Appointment” here, BishopAccountability.org .

Please see also my earlier recommendations in the Washington Post from five years ago to the Vatican, that Pope Francis’ failing Synod strategy has made even more relevant now, entitled “Pope should endorse independent investigation“, at:

[faithstreet.com]

There is in a link in my brief earlier Washington Post advice to ex-pope Benedict to an even briefer NJ.com article from well-regarded US Jesuit, Fr. Raymond Schroth, recommending an independent committee approach, which is where I first got the committee idea. Here’s what Fr. Schroth, a Jesuit Francis appears not to have consulted, had to say about the notion of an independent committee to deal with the mess that the Catholic Church has become:

What should we do? Benedict XVI’s resignation would solve nothing. If he were to quit, the same cardinals who elected him plus those whom he has appointed would elect someone like him. At 82 he is not wired to change his ways. But he might retain a creative spark: he could immediately set up a commission of priests, nuns, and laypersons from around the world who are not beholden to the Vatican culture and who are known for their wisdom, independence, and courage. Their job would be to study the crisis and recommend structural changes that would restore the church’s credibility. Celibacy and the ordination of women should be on the table. Over 40 years ago Pope Paul VI set up a similar commission on birth control, only to reject their conclusion that the teaching should change. It was the biggest mistake he ever made. Benedict should learn from his predecessor’s bad move.”

Even an independent committee would fail now! Francis, pronto, needs to convene an independent, open and ecumenical general council, the exclusive and authoritative path for reform of the Catholic Church for 2,000 years

Francis “sacked” Finn barely a week after the prophetic Marie Collins had her anti-climatic “non-meeting” with the pope. She wanted to discuss with Pope Francis his outrageous choice to make Juan Barros, who has been accused of helping shield a fellow priest abusing youths (including Juan Carlos Cruz), as the new bishop of Osorno, Chile. Barros’ bishop installation ceremony triggered unprecedented violent protests of thousands in majority Catholic Chile (see here, here, and here).

The Finn sacking shows that Marie Collins’ tenacity points to serious trouble after the Chile revolt for the pope’s upcoming visit to Philly, a key part of his evident and unfolding strategy to elect next year a “Vatican/US bishop friendly” right wing US president, with Jeb Bush the pope’s evident top choice.

On cue, the US right wing media appear to have initiated attention to the anticipated 2016 USA national election alliance of the Vatican and Jeb Bush. This apparently will be a “reunion” for the Bush family and longtime Vatican power, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, and his clique. This seems evident in Jeb’s recent interview (with even a smiling Sodano-Jeb photo) by the National Review Online, “On the 20th Anniversary of His Conversion, Jeb Bush Talks Pope Francis and How to Win on Social Issues“, here, National Review.

Marie Collins, the tenacious Irish survivor of priest sexual abuse as a teenaged hospital patient, and a charter member of Pope Francis’ sex abuse advisory commission, explained inspiringly, candidly and bravely on 4/18/15 to a Hartford (USA) group of Catholic reformers, including Fr. Tom Doyle and me, her sober strategy and modest expectations, especially in light of the commission’s limited mandate and inadequate funding. She endeavored to be loyal to her fellow commission members, as well as fairly concerned about her fellow abuse survivors.

Marie Collins spoke in detail of her commission experiences and concerns and hope at the national meeting of the Voice of the Faithful (VOTF). A senior VOTF representative indicated to me that Marie Collins’ very important address will be posted on its website here,

[votf.org]

These protests are the beginning of the Catholic Revolution likely to erupt again soon in Philadelphia, or Philly, where Cruz, a top US communications executive and former journalist now lives. Philly was a key locale for the American Revolution that led to the downfall of many medieval monarchies. The papal monarchy will likely be the next and last to fall.

Shocking disclosures from Philly criminal proceedings, of a top priest personnel aide to former Philly Cardinals Rigali and Bevilacqua, have already earned Philly a fair claim to be the USA’s Pedophile Priest Paradise over many decades, despite Bevilacqua’s long video deposition still remaining hidden so far.

These disclosures indicated that almost one-quarter of Philly priests at one point had reports of sexual abuse in their secret files, and that covered only those of Catholics who even chose to bother to report sex abuse claims to an unconcerned and duplicitous Archdiocesean leadership. The pope foolishly seems to think his media magic dust can cover over these disturbing facts.

See my relevant “… the Philadelphia Inquirer: A Time of Truth About Child Abuse”, here, Bilgrimage , as well as my other extensive reports easily available at the Bilgrimage website.

Marie Collins has prudently decided, like Eleanor Roosevelt with her key role in the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to “light a candle, rather than to curse the darkness”. Marie Collins has extensive successful experience in Ireland dealing with senior Catholic Church bureaucrats and government officials, on getting “blood out of a stone”!

Marie Collins understands fully the limited agenda, the slow pace and the limited funding that the pope has so far embedded in his “go slow” abuse commission. But she is bravely determined, it seems clear, to seize the narrow opportunity afforded her as a member to press forward, inch by inch, to make sure children are saved from the horrors she encountered.

Marie Collins acknowledges the pope’s abuse commission has serious limitations, but also some potential opportunities as well that she hopes to pursue without illusion. She has already made clear that she will quit if she thinks insufficient progress is being made and that she will press the pope whenever necessary, as she did over the Barros appointment.

She pointed in her USA talk to the abuse commission’s inadequate funding and staffing, paradoxically as the pope’s Vatican Bank’s financial consultants began with a reported $1 million front end retainer, and US bishops just announced they spent $150 million last year on containing the US abuse scandal and protecting bishops mainly. The pope needs to “put his money where his mouth is” on curtailing the abuse scandal. He cannot “Tweet himself” out of Marie Collins’ focused perspective.

The pope, however, seems poised to try to distract further, from the priest child abuse scandal and unaccountable bishop cover-ups, now with an encyclical on climate change, often denied by Big Oil interests. The pope’s top financial advisor was reportedly for a dozen years Chairman, the top authority, of BP until the end of 2009. BP is enduring a regrettable 5th anniversary now. On April 20, 2010, BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers and caused 200 million gallons of sticky black crude oil to spew into the ocean, setting off a devastating environmental disaster.

Will Francis in his encyclical take on his Big Oil backers? Unlikely. Indeed, Francis has actively promoted population expansion, a key contributor to environmental degradation. Judging by the pope’s slick avoidance of the child abuse scandal, his environmental encyclical is likely to be more of his customary mixed messaging and pious platitudes. See on the 2010 BP disaster, Reuters’ new video, here, Reuters .

The background of Marie Collins’ non-meeting with the pope is described well in Kristine Ward’s editorial discussing the recent “demanded meeting”, of Marie Collins, UK abuse survivor, Peter Saunders and two prominent psychiatrists/child abuse experts, constituting almost half of the non-clerical members of the pope’s abuse commission, with Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the pope’s priest child abuse “fixer.”

The editorial indicates that many US Catholics are appalled that the lay members of the abuse advisory commission are the people who had to initiate the action to speak with the commission chair, Cardinal O’Malley, and through him seek to get the attention of Pope Francis. As John Allen reports in his recent papal promotion book, “Francis the Miracle”, Francis has for two years needed pressure from O’Malley to pay even minimal attention to the Vatican’s biggest crisis since the Reformation — child sex abusing priests and their unaccountable bishop protectors.

The members of the sex abuse advisory commission, several of whom know Cruz, it appears, wanted to discuss with Pope Francis Juan Barros’ misguided appointment, a bishop who has been accused of helping shield a fellow priest abusing minors, to become bishop of Osorno, Chile.

As the above linked editorial notes, it’s obvious that, despite widespread outrage at this appointment both in the diocese itself and in many quarters of the Catholic Church, including among abuse survivors, “it borders on the near impossible that Bishop Barros’ appointment will be rescinded.” For centuries, Catholics had originally had a major say on selecting their own bishops and likely will again, soon enough, despite the pope’s current evasions.

See also “Irish abuse survivor calls for removal of bishop accused of abuse cover-up”, with a brief but pointed video here, RTE News, of Marie Collins’ giving her no-nonsense statement about Barros, as well as of the unforgettable statement of Juan Carlos Cruz, the Chilean survivor who accused Barros of abuse cover up complicity. Click here also to see a BBC video of what happened at Barros’ installation that BBC fairly described as a “near riot”.

Pope Francis appears to give much higher priority to protecting the interests of his Big Oil associated donors in the Middle East than to protecting Catholic children from priest sexual abusers enabled by his unaccountable bishops. As mentioned above, the pope’s top financial adviser, for example, is a former Chairman of BP, which has significant Middle East oil interests. This, and similar Vatican donor connections, seem to influence the pope’s current approach of dangerously calling for another Middle East military invasion and imprudently provoking Muslim Turkey over 100 year old World War I atrocities involving Catholic Armenians.

Yes, Turkey was very wrong with Armenians, as Germans and Italians were with Jews, and the Japanese were with the Chinese, and the Chinese to Tibetans, and the USA to some Native Americans, Vietnamese and Iraqis, etc. If the pope wants to preach Jesus’ message of peace, and I hope he does, he cannot “cherry pick” his atrocities! Indeed, because he leads 1.2 billion Catholics with a long history of religious violence, he risks generating more violence as he is perceived by many as a partisan crusader. Francis’ unnecessary political involvement and calls as a Catholic leader for another Mideast military invasion seems to be playing right into ISIS’ bloody hands. His imprudent strategy as a 21st Century “crusader” will likely hurt Middle East Christians more than it helps them.

These Big Oil connections may even affect, as mentioned above, the pope’s expected encyclical on climate change, to the potential disappointment of hundreds of millions. And these are all interrelated since a driving factor in the Middle East wars is control of scarce resources, energy and water, in an increasingly overpopulated world where hundreds of millions of women still have inadequate access to desired and effective contraception options, thanks often to Vatican ideological lobbying.

At a recent Yale conference, the high hopes for the encyclical were evident. Speaking to the ethical dimensions of the forthcoming document, Margaret Farley, Gilbert L. Stark Professor Emerita of Christian Ethics at Yale Divinity School, told the audience that encyclicals do not necessarily teach absolute doctrine, but rather offer an articulation of religious and moral understandings and aim to clarify religious beliefs and ethical issues. The encyclical may even impact the way in which the hierarchy views the environmental degradation caused by overpopulation, as well as “women’s burdens which escalate with the devastation of resources of water and food.”

Though Farley refrained from saying that a change in the Catholic church’s teaching on contraception would be key to addressing overpopulation, she did note that the encyclical could go a long way to understanding and remedying these kinds of challenges facing women and families. “If it fails to do so, the crisis before us may only increase,” she concluded.

The full video of the panel discussion is available on the website of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology.

The pope on Sunday, 4/12/15, provoked Turkey needlessly over a century old World War I controversy over the killings of Catholic Armenians, only a few months after the pope had visited Turkey to promote religious harmony. Turkey rejects the use of the term “genocide” to describe the killings, arguing it was a civil war in which people on both sides died. On Tuesday, 4/14/15, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he condemned the Pope and warned him to “not repeat this mistake.” By Wednesday, 4/15/15, perhaps surprised by the strong reaction to the pope’s ill timed remarks, the Vatican backtracked some. The pope’s spokesman, Jesuit Fr. Lombardi, indicated that Pope Francis was simply putting himself in line with his predecessor. He added that the Vatican had no intention of generating a stand-off with Turkey, and that it would “take note” of Turkey’s reaction. Once again, the pope engages in mixed messaging.

Turkey’s leaders have now warned the pope, among other things, subtly warning the Vatican that it has its own skeletons to keep hidden. With the pope’s still Secret Archives of Vatican dealings with Nazis and Fascists, including records allegedly covering assets stolen from Jews murdered in the Holocaust, as well as secret records of the Vatican’s current sex abuse and financial scandals, Turkey has a point. Why then did the pope provoke Turkey, and why now?

Meanwhile, the pope and his Council of Cardinals (C9) continued, in effect, at their latest meeting to pay lip service to holding bishops accountable for child abuse facilitation. This is 30 years after Fr. Tom Doyle’s searing “dead on arrival” secret report on pervasive priest child abuse to Pope John Paul II and US bishops. The C9 once again did nothing of substance, upon reviewing briefly and under public pressure the “do nothing results” so far of the pope’s “go slow” abuse commission. Public objections by two prominent psychiatrist/child abuse experts and two abuse survivors, all commission members, forced the C9 to at least go through the motions of a discussion two years into Francis’ papacy. The four members had traveled from their home countries to the pope’s residence, but the pope avoided meeting with them. So much for “mixing with the sheep”!

Turkey is an a tough position. Syrian civil war refugees are pouring over one border, and threatening Kurdish forces are battling Islamic State (ISIS) forces near another border. As ISIS forces currently engage in fierce battles for control of Iraq’s largest oil refinery, Big Oil and its allies, including some prominent Iraq War US neocons and seemingly the pope as well, are stepping up efforts for another Western military incursion in the Middle East. Many of the Iraq War neocon cheerleaders, including Paul Wolfowitz, are now advising Jeb Bush, the likely papal preference in next year’s US presidential elections. Please see the related video here, Reuters .

As Ray McGovern, a Jesuit educated former CIA advisor under six US Presidents, astutely noted recently: “… the neocons are nothing if not resilient. Despite their grotesque disasters, like the Iraq War, and their disappointments, like not getting their war on Syria, they neither learn lessons nor change goals. They just readjust their aim, shooting now at Putin over Ukraine as a way to clear the path again for ‘regime change’ in Syria and Iran. …” .

Ray McGovern studied theology, philosophy and the Russian language at the Jesuit’s Fordham University in NYC, then in the Sixties served as an Army infantry/intelligence officer before his long service as a CIA analyst from the administration of John F. Kennedy to that of George H. W. Bush. McGovern’s duties included chairing National Intelligence Estimates and preparing the President’s Daily Brief, which he briefed one-on-one to President Ronald Reagan’s most senior national security advisers from 1981 to 1985.

Please see McGovern’s superb and informative, “Neocon ‘Chaos Promotion’ in the Mideast“, here, Truth-Out , and see also “Jeb Bush seeks tips from wide cast of foreign policy experts” here, Reuters .

As occasional papal cheerleaders, John Allen and Bill Donohue suggested (in my view anyways), seemingly on cue, by their comments concerning the pope’s gratuitous provocation of Muslim Turkey over a 100 year old matter, the pope was evidently trying to tie Turkey’s World War I misdeeds to the current ISIS push and to the need for a new US military effort in the Middle East.

The Boston Globe’s John Allen, quite familiar with the Vatican’s right wing and wealthy US donors’ approach, seemingly baited the pope in advance to provoke Turkey. After noting the pope’s support for military intervention against ISIS in the Middle East, Allen reportedly stated: “If Francis fails to call a spade a spade on the anniversary of the 20th century’s first mass murder of Christians, believers in the firing line today may doubt the pontiff’s resolve.” Francis took the bait, it appears.

As the sometimes unofficial voice of some conservative US prelates, Bill Donohue, on the day after the pope provoked Turkey, reportedly put it in his usual bombastic style in defending the pope’s imprudent provocation of Turkey, ” … Moreover, Muslim madmen are carrying out another genocide of Christians today. Some things never change. … “. Well, at least Donohue never changes, it appears.

Pope Francis is still reeling, it appears, since his recent inadvisable appointment of the questionable Chilean Bishop Barros undercut deeply his credibility on addressing the Catholic Church’s worst challenge since the Reformation — child abusing priests and their unaccountable bishop protectors. Now Francis has made a comparable international blunder by using his teetering bully pulpit to attack Turkey — for 100 year old World War I atrocities that can only realistically be expected now to make a bad Middle East situation worse.

Meanwhile, four non-clerical members of the pope’s sex abuse advisory board, in frustration if not desperation, pushed the commission’s nominal head, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, to urge the pope and his other C9 cardinal advisers to take up bishops’ responsibility to protect children — and the need to punish them when they fail to do so — during one of their current periodic meetings.

The Vatican’s spokesman, in typical obtuse language used when holding bishops accountable is being discussed, said O’Malley’s aim was to “come up with appropriate procedures and modalities to evaluate and adjudicate cases of ‘abuse of office’ in this area, especially by people in positions of responsibility within the church.”

O’Malley only raised this matter with the C9 after the widely publicized complaints of four members of the advisory board who traveled to Rome over the weekend for an emergency meeting with O’Malley over the appointment of Bishop Juan Barros in Osorno, Chile. At the end of their meeting with O’Malley, commission members said that the process itself of appointing bishops must involve evaluating a candidate’s understanding of and commitment to protecting children.

A revealing reaction to the C9’s latest evasionary action came from a frequent and perceptive blogger at the National Catholic Reporter, Mokantx, who reacted in part as follow (in italics) :

“The world needs to see action. The church has had as a MINIMUM 13 years since the Boston story hit the streets. The number is something more like 30 {years} since the Doyle/Sipe (et al) report was given to JPII. Yet, even today, the world waits…

I’m glad this topic is “on the table.” It’s a real shame that it took bad press, screams from across the globe, civil settlements in the US alone approaching $3 Billion, the bankruptcy of (10-ish now?) dioceses, and the loss of Millions of Catholics, just to get the bishops to address the problem.

One MIGHT have hoped that a truly moral, much less religious man, just MIGHT have realized that the sexual abuse of minors is wrong, needed to be stopped, and those involved need to be held accountable. So what is the core problem here? Hard not to consider that the guys at the top have a very different sense of morality, justice, and compassion than the rest of us. Maybe in a few centuries, they’ll get around to addressing that little issue as well…? “.

Pope Francis needs help clearly. Pope Francis, in a blistering criticism delivered at the Vatican’s Christmas party, listed 15 “spiritual illnesses” that he suggested senior Catholic Church officials are especially prone to. In the current Harvard Business Review, a prominent consultant perceptively analyzes these “illnesses” from a management expert’s perspective. Please see, “The 15 Diseases of Leadership, According to Pope Francis“, here, HBR.

The management expert correctly observes that the Catholic Church is a bureaucracy: a hierarchy populated by less-than-perfect souls. In that sense, he notes, the Church is not much different than many corporate and other organizations.

Of course, the Catholic hierarchy is unaccountable compared to most other organizations’ senior management. Bishops’ management performance (including the pope’s) is generally secretive and is neither reported on by independent public auditors nor subject to oversight by shareholders or publicly elected officials.

The limited oversight comes from the media — mostly “friendly opportunists”. Usually, the Vatican feeds the religious news reporters the latest papal pontifications, and these reporters too often parrot them with little attention to the pope’s actual course of action that may contradict his statements.

In light of my personal experience in the half century since I took a Harvard Business School management course, I think the author has apt and wise insights. Indeed, his analysis suggests to me that the pope himself seems to suffer at times from several of these illnesses.

This was very evident in his recent mistaken appointment of Chilean Bishop Barros, his snubbing of his own non-clerical abuse commission

members who visited his residence, and his “family-less” Family Synod. One “illness” in particular that caught my attention is the “disease of closed circles”. The author describes this as follows: ” … where belonging to a clique becomes more powerful than our shared identity. This disease too always begins with good intentions, but with the passing of time it enslaves its members and becomes a cancer which threatens the harmony of the organization and causes immense evil, especially to those we treat as outsiders. ‘Friendly fire’ from our fellow soldiers, is the most insidious danger. …

The lack of public accountability and secretiveness was recently noted in an interview by the thorough Jesuit educated former Wall Street lawyer, Posner, the author of the troubling and comprehensive book, “God’s Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican” . Posner reportedly stated: ” I knew it would be difficult to get inside the {Vatican’s} Secret Archives… . More disappointing than being turned away from the archives, was that Vatican Press Office simply ignored for years several dozen requests by snail mail, fax, email, and telephone messages, seeking interviews with a long list of people who worked at Vatican City. I am accustomed on my book projects to someone not wanting to interview. Occasionally, when I reach out to an individual, their way of saying “no” is simply not to answer. But I have never had the department that is serving as a press office for both a sovereign country as well as one of the world’s biggest religions, simply ignore all requests for assistance. It served as a vivid reminder that the Vatican’s press office is still antiquated when it comes to cultivating good media relations.“ (emphasis mine)

Pope Francis needs to break out of his “closed circle”. It took the experienced Vatican bureaucrat and Church historian, Pope John XXIII, only two months as pope to realize that the Catholic Church could only be fixed permanently by convening a full and open ecumenical council. Pope Francis has now had over two years. Earlier councils were held at times quite often. The major Council of Constance even called for Church general councils every ten years!

Why otherwise would Pope John have convened a massive Church council in the early 1960’s if he thought he could fix the Church alone or with only a closed circle of selected cardinals and bishops? This is all Pope Francis has tried to do so far for over two years, unsuccessfully for the most part.

Francis was elected by the cardinals who helped create the multiple Church crises. He has mainly relied on some of these same cardinals, mostly secretively so far, to try to resolve the crises. That cannot succeed. In the little time he may have left, he must now convene a full worldwide council as John XXIII did.

Councils have been considered infallible by Catholics and other Christians from the Church’s beginning. They alone have resolved major Church crises over almost 2000 years from the first “Council of Jerusalem” attended by Jesus’ earliest followers in the year 50. So called “infallible” popes’ had, in effect, only been invented by Pope Pius IX in 1870 at an unfinished council he convened in a panic and controlled with an iron fist.

John XXIII, with much more experience than Francis with the entrenched Vatican bureaucracy and with international politics, had been born under the first pope that had been elected after popes “became infallible”. He had worked directly under the imperious Pope Pius XI, who made his harmful deals with Mussolini in 1929 and Hitler in 1933 and also recklessly banned birth control in 1930.

John knew with certainty that only an infallible council could possibly succeed in reforming the corrupt Church. He knew that it was ultimately futile to rely, as a cure for Church crises, on merely an “infallible” pope who could always be overruled by a successor “infallible” pope, as has happened often since John’s papacy untimely ended in 1963.

Francis will be overruled by opportunistic future popes as well, if Francis unwisely fails to convene an open and representative worldwide council soon, a council that alone can infallibly and permanently fix the Catholic Church now.

Francis may win a temporary public relations “battle” in the polls if he refuses to convene a full ecumenical council like Pope John did, but he surely then will also lose the longer term permanent reform war after the polls settle down, as they surely will. Unlike John, Francis faces multiple major scandals in a 24/7 media Internet Age, especially unprecedented scandals involving priest and even bishop child sexual abuse. These scandals alone could well bring down an unreformed Catholic Church, sooner rather than later.

Outrage against current mass violence is courageous. Outrage against historical mass violence is less courageous. Selective outrage, however, is hypocrisy. Pope Francis vented calculatingly this week against 100 year old mass atrocities during World War I by Turkish Muslims against Armenian Christians.

At the same time, the pope pointedly ducked a meeting with non-clerical members of his own illusory abuse commission, that is seeking to curtail sexual violence by priests against hundreds of thousands of defenseless children worldwide. In particular, these members have objected to the nomination of Bishop Juan Barros to the Diocese of Osorno, Chile by the pope.

In two years, these members have had few contacts with the pope other than at photo ops and papal masses. The pope seems to have found more time to meet with US evangelical fundamentalists before the recent US Congressional elections. He seems too busy to meet with advisers he picked. What is really going on here?

Two abuse survivors, Marie Collins and Peter Saunders, along with London-based psychiatrist, Baroness Sheila Hollins, and French child/adolescent psychiatrist, Dr. Catherine Bonnet, traveled to Francis’ residence, but he did not meet with them.

For their widely publicized and considerable efforts, the commission members got a mere promise from Cardinal Sean O”Malley to tell Francis they are concerned, as indicated reportedly in the members’ statement released by the commission’s top staffer, Fr. Robert Oliver, formerly a canon lawyer for disgraced Boston Cardinal Bernard Law.

These developments were widely reported to Latino Catholics by CNN in Spanish, including with an interview with Juan Carlos Cruz, a top Philadelphia USA communications executive and a key abuse survivor in the current Chile crisis, see here, CNN .

Cruz may have his own Chilean revolt-style welcome planned for the pope when he visits Philadelphia in a few months, especially if Bishop Barros still remains as Osorno’s bishop.

Moreover, in addition to snubbing his own child abuse atrocities commission members, Pope Francis has also avoided condemning adequately the Vatican’s role during his own lifetime in Mussolini’s facilitation of Hitler’s genocide of Jews, while Catholic clerics in Italy and Germany remained silent or worse, as amply documented in the recent and well regarded book, “The Pope and Mussolini”.

As to the Holocaust genocide itself, Gerald Posner has fairly and recently complained that Pope Francis’ Vatican archivists recently denied Posner access to Nazi era files that pertained to assets that may have been confiscated from Holocaust victims.

It would be better, no, if Pope Francis practiced more of what he preaches when he reportedly uses “soundbite” words like this as he did in the Turkish case — “Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it!”. (emphasis mine)

While atrocities should never be forgotten, religious violence is pervasive in history and worldwide now. Why stop at World War I? Why not go back also to the papal crusaders’ sacking and slaughter in Turkey eight hundred years earlier in the Fourth Crusade?

Pope John Paul II even twice expressed sorrow for the events of the Fourth Crusade. In 2001, he wrote “It is tragic that the assailants, who set out to secure free access for Christians to the Holy Land, turned against their brothers in the faith”.

And relevantly, Pope Francis is pushing gratuitously, apparently as part of his 2016 US election outreach to US Latino voters to engender support for right wing candidates (likely including Jeb Bush), the sainthood of Fr. Junipero Serra, who had a sad history of exploiting Native Americans. Of course, these were not Armenian Catholics seeking reparations and influential with some Catholic prelates, but they were innocent victims nevertheless.

And also recently, the Vatican push among US Catholic voters in the 2004 US elections was a key factor in the re-election of US President, George W. Bush, the main proponent of that unnecessary Iraq War that now seems to have benefited Iran the most.

A recently published report has revealed that the US invasion and occupation of Iraq was responsible for the deaths of approximately 1 million Iraqis, which is 5 percent of the total population of the country. The report also tallies hundreds of thousands of casualties in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Please see the respected report, titled “Body Count: Casualty Figures After 10 Years of the ‘War on Terror,'” that persuasively indicates the real casualties, Christians, Muslims and others, reached “genocidal dimensions.” (emphasis mine)

Will Pope Francis address this genocide as his subordinate bishops hustle to elect the next Bush, Jeb, to the White House next year? Please don’t hold your breathe!

Pope Francis, a week after he accused the world of “standing mute” currently, while some Christians were shamefully slaughtered, again stirred controversy more recently, as indicated above, by calling the 1915 killings, during World War I of up to 1.5 million mainly Christian Armenians by mostly Muslim Turks, a “genocide,” and not just any genocide but “the first genocide of the 20th century” — which he noted was followed by Nazism and Stalinism.

A day later the pope at Mass indicated that the Catholic Church is called to be frank and courageous. Sounds nice, no? Yet the pope appears to be expressing selective outrage and self interested politics, no? He is frank and courageous about some atrocities, but evasive and timorous about others, it appears. Why?

The pope must know religious zealots worldwide are attacking believers in other faiths, not just Christians, regularly with impunity. Nevertheless, the pope selectively focused on mass violence under way today against Christians who because of their faith are “publicly and ruthlessly put to death — decapitated, crucified, burned alive — or forced to leave their homeland,” a reference to the Islamic State group’s assault against Christians in Iraq and Syria.

This happens to track closely to US right wing election propaganda before next year’s US presidential elections— hardly a coincidence, no?

One wonders what German Chancellor Angela Merkel thought of the pope’s unnecessary remarks about Turkey. Germany is home to many Turkish Muslim immigrants, some of whom are unlikely to be pleased that the pope is adding to the pressures Turkey already faces from the Syrian civil war and from Kurdish fighters. Germany’s tax subsidies are an important source of funds for the Catholic Church, as Merkel surely knows.

Yes, Turkey was very wrong with Armenians, as Germans and Italians were with Jews, and the Japanese were with the Chinese, and the Chinese to Tibetans, and the USA to some Native Americans, Vietnamese and Iraqis, etc., …

If the pope wants to preach Jesus’ message of peace, and I hope he does, he cannot “cherry pick” his atrocities! Indeed, because he leads 1.2 billion Catholics with a long history of religious violence, he risks generating more violence as he is perceived by many as a partisan crusader.

One day after his condemnation of Turkey, Francis made it clear that he had no intention of apologizing for his unexpected and excessive condemnation of Turkey. In the homily in his daily Mass at Casa Santa Marta, where he lives, he instead claimed that the Catholic Church is a place of openness where people should speak frankly.

“We cannot keep silent [about] what we have seen and heard,” he said, according to Vatican Radio . “And today too, the Church’s message is the message of the path of openness, the path of Christian courage … straightforwardness, freedom to speak, not being afraid to say things … , to saying things with freedom.” If only that were the case!

Fine, but why pick and choose which mass atrocities to condemn? Pope Francis has for months now spent a lot of his limited time focusing on religious violence in the Middle East, almost it seems as a diversion from the Vatican’s scandals that Francis could do much more to curtail if he skipped some unnecessary trips and stayed home and addressed them. Diversion and scapegoating, of course, are classic political tactics.

Moreover, Francis and his right wing US political allies too often, and in my view dangerously, are calling for more troops on the ground in the Middle East, presumably, perhaps in part at the behest of Francis’ Big Oil associated donors.

Of course, horribly, Islamic State insurgents have persecuted Shi’ite Muslims, Christians and others who do not share their ultra-radical brand of Sunni Islam as they carved a self-declared caliphate out of swathes of Syria and Iraq, which share borders with Turkey.

But does the pope really promote peace on balance by his “cherry picking” atrocities? Indeed, since he speaks as head of a major religious faction whose adherents are involved in much of this violence, would he not be better to pay less attention to the past and to international politics and instead clean up his Church, that at least is within his power mostly?

While Pope Francis is touting transparency and forthrightness, how about also his opening worldwide the thousands of secret archives containing files on priest sexual predators and the many bishops who protected them. Incidentally, the Australian Royal Commission, it appears, is still waiting for pertinent Vatican files it has requested some time ago. Why not start by turning those files over?

Pope Francis in his 79th year complains understandably about fatigue. It is difficult to understand, however, how and why he prioritizes his use of his limited energy the way he does. The biggest crisis the pope faces is curtailing promptly and transparently his subordinate bishops’ mismanagement of child abusing priests. If Catholic Church religious leaders cannot be trusted with children’s safety, the leaders cannot be trusted with anything else — it is that simple.

Yet on 4/12/15, Francis focused on a 100 year old World War I event involving Turkish Muslims and apparently avoided meeting with his own advisers on priest child abusers. The advisers had traveled to Rome after weeks seemingly of unheeded public complaints to the pope.

Four members of Pope Francis’ sex abuse advisory commission traveled to Rome to voice their concerns in person about Francis’ appointment of a Chilean bishop accused of covering up for the country’s most notorious molester. The four met not with Francis, but with Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, who at least agreed to relay their concerns to the pope about the appointment of Juan Barros as bishop of Osorno in southern Chile, according to the commission members statement as reported.

Of course, by now the pope had already been fully briefed on their concerns. If he fails to respond, let us hope the commission members, all 17 of them, continue to press the pope privately and, if necessary, even publicly, to match his actions to his rhetoric.

Barros, the former chaplain of Chile’s armed forces, has faced unprecedented popular and ecclesial opposition ever since he was named by Pope Francis in January. More than 1,300 church members in Osorno, some 30 diocesan priests and 51 of Chile’s 120 members of Parliament sent letters to Francis urging him to rescind the appointment. Barros has denied wrongdoing. A junior Vatican official had defended the appointment in a 19-word statement March 31 that avoided the real issues.

Pope Francis has evidently carefully avoided the subject publicly, even though he reportedly was involved in Barros’ appointment and likely knows him. Please see the superb and relevant analysis, “Vatican Defends the Chilean Appointment” here, BishopAccountability.org .

Yet it is unclear how effectively Barros can lead going forward. Already, as AP has reported, a recent meeting between Barros and angry parishioners fell apart when Barros showed up with two body guards and police dogs, security measures taken after his installation ceremony was marred by unprecedented and violent protests inside the cathedral. The hounds of heaven seem less effective on earth!

So, as members of the pope’s own abuse commission were arriving at the Vatican to try to meet with Pope Francis to protest his appointment of Bishop Barros in Chile, Pope Francis seemingly managed to divert media attention to a 100 year old event. The pope instead sparked a diplomatic row today by calling a World War I Ottoman Turk massacre of Armenians 100 years ago “the first genocide of the 20th century,” prompting Turkey to accuse the pope of inciting hatred.

Pope Francis was elected two years ago in an emergency setting after the ex-pope had just failed in his efforts to help elect a more Vatican supportive US president, as Vatican financial and sexual scandals were boiling over. The problems Francis left behind in Argentina, and especially Chile, are now catching up to him. Major investigations, including in the UK and Australia, are also escalating. Women are speaking out strongly, in Rome, Chile, Ireland and elsewhere. The honeymoon appears over. Is Francis just trying to change the subject to Islamic extremism — a convenient scapegoat?

For almost 2,000 years, most popes’ top priority has been securing protection from powerful men from Constantine, Justinian and Charlemagne to Mussolini, Hitler, Reagan and the two Bush US Presidents. Is Francis now mainly trying to appeal to the US right wing neo-conservative warriors that seem to be advising Jeb Bush these days, as they disastrously advised his older brother?

Muslim Turkey accepts that many Christians died in clashes with Ottoman soldiers beginning in 1915, when Armenia was part of the empire ruled from Istanbul, but denies hundreds of thousands were killed and that this amounted to genocide. Francis became the first head of the Roman Catholic Church to publicly pronounce the word “genocide” to describe them. Turkey was swift to protest. “The pope’s statements, which are far from historical and judicial facts, cannot be accepted, … {R}eligious offices are not places to incite hatred and revenge with baseless accusations,” Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu reportedly said.

Pope Francis described the “senseless slaughter” of 100 years ago as “the firsthas genocide of the 20th century” and noted it was followed by Nazism and Stalinism. “It is necessary, and indeed a duty, to honor their memory, for whenever memory fades, it means that evil allows wounds to fester. Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it!” he said. The pope added that genocide continues today against Christians “who, on account of their faith in Christ or their ethnic origin, are publicly and ruthlessly put to death – decapitated, crucified, burned alive – or forced to leave their homeland.”

Shocked Cardinals two years ago elected Pope Francis evidently to save their necks, by containing the financial and sex scandals that exploded under ex-Pope Benedict and by regaining powerful political protectors, especially a Vatican friendly US president preferably named Bush, and even adding as supporters Russian and Chinese leaders. For almost 2,000 years, most popes’ top priority has been securing protection from powerful political and military leaders.

Pope Francis has managed the media well and expensively and changed the subject for awhile, with mixed messages, vague promises, staged trips and photo ops, but the “mystical curtain” is being lifted, especially by brave abuse survivors and persistent reformers who refuse to quit.

Francis appealingly called on Catholics to “create a mess” but, instead, by his slick approach, he has paradoxically created his own expanding mess, which may be his last as pope! Many lifetime indoctrinated Catholics may behave as “dumb sheep” at times; I did, but few of them in the Internet Age remain as “blind sheep”.

Until now, the Vatican has mostly avoided various national prosecutors.The pope and his high priced consultants and lawyers have also so far buried the financial scandals in over hyped committees that he still controls unaccountably, most significantly with no public audits of the Vatican’s own wealth even on the horizon.

Now at least four principled and impatient lay members of the pope’s “go slow” sex abuse commission, that was intended apparently by the Vatican mainly to diffuse the sex abuse scandal at least until after next year’s crucial USA presidential elections, are publicly balking at their inconsequential, even illusory, roles.

Papal apologists are predictably trying to isolate them as “lone actors”, yet even a cursory review of worldwide Catholics’ opinions indicate these prophetic members speak for hundreds of millions of outraged Catholics who care about protecting children.

Hopefully, these bold members will continue speaking out publicly from their commission pulpit to press the pope either to fix the commission or to fire them publicly to make clear the pope’s dissembling delay strategy.

The sex abuse commission fix would include at a minimum more and public meetings and the prompt review of unaccountable bishops like Chile’s Barros. The fix needs also to include the addition of internationally respected abuse scandal expert, Fr. Thomas Doyle, to the commission as some members and many Catholics earlier urged strongly.

Enough with the pope’s “cherry picked” safe selections as commission members, many of whom are sitting by like papal puppets while the pope protects his old acquaintance Barros! The pope is unlikely to fire these honest and outspoken commissioners and risk undermining his well crafted but misleading facade, especially with his important visits to the USA and the UN quickly approaching.

Francis found time to meet with fundamentalist USA anti-contraception and anti-gay marriage crusaders to help his USA bishops please their low tax billionaire donors in the 2014 USA congressional elections. Will he now make time to meet with his own commission members in other than a photo op? He better find time to meet with them or be prepared to face the major fallout if fails to address honestly the major sex abuse crisis he faces.

The fallout will likely spread to the USA by the time Francis visits there in a few months, as discussed below. At least two of the abuse commission members, Marie Collins and Peter Saunders, to their credit are pressing hard to meet with the absolute monarch, Francis, about his appointment of a Chilean bishop Barros recently, a major Francis blunder, as well as about the sex abuse commission’s future role as an effective group, as reported recently here in the National Catholic Reporter.

These prophetic Catholics refuse to be used as mere showpiece pawns, as the Vatican seeks to bury the child abuse scandal once again with a “classic delay tactic” advisory commission that superficially paints over the scandal with staged, secretive and scripted meetings semi-annually run by disgraced Cardinal Law’s former canon lawyer, Fr. Robert Oliver.

Meanwhile, self interested and unaccountable Cardinals are publicly bickering brutally over changing the “money matter” of communion for divorced and remarried Catholics, the only real reform issue now being addressed even remotely seriously, as the Vatican tries to appear interested in making reform changes.

The world’s top Jesuit expert on Vatican management structures and practices, Fr. Thomas Reese, with a UC Berkeley Ph.D. in political science, has again criticized Francis’ superficial and ineffectual changes on Cardinals’ and curial matters.

And very importantly, seasoned Catholic reformers, emboldened by the Chilean revolt, are massing in Marie Collins’ Ireland, to assess Francis’ poor record to date, sensing that 78 year old Francis’ papacy has reached the tipping point as increasingly, Cardinals battle, Catholics revolt and prosecutors advance.

Francis’ only potentially effective option now, if he really wants to avoid complete chaos, would be to convene pronto an open ecumenical council, yet he is probably too much “one of the boys” to call a council. Too bad. Unless he does, he will fail big time, sooner rather than later.

Only an open and full council, with women as full participants, has a prayer of succeeding before foreign governments press the Vatican to reform involuntarily. It is only a matter of a short time before outside forces reject directly and emphatically

(1) the pope’s self interested baby breeding ideology in an already overpopulated world incessantly at war over limited energy and water resources,

(2) the pope’s dangerous call for another Western military invasion of the Middle East that appears to benefit the pope’s Big Oil allies and a beleaguered Vatican, but few others, and

(3) the pope’s unacceptable and insufficient approaches to protecting children from priest predators and to respecting in a truly Christian manner women and gay and divorced persons.

Francis’ personal limitations are becoming increasingly evident, while his uninspiring (at best) earlier record becomes better known. The strong willed ex-bouncer Latino Pope Francis seems to have underestimated brave Celtic priest abuse survivor, Marie Collins, and her UK outspoken colleague, Peter Saunders.

A charter member of the pope’s almost illusory abuse commission,

(1) Collins at times complained to the AP’s Nicole Winfield about the commission’s inexcusable long delays,

(2) she boldly, in effect, threatened to quit if bishops were not held at last accountable for protecting priest predators, and

(3) she recently challenged the pope publicly on his selection of the tainted Bishop Barros in Chile.

Peter Saunders has bravely and wisely pressed for real abuse survivors’ roles both on the pope’s illusory commission, as well as on the new UK commission. He knows that only survivors’ prophetic oversight can assure that the “Establishment” will not bury the abuse scandal once again in more ineffective showpiece commissions.

Chilean survivors accuse Barros, whom Pope Francis appointed in January, of covering up abuse by Fr. Fernando Karadima. The survivors say that as a priest, Barros not only worked to cover up Karadima’s crimes, but witnessed some of them as they happened. In 2011, the Vatican found Karadima, a once-renowned spiritual leader and key Chilean church figure, guilty of sexually abusing minors. Francis, with longstanding close ties to Chile, likely knows Karadima and Barros well.

Saunders reportedly directly said recently that Barros “should not be in charge of a diocese where he will be responsible for young people. It’s an outrage. … I personally think that that man should be removed as a bishop because he has a very, very dubious history — corroborated by more than one person, … “.

“This is a well-known scenario of intimidation and abuse that went on for a long time,” Saunders reportedly continued. “And that man is still in a position of power, and it shouldn’t be the case.”

Marking a rare reaction to public criticism against a bishop’s appointment, the Vatican press office released a 19-word statement March 31 in three languages defending Barros’ appointment. “The Congregation for Bishops carefully examined the prelate’s candidature and did not find objective reasons to preclude the appointment,” read that amazing and limp statement.

Saunders and Collins are two of 17 members of the Vatican abuse commission, which met for the first time in its entirety in Rome in February, almost two years into Francis’ papacy.

“The pope cannot say one thing and then do another,” Saunders reportedly said on 4/10/15. “None of us can.” “If he says bishops must be accountable and will be held to account, if there is zero tolerance of anybody within the ranks of the church who is abusing, then they are out — then he has to stick to that,” he reportedly continued.

“I need an explanation as to why these things are not happening. Otherwise, I cannot see any point of me being on the commission,” Saunders reportedly added. “I’m pretty sure that others may feel the same.”

Saunders also reportedly said on 4/10/15 that he had he wrote a letter for Francis about his remarks in February that seemed to justify slapping children. We should be encouraging parents to love their children, not to hit them, because violence only ever begets violence,” Saunders reportedly said. “It teaches a child that if you don’t get your way, you hit.”

See also “Irish abuse survivor calls for removal of bishop accused of abuse cover-up”, with a brief but pointed video here, RTE News, of Marie Collins’ giving her no-nonsense statement about Barros, as well as of the unforgettable statement of Juan Carlos Cruz, the Chilean survivor who accused Barros of abuse cover up complicity. Click here also to see a BBC video of what happened at Barros’ installation that BBC fairly described as a “near riot”.

Meanwhile, a serious division between leading Cardinals, apparently over power and money (what else!), is widening as the farcical Final Family Synod approaches within six months. Cardinal Marx, Chairman of the very wealthy German Bishops’ Conference, has reportedly claimed that the Church in Germany is not “a subsidiary of Rome” and that each bishops’ conference must “preach the Gospel in its own, original way.”

Cardinal Muller, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has reportedly called this idea “absolutely anti-Catholic” and another German, Cardinal Cordes, has reportedly accused Marx of false mercy, “theological blurriness” and language better suited to the “counter of a bar”.

Furthermore Swiss-German Cardinal, Kurt Koch, has reportedly indicated that the purported dissenters are trying to adapt the faith to the world after the manner of some German Christians under the Nazi regime. Muller, Cordes and Koch have long been associated with the positions of ex-Pope Benedict, who had advanced their ecclesiatical careers.

And now South Africa’s Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier dismissed a news report’s label of Cardinal Walter Kasper as the “Pope’s theologian,” saying, “I believe Pope Francis is a theologian in his own right. So he does not need anyone to be presented as ‘his’ theologian.” Cardinal Napier, the archbishop of Durban, reportedly indicated recently that the Pope is “the head of the Church in general and of the College of Bishops in particular.” “It is wrong, therefore, for any one group or individual to try to ‘own’ him or even to claim him as the adherent to one particular school or another of theology,” he said.

Of course, Napier’s and the other Cardinals’ public bickering just prove why convening a full general council is possibly Pope Francis’ only prayer for saving the Catholic Church while he still has time.

Cardinal Napier, as mentioned, had also reportedly recently voiced concern about efforts to claim the Pope as a partisan of Cardinal Kasper. Cardinal Napier reportedly recently said on Twitter “It’s a real worry to read an expression like ‘the Pope’s Theologian’ applied to Cardinal Kasper.” “Why is it a worry?” the African cardinal has reportedly asked. “Unlike Pope Francis, Cardinal Kasper isn’t very respectful towards the African Church and its leaders.”

According to Cardinal Napier, Cardinal Kasper considers African bishops to be “excessively controlled by taboo” and too reluctant to address polygamy and similar marriage problems.

Cardinal Kasper reportedly earlier stressed his view that “Africa is totally different from the West. Also Asian and Muslim countries, they’re very different, especially about gays. You can’t speak about this with Africans and people of Muslim countries. It’s not possible. It’s a taboo… .”

For his part, Cardinal Napier recently told journalists the African bishops’ worries about the preliminary Synod’s controversial midterm report. Cardinal Napier had underscored that “the synod is not called to discuss contraception, abortion, same-sex marriages. It was convoked to speak about the family.”

Cardinal Kasper’s new book promotion tour has often been portrayed by secular media as a presentation of Pope Francis’ views of the Church. The Cardinal is a vocal backer of the view that the Church can, and should, change Catholic teaching that couples who have divorced and civilly remarried without an annulment should refrain from receiving Holy Communion.

This is evidently a “money issue” for German bishops who get government tax subsidies for Catholics who remain in the Church. It is a “reverse money issue” in the USA where it undercuts the US bishops’ strategy of helping billionaire donors use the anti-gay marriage wedge issue to draw out “low tax, less regulation, least safety net” fundamentalist voters.

Cardinal Napier reportedly recently indicated ” … {The initial Synod} was not primarily about how to understand, discuss and resolve particular problems which weigh very heavily on the Church in the different parts of the world.”

The Cardinal reportedly said these problems may include marital breakdown, divorce and civil remarriage; cohabitation with or without intention to marry eventually; ministry to persons with same-sex attractions; polygamy, whether simultaneous or successive; and marriage preparation and the “accompaniment” of engaged couples.

Cardinal Napier emphasized the importance of dialogue among Church leaders. “For a real dialogue to happen, every side and every person must be given due space and time to participate,” he reportedly said. “That is the problem with Cardinal Kasper’s assertion that African bishops don’t matter, because, as he sees them, they are too constrained by taboo,” Cardinal Napier reportedly added.

Intentionally or not, Napier’s remarks make a very strong case for the need for Pope Francis to call for a general council pronto, while he still can. The current divisions will not be resolved at a farcical and unrepresentative Synod.

Napier also proves the folly on the post-1870 succession of “infallible” popes. Neither Muller, Cordes, Koch nor Napier had such problems when the “infallible” popes were Pope Francis reactionary predecessors. Only a general council can avoid the coming chaos, as councils have for almost 2,000 years. What is Francis waiting for?

Francis was elected in an emergency setting after the ex-pope had just failed in his efforts to help elect a Vatican supportive US president, as Vatican financial and sexual scandals were boiling over. The problems he left behind in Argentina and especially Chile are now catching up to him. Major investigations, including in the UK and Australia, are escalating. Women are speaking out strongly, in Rome, Chile, Ireland and elsewhere. The honeymoon appears over.

Francis still has a year and a half to try to help elect a more Vatican supportive US president, such as Jeb Bush. Francis has hinted he may stay as pope until then. Events increasingly indicate he may have done too little too late, as his checkered past gets additional analysis and as the growing gap between his appealing rhetoric and his less impressive results gets more attention.

Hans Kung had tried two years ago to warn Pope Francis to avoid having as a Vatican neighbor the ex-pope, who has been known well by Kung for over a half century. Now the Vatican’s two “resident popes” appear to be in a major contest — Pope Francis with his “theological champion”, Cardinal Walter Kasper, versus emeritus Pope Benedict XVI with his champion, Cardinal Muller.

Muller shockingly and publicly recently has announced the pope is no theologian. Muller, a late pick to head the Vatican “thought police” under the ex-pope, has been telling just about anyone who will listen that as head of the old office of the Inquisition, he must “theologically structure” the papacy. Translation: Only Muller (with help likely from the nearby ex-pope) can speak about faith and morals. Who, if anyone, is really infallible here?

Kasper has confirmed recently that “a battle is going on, …” including in connection with the futile and meaningless Synods. This has involved debates that reportedly are increasingly contentious, with charges of backroom manipulations, bad faith and defective theology. It purportedly also involves competing interpretations of church history and doctrine on “cherry picked” topics that have been or are being argued at the Synods by “cherry picked” all celibate male participants — absurd and bonkers, no?

Rome is burning and the hierarchy continues to fiddle foolishly, as Francis seems to be losing control of the Vatican orchestra.

Why did Pope Francis name Muller to be a Cardinal? Was that a condition to Pope Francis’ being elected? What is the source and nature of Muller’s present power over Francis that he dares to challenge a sitting “infallible” pope publicly like this?

Does Muller possess some dark secret about Francis’ past? Could it be related to the pope’s priest scandals that Muller’s men investigate, which investigative reporter, Jason Berry, in an article linked below, indicated includes an investigation of the former top Jesuit in Chile?

Indeed, Muller’s own reported poor record with respect to protecting predatory priests in Regensburg is hardly exemplary. Will we ever know the real truth without an independent outside governmental investigation?

Please see relevantly the Global Post’s “Church wavers on child sex scandals in pope’s homeland ” and both Jason Berry’s “Backlash against Chilean bishop threatens Francis’ reform agenda”, and “Chilean cardinals close to pope stained by abuse cover-ups“, here, National Catholic Reporter , as well as John Allen’s “Pope Francis may be nearing a tipping point on sexual abuse and Josh McElwee’s “Members of Vatican abuse commission question Francis .. “.

Has the Chilean revolt permanently weakened Pope Francis at the Vatican? It appears to have. Significantly, Pope Francis already had a reported weak record on curtailing priest child abusers in Argentina; see “Pope Francis and Clergy Sexual Abuse in Argentina” here,

[bishop-accountability.org]

Please see also the reported weak record as well of Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the head of the pope’s new “go slow” advisory abuse commission , “Six Ways Cardinal Sean O’Malley Has Mishandled the Abuse Crisis” here,

[bishop-accountability.org]

O’Malley is assisted by his commission “chief of staff”, Fr, Robert Oliver, who earlier served as infamous Cardinal Law’s canon lawyer.

And see the superb analysis, “Vatican Defends the Chilean Appointment” here, BishopAccountability.org .

And in addition to celibate male “civil war style combat” at the Vatican, Pope Francis is hearing more and even closer complaints from women. Last month as noted in a report March 9 a Vatican door opened a little wider for women in the Catholic Church.

An unofficial panel of five women in a Vatican setting forged a brand new conversation about women’s leadership, ministry and roles in the Catholic Church. Steering away from the usual pattern of male clerics discussing and deciding what is best for women in the Church, this conversation was about women by women. This event was truly unique because the panelists were able to speak clearly about their dissatisfaction with the traditions and practices in a Church that one can hope for soon — a Church where it won’t matter whether you’re a man or woman, and you just respond to the call to service.

At this conference in a Vatican setting, the door opened wider for women who have been subordinated women in a Church that has been robbed for almost two millennia of the many gifts women have to offer. The panel also shared their hopes and ideas for expanding women’s roles today.The full transcript of this provocative panel discussion is very encouraging — to men and women. Read the full transcript now.

And as mentioned above and as described below, a major gathering of “Catholic rebels” are massing for a major unofficial strategy session in Ireland. Yes, Catholics are revolting, organizing and reforming on their own in Chile, Ireland and many other places, while threatened power hungry Vatican bureaucrats fiddle like Nero as Rome burned.

As mentioned, the Vatican’s two resident popes appear to be in an “infallibility” tug-of-war — Pope Francis with his “champion”, Cardinal Kasper, versus emeritus Pope Benedict XVI with his champion, Cardinal Muller. Now Muller is apparently publicly and patronizingly trashing Francis’ theological competence as compared to the purported superior ability of the ex-pope and himself, naturally.

Muller has announced the pope is no theologian. Muller, a late pick of the ex-pope, has been telling just about anyone who will listen that as head of the old office of the Inquisition, he must “theologically structure” the papacy. Translation: Only Muller can speak about faith and morals.

Why did Pope Francis name Muller to be a Cardinal? Was that a condition to Pope Francis’ being elected? What is the source and nature of Muller’s present power over Francis that he dares to challenge the “infallible” pope publicly like this? Does Muller possess some dark secret about Francis’ past? Indeed, Muller’s own reported poor record with respect to protecting predatory priests in Regensburg is hardly exemplary.

Yes, according to Muller’s recent public remarks, his office (presumably with hidden help from the ex-pope) must “theologically structure” Pope Francis’ theologically deficient pontificate like Muller disastrously tried to restructure American nuns presumably.

Muller spoke on the occasion of the release of the first volume of the complete works of Joseph Ratzinger, the ex-pope. Muller is helping to edit these voluminous works, instead of spending more time cleaning up the priest sex abuse scandal that his office continues to mismanage. Ironically, this first volume appears to contain the remnants of the ex-pope’s dissertation on Augustine that had been rejected in longer form by the leading Munich theologian for whom it was prepared! So much for theological superiority!

The ex-pope appears to be in a race with his half century long nemesis, Hans Kung, who is also publishing his superior and better selling complete works at the same publishing house, Herder. Francis is apparently getting input from Hans Kung, reportedly in their informal communications as well as presumably via Kasper, who had earlier been Kung’s assistant.

Whatever Muller’s game is, his arrogance mostly serves to amplify the absurdity of the 1870 invention of an “infallible pope”, or ex-pope for that matter. Muller is also hereby undercutting the authority of his mentor’s, the ex-pope’s, rigged Catechism, no? Amen!

This further underscores the reason why Francis must convene a truly infallible and broadly representative general council, which has been the Catholic Church’s final and exclusive authority on doctrinal matters for almost 2,000 years. Multiple and serially infallible popes since 1870 have failed and will always fail — subsequent popes can too easily reverse their predecessors’ decisions as the last two popes often did.

Francis studied in Ireland and Chile. He should realize what is coming in both these countries and elsewhere. Ireland has suffered more than many other nations under perverse Irish bishops.

Cruz is now a top communications executive in Philadelphia and may speak out again when the pope visits there in a few months.

Philly has had an obscene record, established clearly at Cardinal Rigali’s priest personnel chief, Monsignor Lynn’s criminal trial, that entitles Philly in my view to be fairly referred to as the USA’s Pedophile Priest Paradise. Why is Pope Francis honoring the Philadelphia Archdiocese so? Did his Chile fiasco not teach him anything?

The Chile protests have initiated the Catholic Revolution. Now half a world away, an unofficial international Catholic Church reform conference will take place in Ireland from April 13-16. It will be the first time such a large gathering of clerical and lay leaders from the main Catholic Church reform groups have met. It is fitting that it is being held in Ireland, whose Catholics earlier helped preserve the Catholic Church in the so called Dark Ages, as my Donegal parents often told me.

Leaders and participants will come from twelve different countries from several continents, including from the USA and Canada, Australia, India and many countries in Europe. Each of the main reform groups are expected to be represented.

?The event will aim to support and advance fundamental Catholic Church reform, both at the level of structures of authority and at the grass-roots after the revolt in Chile. Topics expected to be debated and discussed include the purported reform agenda of Pope Francis, the future of parishes and communities, women’s equality and methods for communicating with the Vatican. In a disappointing Vaticanesque step backwards, the four day event will not be open to the public, but there will be an open session in the evening on April 16.

Among matters the conference should seriously consider are:

Why did Pope Francis call for a two step, carefully staged and secretive Synod, instead of an open and more promising ecumenical council, like Pope John called for within two months of his papal election? Only a full council, after a thorough and transparent deliberation, can infallibly adopt much needed and permanent structural reforms and overdue and updated definitive teachings on sexual morality and other matters that cannot then be changed readily by future popes.

Why and how did Francis select the Synods’ limited agenda and participants that omits pressing issues like (a) holding bishops accountable to the Catholic 99 % People of God for protecting predatory child abusing priests, and (b) adding urgently needed married and women priests that, among other matters, would help curtail some of the abuse of children?

Why are women and married couples excluded as full participants at Synods on family matters? Pope John’s and Paul VI’s birth control commission, for example, as a half century old precedent, had them as full participants on similar issues.

Why (a) has Pope Francis stacked his new financial commissions with clerical majorities and wealthy male lay members that all serve at the pope’s pleasure, and (b) why has the pope failed so far to select, to review the Vatican’s assets and operations, an outside independent audit firm whose audit report the pope would now commit to make public fully and promptly?

Why has the pope appointed a cardinal, George Pell, to oversee Vatican financial administration, given that he left his country, Australia, seemingly in disgrace after spending a fortune to defeat an abuse survivor’s valid and much smaller claim? Good financial administration requires both experience and integrity. Staffing for finance differs from fielding a rugby or football team.

Why has the pope failed to rebuke publicly by name so many clerical subordinates for child abuse cover-up missteps, like Cardinals Law, Mahony, O’Brien, Rigali, Egan, George, Danneels, Brady, et al. and Bishops and other clerics, like Vangelhuwe, Mueller (Norway), Finn, Nienstedt, George Ratzinger ( Regensburg choirmaster), et al. ?

Why has the pope failed to rebuke so many bishops for excessive expenditures on cathedrals and/or lavish residences like Dolan, Mahony, Bertone, Joseph Ratzinger (retirement convent), et al.? And now why does the pope even promote the Bling Bishop (with his reported two moving vans of “bling”, etc.) to a key Vatican position? Why?

Why, in connection with their canonization proceedings, did the pope keep relevant files on John Paul II and Paul VI secret, as the pope also did with respect to Holocaust financial related files reasonably requested by Jesuit educated author, Gerald Posner, and with respect to priest child abuse records reasonably requested by the Australian Royal Commission? Is Pope Francis hiding something?

Is the issue of communion for divorced and remarried Catholics (a) being mostly pushed by German bishops to save the related tax subsidies, and (b) being mostly resisted by USA bishops (and their Vatican allies) worried about undercutting their anti-gay marriage crusade aimed seemingly at electing next year a bishop friendly, “low tax/less regulation/least safety net” US President like Republican Jeb Bush?

Why is the pope going so slow on efforts to curtail priest child abuse that even one of his showpiece abuse survivor commission member, the UK’s Peter Saunders, has recently even bravely and boldly offered to take over Vatican child protection efforts?

Why does the pope pump Catholic population growth, in speeches and by banning the birth control pill, when he saw up close in Latin and South America and in the Philippines, the horrible plight of desperate couples and their innocent children? These couples already have more children than they can afford to raise properly, no? The world’s population has more than tripled to 7.3 billion in the ex-pope’s lifetime since Pope Pius XI recklessly outlawed birth control in 1930 out of fear of expanding Soviet atheism. Now Francis fears expanding Islam that will in less than a century at present trends have more adherents than the Catholic faith. In a significant recent column, Princeton’s renowned ethicist, Peter Singer observed, in connection with the Pope Francis’ opposition to contraception:

“According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 222 million women in developing countries do not want to have children now, but lack the means to ensure that they do not conceive. Providing them with access to contraception would help them plan their lives as they wish, weaken demand for abortion, reduce maternal deaths, give children a better start in life, and contribute to slowing population growth and greenhouse-gas emissions, thus benefiting us all.” (emphasis mine). For the full article, see

[huffingtonpost.com]

Has the pope learned his lesson to stay out of international politics, an area he is inexperienced with, especially as he now learns that Russia’s President Putin was planning to threaten to use nuclear weapons in connection with his Crimea push, at almost the same time that the pope was unnecessarily and gratuitously honoring Putin at the Vatican? Apparently not, as Francis and his right wing US political allies too often call for more troops on the ground in the Middle East, presumably at least in part at the behest of Francis’ Big Oil associated donors.

In light of the realities underlying the above questions, it seems clear that Pope Francis, sadly for Catholics, has failed so far to match up to the important example of Pope John XXIII. Francis practices “clever clericalism” that, under cover of platitudes about caring for the “poor sheep”, seems almost always to put protecting cardinals and clerics (and their plutocratic donors) ahead of the Gospel message and the poor and defenseless.

At the same time, the pope “jesuitically” feeds, to a gullible and opportunistic media, popular “pious platitudes” to write about, without much original thought or effort being required on their part.

In contrast, Pope John XXIII wisely and courageously called, within barely two months of becoming pope, for an open ecumenical council that effected some worthwhile and permanent reforms. He quietly backed squarely, without much spin, the large majority of bishops who wanted consequential reforms that only an ecumenical council could (and still can) permanently adopt. He did this until 81 years old as he battled both cancer and entrenched Vatican bureaucrats.

Pope John also had the wisdom and courage to investigate thoroughly the moral implications of the birth control pill with a commission that eventually included married couples as full participants. Francis has gone backwards with his Family Synods with all celibate male participants, and some token “natural family planning” couples to sell that limited approach. Cardinal Walter Kasper, Francis’ preferred theologian, referred to Francis’ approach here as “absurd”, while former Irish President, Mary McAleese, a mother and civil and canon lawyer, referred to it as “bonkers”.

Francis could have followed, and could still follow, Pope John’s wise and courageous example. Francis could and should convene a worldwide ecumenical counsel now, with a broad representation and fully open meetings. Instead, Francis has so far mostly and secretively protected the hierarchy, no matter what they did and do. His Family Synods are no “profiles in courage”.

Meanwhile, the US right wing media appear to have initiated attention to the anticipated 2016 USA national election alliance of the Vatican and Jeb Bush. This apparently will be a “reunion” for the Bush family and longtime Vatican power, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, and his clique. This seems evident in Jeb’s recent interview (with even a smiling Sodano-Jeb photo) by the National Review Online, “On the 20th Anniversary of His Conversion, Jeb Bush Talks Pope Francis and How to Win on Social Issues“, here, National Review.

Of course, the winning “social” issues include a “get out the fundamentalist vote” discussion of abortion and other “life” issues, with no mention in the interview of the epidemic of priest sexual abuse of children. Apparently, no reporter dares to ask a potential US presidential candidate for his/her views on clerical sex abuse of children. For shame!

This major issue was instead relegated recently to a safer plea at First Things, a US neo-conservative outlet, in an article, “Pope Francis and Zero Tolerance“. Likely concerned about the erupting Catholic Revolution, as indicated by the near riot at Chilean Bishop Barros’ recent installation, see here , the First Things author raises the alarm on the politically tricky priest child abuse scandal and cover up, which obviously could undercut Pope Francis’ effort to draw out fundamentalist US Latino voters for right wing Republican candidates.

Of course, Jeb Bush spoke in this “softball interview” about his grandchildren, but, God forbid, could not be asked about the priest child abuse scandal or the Chilean revolt, it appears.

Jeb did note, apparently in an appeal to fundamentalist Catholic voters, that the media may be missing the whole story when Pope Francis gets into “specifics.” Jeb predicts that there might “turn out to be a real disappointment” for people, who expect “big changes” in terms of Catholic doctrine, apparently including with respect to the contraception ban.

Jeb added, “But you have to say what you believe as well,” surmising apparently that in the case of Francis, the media, in search of sound bites, may have glossed over some of the pope’s more inconvenient underlying beliefs.

And of course Jeb gratuitously asked questions that appeal to fundamentalist voters like, “Do you think a 13-year-old should have an abortion without a parent’s consent, or being notified?”

Sex and its derivative issues aside, it will be interesting to see how Jeb handles the pope’s anticipated encyclical on global warming, given the Bush family’s well reported long standing ties to “Big Oil” and to the Saudi royal family. Of course, the pope has ties to some of these interests as well.

Population expansion, by unwanted children due too often to the lack of access to effective contraception, is directly tied to global warming. In a significant recent analysis, Princeton ethicist, Peter Singer, noted this correlation, in connection with a discussion of the pope’s opposition to contraception:

“According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 222 million women in developing countries do not want to have children now, but lack the means to ensure that they do not conceive. Providing them with access to contraception would help them plan their lives as they wish, weaken demand for abortion, reduce maternal deaths, give children a better start in life, and contribute to slowing population growth and greenhouse-gas emissions, thus benefiting us all.” (emphasis mine); for the full analysis, see,

[huffingtonpost.com]

Will Pope Francis note in his new encyclical the direct, almost arithmetic, relationship between population and global warming?

Unlikely, and also unlikely that the papal media echo chamber will notice it either or ask him about it. And the misery of unwanted children the pope witnessed first hand in places like the Philippines and in his own Buenos Aires will just continue, in part because popes are above being questioned directly by reporters. Really pathetic, no?

As to the continuing priest child abuse scandal, despite the Vatican’s self-serving secrecy that exacerbated the Catholic Church’s global abuse and cover up crisis, the epidemic remains quite prevalent as two well informed law professors recently observed with specific evidence to back up their observations.

Despite repeated pledges, over years, to “reform,” Catholic officials continue to put their comfort and reputations above the safety of kids and the healing of victims. Please see, “Where is the Transparency?” here,

[hamilton-griffin.com]

The pope’s answer to the Chile revolt, as it is to similar resistance efforts in the USA and elsewhere, is to “stonewall” and to find powerful allies. Hence, it appears most important for the pope to have another “Vatican friendly Bush president”.

This is evidently central to the pope’s worldwide defensive strategy to protect bishops’ (and even Vatican officials, as was clearly the case with Cardinal Angelo Sodano and George W. Bush’s Secretary of State, Condeleeza Rice, in 2005) from priest child sexual abuse fallout from the US Federal government, the world’s most powerful government. Francis already faces a massive Australian investigation and the UK is starting up a comparable one.

More national investigations will likely follow and pressure will almost certainly increase on the US president, the German chancellor and others, to investigate as well.

Incidentally, according to John Allen, Rice was asked in 2005 by Cardinal Sodano (the Vatican’s Secretary of State and mentor of Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s current Secretary of State and heir apparent as pope to Francis), whether the United States government could stop a class-action lawsuit currently then before a US Federal Court that sought to hold the Vatican financially responsible for the sexual abuse of US minors by unaccountable Catholic priests.

Jeb will likely find Francis’ unpredictable support a mixed blessing. For example, Francis has recently created a mess among Mexicans by his derogatory use of the term “Mexicanization”, see here, A Mess: Mexico & Electing Bishops & Jeb Bush Too. Mexican American voters are a significant US voting bloc.

Jeb Bush can also expect a significant backlash among US women voters, especially if as expected, Hillary Clinton is the Democratic candidate, see, Hillary Clinton vs. Pope Francis in 2015 ?

Significantly, Pope Francis and the Vatican recently made, and then compounded, a major blunder in Chile that seriously undermines the pope’s own already teetering sex abuse commission and his aimless Family Synod upcoming in several months.

The Vatican, and an exhausted pope, are now desperately trying to change the subject to worldwide violent attacks by senseless terrorists, to Francis’ upcoming futile Family Synod and to pointless papal trips— anything but the subject of continuing senseless violent sexual attacks on children by priests too often protected by unaccountable bishops.

It is too late for such papal spin. This mistake will even likely lead to some protests during the pope’s upcoming visit to the USA and UN, as well as undercut some of his influence among US Latino voters for next year’s US Republican presidential candidate, likely Spanish speaker, Jeb Bush. This Bush is Catholic, has a Mexican wife and also has close ties to the neo-con Catholic establishment.

Yes, it is too late for the pope to try to spin past this mistake. By bypassing his own abuse commission as Francis just did, few will now take serious either his own illusory commission’s relevance or his futile Family Synod, that absurdly lacks family participants, especially women, as full participants. This Chilean bishop mistake, and the Vatican’s cowardly confirmation of it, are the last straws for many Catholics, especially parents, as should have been clear by the unprecedented near riot at Barros’ installation, see here .

Clearly, the outcry against Pope Francis’s appointment to Osorno of Chilean Bishop Juan Barros, long associated with a notorious child abusing priest, has placed the pope’s already declining credibility, especially concerning his “zero tolerance” policy against sexual abuse, into further question, even among traditionally adamant papal supporters. This includes the US neo-conservative journal, “First Things”, a prime outlet often of key Catholic neo–cons like George Weigel. Mr. Weigel, who had been close to Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, reportedly has also had unusual access to Pope Francis, both currently as pope as well as when he was cardinal.

A usually supportive advocate of the dominant modern “infallible” papacy, William Doino, Jr., has indicated in First Things, fairly, correctly and pointedly, that the Vatican’s explanation of its Barros mistake is hardly persuasive. See “Pope Francis and Zero Tolerance“, where Doino perceptively criticizes the Vatican, see here at First Things.

The Pope’s decision to appoint Barros as bishop of Osorno—even as Barros has been accused of covering up sexual abuse, and of being an eyewitness to the abuse—has been a source of consternation, not least among members of Francis’s own anti-abuse Commission, as Doino correctly points out.

As this First Things’ author properly mentioned, the Vatican itself found Karadima guilty of sexual abuse—and at least three of Karadima’s victims claim that Barros personally witnessed the molestation. Why would the Vatican believe, Doino rightly asks, these victims are telling the truth about Karadima, but not about his long-time associate, Barros?

If the Holy See thinks it can ride through this controversy on the wave of the pope’s popularity, they are mistaken, the First Things author correctly notes. Nothing will so damage Francis and his pontificate as the perception that he is backing away from his unequivocal statements on abuse and accountability, the First Things author rightly concludes, adding that the pope’s widely praised agenda for reform will collapse, or be seen as disingenuous. And we have yet to hear from the abuse commission’s members what they think of the Vatican’s lame explanation. Will the media please ask them?

Moreover, the First Things author, boldly proclaims that now, more than ever, it is crucial that faithful Catholics make their objections known, and that they ask the Holy Father to replace Barros with a bishop the local Chilean community and all the world’s faithful can fully trust. The pope, as discussed further below, may find some of these objectors in Philadelphia when he visits there this summer. And of course, Chilean bishops are hardly the pope’s only bishop problems as a former top diocesan insider, Jennifer Haselberger , amply and thoroughly indicates.

The pope may want to try to talk mostly about the Middle East religious violence or about his upcoming futile and rigged Family Synod that is devoid of families ( especially women) as full participants — the Synod will likely fail, as discussed below! But the Vatican Revolution has already begun in Chile and will not be contained now by more pietistic pontifications.

The Synod is evidently now just another papal ruse, selecting “cherry picked” and “safer” topics and participants, to distract from the fundamental problem facing the Catholic Church — who should control the Church in the future? Almost 2,500 bishops a half century ago, acting as a general council, the Catholic Church’s highest authority for almost 2,000 years, confirmed overwhelmingly in 1965 that the Church consists of all Catholics as the “People of God”. All were supposed to be entitled to have some say on important Church matters, as they often did in the earliest Church. Of course, this turned out to be a ruse. Now the pope has to face a revolution that has begun in Chile.

As happened before the French Revolution in 1789 with the short sighted French king, bishops and nobles, and the general populace, when the Second Vatican Council bishops left town, the Vatican bureaucracy and their carefully selected and elected papal monarchs generally disregarded the will of the People of God.

Three years later in 1968, Pope Paul VI even rejected the will of his own birth control commission comprised of the People of God. Robert Blair Kaiser, a former Jesuit seminarian, who had a long one-on-one interview for Time Magazine in August 1962 with Pope John XXIII and who also knew Pope Paul VI, was a top Vatican reporter for a half century (and who just passed away on Holy Thursday), had vividly described this typical Vatican ruse in his classic book, republished as an e-book, that he made available as a free download as part of his permanent legacy. The ruse is to plant sensitive issues in secretive “go slow” advisory committees, as Francis did with the priest sex abuse scandal and even with his Synods.

Kaiser’s continuing relevance was just confirmed by his recent Vatican Radio interview in January on how Pope John XXIII had hoped to keep the birth control subject away from a full council airing. Of course, purportedly “Good Pope” John XXIII had already taken the child abuse scandal subject completely off the council table by his 1962 secret order to all bishops reaffirming the earlier 1922 secrecy order of autocratic Pope Pius XI, John’s old boss. Pope Francis is not the first pope to try slickly to bury tough problems in irrelevant commissions and synods, and unless Catholics join the Chilean inspired Vatican Revolution, he will likely not be the last to use such Machiavellian tactics.

Now more than two centuries after the French Revolution, Catholics seeking essential reforms appear to have three choices: (1) accept the results of Pope Francis’ upcoming male cleric dominated Synod, (2) leave the Church or (3) stay, resist and join the Vatican Revolution that just began in Chile and change the Church from the inside.

As to the first option, the Vatican since at least 1965 has operated, and still operates, as if it alone is the Church on all important matters. The Synod in October will be just more of the same, from most indications — just another ruse as discussed below.

The Synod agenda and participants were secretively “cherry picked” by the Vatican. For example, no families and certainly no women will vote on family matters.

Moreover, the fundamental issue of bishop accountability, especially for their protection of priest child rapists, is absent from the agenda, see BishopAccountability.org .

The reversal of the cruel contraception ban and Vatican respect and acceptance of married gay Catholics have already, in effect, been rejected overwhelmingly at the initial Synod last October, it appears.

Only the “money subsidy issue”, communion for divorced and remarried Catholics, appears to be up for any further discussion.

As to the second option, tens of millions of Catholics have already left the Church completely, while hundreds of millions more have reduced their participation and/or donations.

As to the third option, a “Vatican Revolution”, Catholics are increasingly resisting and pushing back, some perhaps even violently. In Chile, Catholics recently protested vigorously in church, some even shoving their bishops.

Significantly, one of the leaders of the ongoing Chilean opposition, top US communications executive, Juan Carlos Cruz, lives in Philadelphia. He may reasonably be expected with many others to greet the pope with similar peaceful protests when the pope visits Philadelphia this summer.

Philadelphia, with a very bad history of priest child abuse and bishop cover-ups, will also be the site soon of the US Democratic presidential convention, as well reportedly of a mayoral election contest that may include Lynne Abraham. She had been the Philadelphia district attorney who relentlessly pursued Cardinals Justin Rigali and Anthony Bevilacqua during the last decade over the widespread Philly priest child abuse scandal.

Philadelphia may become central for the current Vatican Revolution, as it was for the American Revolution over two centuries ago.

More ominously, Australia has recently experienced several church burnings by arsonists that reportedly may be connected to continuing outrage over an earlier priest child abuser. Hopefully not, but too often in history, excessive and violent reactions to continuing outrages are not uncommon when political leaders fail to bring criminals to justice.

From his first days as pope, Francis unexpectedly singled out Vatican based German Cardinal Walter Kasper for high praise. He is now considered “the pope’s theologian.” Reportedly, in his most recent book and in a related interview, Kasper claims Francis is facing powerful and growing opposition from church traditionalists in Rome and around the world.

Kasper has said that “a battle is going on, …” including in connection with the Synods. This has involved debates that reportedly are increasingly contentious, with charges of backroom manipulations, bad faith and defective theology. It purportedly also involves competing interpretations of church history and doctrine on “cherry picked” topics that have been or are being argued at the Synods.

Given the steadily increasing government investigations of the Vatican, the pope and Synod bishops appear to be fiddling while “Rome burns”!

Kasper claims to see Vatican II as a model for what he hopes will happen this fall at the Synod and beyond. Of course, Vatican II involved all bishops who eventually had input into both the council’s agenda and the format. Kasper reportedly said Francis “must now make some changes that are visible. With the Synod, the great majority of people are expecting some changes in pastoral practices.”

Will Francis make any changes? Kasper seems uncertain whether the pope can indeed transform the Catholic Church with the Synod. Or, as he ponders, “will his pontificate remain only a brief interlude in the church’s history?” No one can say for sure, Kasper observes.

It depends not on the pope, Kasper reportedly concludes, but on Catholics themselves — including their willingness to move beyond their present divisions and categories. But significantly “Catholics themselves” are generally not present, personally or through selected representatives, at the Synod. Indeed, Kasper has said that the exclusion of women as full participants is “absurd”. Kasper should be calling for a general council with a wide, true and transparent representation of all Catholics, and not just elderly celibate male clerics as full participants.

I think that Kasper , in effect, by his highlighting of this “Synod battle drama “, is engaging, intentionally or not, in a subtle ruse — he is promoting a sideshow. It may matter to German bishops’ like Kasper, with respect to the $6+ billion annual governmental subsidy to bishops, to get from the Synod bishops official Vatican sanction on communion for divorced and remarried Catholics in Germany and elsewhere, just as it may matter to US bishops to prevent that sanction being approved at the Synod, since it could undercut the anti-gay marriage crusade they appear to be “selling” (to get out fundamentalist voters) to their right wing “low tax, less regulation, least safety net” billionaire donors in advance of next year’s US elections.

But communion for divorced Catholics is not the key issue for most Catholics who are not present directly or indirectly at the Synod. That issue is Church governance structure — where, when and how will the People of God get a real voice in their own Church? The Synod is not even addressing a very fundamental issue for millions of Catholics worldwide — holding criminal bishops and priests really accountable for the obscene and indefensible ongoing sexual abuse of minors.

Pope Francis appears to have intentionally and inexcusably left this matter of defenseless children off the Synod’s agenda.

The reason may be that Francis is unable as pope to address this issue honestly, openly and effectively, given the pervasive failure of so many bishops in this area as amply described by the experienced diocesan canon lawyer, here, Jennifer Haselberger . This alone is reason for Pope Francis to convene a general council to address this scandal thoroughly, as part of a restoration of the governance of the Church to the People of God that the Second Vatican Council left unfinished.

Pope Francis can fail with his own current Synod strategy or at least try to succeed by switching now to John XXIII’s general council strategy. It is his choice and decision to make. Either way, the government investigations will relentlessly expand and the Vatican Revolution will continue to accelerate. The Vatican will be reformed soon — voluntarily or involuntarily. That appears inevitable at this point. Cardinals and bishops’ only real chance to save their hides is to urge Francis to call for a general council pronto, in my view as an international lawyer.

With Pope Francis’ escalating stresses and strains that he still faces at his advancing age, including from the strongly reverberating bishop revolt in Chile (see here), the pope must call for a worldwide and open general council while he still can. Otherwise, he will likely have a failed papacy. He should make his prophetic call for a council at this joyful time of Easter, or as soon thereafter as practicable, before it is too late.

Pope John XXIII wisely, humbly and successfully did this a half century ago when faced with far fewer and less threatening crises than Francis increasingly faces.

These protests will undercut the pope’s “less tax, lesser regulation and least safety net” billionaire financial backers, in their US election efforts next year to elect a “bishop friendly” President like Jeb Bush, that will depend critically on the pope’s charisma to try to swing essential US Latino voters to their right wing candidate.

The “family absent” Family Synods seem to be futile public relations farces to preserve a papal infallibility claim, to push baby breeding by opposing effective family planning and to maximize German bishops’ government subsidies for divorced Catholics.

The Vatican’s own internal finances still remain untouched by independent auditors and are still under the ultimate control of a secretive and unaccountable monarch.

The priest child abuse crisis is accelerating despite the pope’s dissembling rhetoric. Even the pope’s hand picked sex abuse commission lay members are regularly publicly criticizing his bishop mismanagement.

Moreover, the leading Jesuit expert on Vatican organizational structure, UC Berkeley educated political scientist, Thomas Reese, has recently criticized directly and convincingly the pope’s so-called “reform of the Vatican bureaucracy”. This all may have been a good try, perhaps, for the over-confident and elderly Pope Francis or just the latest Vatican ploy, but other than raising hopes briefly and preparing many Catholics to monitor closely the coming council, it has effected little of permanent value.

Please see the pertinent, “Vatican Defends Chilean Appointment“, by the informed and fair Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability, an independent charitable organization that boldly documents child abuse by the Catholic Church and other religious groups, here at BishopAccountability.org .

Pope Francis may be heroic, but he is also imprudent, if not rash and arrogant as well. He may have been able as a young Jesuit provincial to save most of his confreres from military thugs, but at his age he cannot alone be expected to save 5,000 bishops and their wealth — these are his top priorities, it appears from most indications.

Paradoxically, worldwide bishops and cardinals are more at risk now than when Pope Francis took over the bad hand the ex-pope dealt him, as the new UK and related investigations make evident.

Once again, a key management truth I learned a half century ago at the Harvard Business School prevails — modern media management can cover-up crises for awhile, but it cannot resolve them. That takes transparent and independent effort over a long period of time. In the final analysis, God cannot be “sold by slogans”. This truth was confirmed for me vividly by my Harvard Law School mentor, later Watergate prosecutor, Archibald Cox, who showed US President Nixon that no one is above the law. And neither are popes, cardinals and bishops!

Pope Francis must call for a council now. Otherwise, he faces failure as an irrelevant papal interlude that raised some brief hopes of a billion desperate Catholics. He has so far also appealed to a mainly mindless media who see Francis mostly as some competition for Oprah Winfrey’s “feel good” remedies and who also makes for easy reporting, nice trips abroad and ample support from opportunistic billionaires.

Francis, overworked and overweight in his 79th year, admitted in his recent Holy Thursday homily that he’s just exhausted. Quite understandable and to be expected. No other major organization in the world would have selected a man of his age and health profile to manage the multiple scandals and messes he inherited.

Francis appears to have been set up by an ex-pope with seemingly delusional worldviews and a corrupt hierarchy irrationally afraid of the escalating governmental scandal investigations. The failed ex-pope quit seemingly in despair, yet arrogantly still cannot let go in the “two pope Vatican bubble” he set up with his convent mate and “instant archbishop”, Georg Ganswein.

Last month Francis suggested retirement was on his mind when he told the Mexican broadcast outletTelevisa that he felt his papacy would last only “four or five years … I do not know, even two or three. Two have already passed…. “.

The pope has also been warned recently by doctors to exercise more, to lose weight and to reduce his carb intake, according to the ANSA news agency. Of course, it is unreported whether his doctors also told him to forgo his unnecessary and stressful media focused foreign trips and photo ops. If his doctors failed to tell the pope this, I suggest, as an experienced lawyer, that the pope retain legal counsel to review seemingly bad medical advice.

“ Do you know how often I think about this weariness which all of you {priests} experience?” Francis said on Holy Thursday at St. Peter’s Basilica, according to another ANSA report. “I think about it and I pray about it, often, especially when I am tired myself.”

Francis still has enough strength and and many millions of Catholics’ good wishes to yet clean up the mess he is now contributing to by convening an open worldwide ecumenical council as Pope John XXIII wisely, humbly and successfully did, in less ominous circumstances before the Internet Era.

It took the experienced Vatican bureaucrat and Church historian, Pope John, barely two months as pope to realize that the Catholic Church could only be fixed permanently, if at all, by convening a full and open ecumenical council. Pope Francis has now had over two years.

Earlier councils were sometimes held at times quite often. The major Council of Constance that addressed the crisis of three simultaneous popes even called for Church general councils every ten years! Popes alone cannot reform the Church. That is clear by now!

The pope through a majority of his clerical picks will still control all Vatican finances — with no commitment or obligation ever to disclose the audited financial statements of the Vatican’s own holdings, even assuming the pope eventually hires an international auditing firm for the Vatican’s own operations and assets. So far, despite the contrived Cardinal Pell sideshow, it appears that Pope Francis has yet to do so.

Five years ago, Angelo Sodano, likely the most influential cardinal since popes became “infallible” in 1870, arrogantly dismissed at a televised Easter Mass, in front of approving ex-pope Benedict, the priest abuse scandal as so much “petty gossip”. Please see Sodano’s infamous “petty gossip” NBC video here, Today. Now at this year’s Easter Mass, Francis must one up Sodano and his irrepressible protegees and call for a general council soon.

Why otherwise would Pope John have convened a massive Church council in the early 1960’s if he thought he could fix the Church alone or with only minor groups of selected cardinals and bishops? This is all Pope Francis has tried to do so far for two years, unsuccessfully for the most part.

Francis was elected by the cardinals who helped create the multiple Church crises. He has mainly relied on some of these same cardinals, mostly secretively so far, to try to resolve the crises. That cannot succeed. In the little time he may have left, Francis must now convene a full worldwide council, as John XXIII humbly did. Otherwise, Francis will leave behind another failed papacy that will then likely only accelerate the Vatican’s demise as a hierarchical monarchy.

Councils have been considered infallible by Catholics and other Christians from the Church’s beginning. They alone have resolved major Church crises over almost 2000 years from the first “Council of Jerusalem” attended by Jesus’ earliest followers in the year 50.

So called “infallible” popes had, in effect, only been invented by Pope Pius IX in 1870 at an unfinished Vatican Council that he convened and controlled as he fearfully faced unprecedented pressure from advancing Italian nationalist troops who attacked the Vatican militarily shortly thereafter.

John XXIII, with much more experience than Francis with the entrenched Vatican bureaucracy and with international politics, had been born under the first pope that had been elected after popes “became infallible”. He had then worked directly under the imperious Pope Pius XI, who made his harmful deals with Mussolini in 1929 and Hitler in 1933, and who also recklessly banned birth control in 1930.

John humbly knew with “infallible papal certainty” that only a truly infallible council could possibly succeed in reforming the corrupt Church. He knew that it was ultimately futile to rely, as a cure for Church crises, on merely an “infallible” pope who could always be overruled by a successor “infallible” pope, as has happened often since John’s papacy untimely ended in 1963.

Francis will be overruled by opportunistic future popes as well, if Francis unwisely fails to convene an open and representative worldwide council soon, a council that alone can infallibly and permanently fix the Church now according to 2,000 years of Catholic tradition.

In the final analysis, it is for Pope Francis to decide now which way to go, either to adopt needed changes by his “own personal fiat” (which would be a big mistake) or by decisions of a new ecumenical council, the only approach that can possibly work.

The haphazard, staged and “cherry picked” “familyless” Family Synods, with their narrow and pre-selected agenda and secretive discussions, hardly adds any weight to what would still after the Synods be Francis’ personal fiats, should he unwisely make decisions without at least the concurrence of a full vote of a legitimate general council.

The Synods’ insignificant “imprimatur” would fool few intelligent Catholics, any more than the Synods’ inane questionnaires fooled them as representing meaningful input from the Catholic 99% “People of God”.

Unfortunately for Catholics, including Pope Francis, Pope John XXIII died in 1963 before his Second Vatican Council could complete essential structural reforms needed then, and still needed.

The Vatican’s well entrenched hierarchy knew in 1963 that it had an ally in John’s likely successor, Pope Paul VI, an experienced Vatican bureaucrat whom they helped elect, as they helped subsequently to elect the two other “Curia friendly” Popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Francis is running out of time to break the Curia’s centuries’ old grip.

Forget the hapless celibate male Family Synods, Pope Francis! The initial all celibate male Family Synod last October was ineffective, almost embarrassing, as a serious effort, and the Final Synod in several months appears to be no more promising

The Catholic Church’s only hope now is with a truly representative and open worldwide general council. It could be convened either by Francis or even by concerned Catholics (perhaps funded in part by the likes of the Gates Foundation, co-headed by a practicing Catholic, Melinda Gates, an advocate for women’s equality and for universal contraception access).

If such an open worldwide council effort fails to occur or to be effective if it is convened, I am convinced, as an experienced Catholic international lawyer, that the Vatican, sooner rather than later, will then be reformed forcibly by outside governments’ pressure. These governments will most likely seek, among other matters, to curtail the hierarchy’s illegal sexual and financial scandals and the continuing threats to defenseless children from predatory priests. If cardinals and bishops refuse to listen to the Catholic 99%, then they will have to listen to the governmental officials the 99% elect.

After over 1,500 years of rule by general councils, in 1870 popes succumbed to the “infallible pope curse”. One pope rules and makes decisions often out of fear — of sex, women, secularism or just plain accountability. The next pope then fears to change his predecessors’ mistaken policies, while he “infallibly” makes more mistakes. And many brainwashed Catholics still buy this “papal bull”!

Francis may win a temporary public relations “battle” in the polls if he refuses to convene a full ecumenical council like Pope John did, but he surely then will also lose the longer term permanent reform war after the polls settle down.

Unlike Pope John, Francis faces multiple major scandals in a 24/7 media Internet Age, especially unprecedented scandals involving priest and even bishop child sexual abuse. These scandals alone could well bring down an unreformed Catholic Church, sooner rather than later.

A century ago, Irish nationalists rebelled at Easter well aware they had a dominant and vibrant Catholic Church behind them. Today, the “unchanging” Catholic Church in Ireland is in shambles.

Significantly, a new rebellion emanating from Chile is now advancing on the Vatican. Self interested Catholic leaders and some opportunistic media flacks can be expected to dissemble and tout that 2/3rds of Chileans are still Catholic (nominally). Yet a new poll indicates 3/4ths of Chileans have little trust in Catholic leaders and 9/10ths of them say Chileans have less trust now than they did a decade ago. The trend is clear and cannot be reversed by anything less than a representative and open ecumenical council, if that. Forget the contrived Synods!

Pope Francis has had close personal and organizational ties to Chile for over a half century. Where will the Church there (and elsewhere) end up, even in the short term, under the pope’s current trajectory? As one informed Chilean observer noted, Chileans’ trust for their Church is in the basement and needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. Despite the pope’s artificially hyped and evidently transitory media star polling, the Vatican clearly has a new crisis — the Latin American Catholic Church!

It is clear now that Cardinal Bergoglio was made pope principally to save the hides of most bishops, especially cardinals, from the “sex abuse wars” and zealous prosecutors, as Bergoglio earlier had been expected as Jesuit provincial mainly to save from military murderers as many of the Argentinian Jesuits as he could in the 1970’s Dirty War.

The Chile Church rebellion, and the pope’s continuing mishandling of it, makes clear that the pope’s top priority as absolute monarch is to protect his “noble bishops” at almost any cost, even risking innocent children. For shame!! Once again, a pope foolishly refuses to admit he made a mistake in transferring this bishop, likely in part since any admission of mistakes by popes undercuts papal claims to “infallible” power, the keystone of post-1870 papal power.

Yes, Pope Francis seems stuck in the priest child abuse basement and just keeps on digging, it appears. Moreover, it is now clear that the illusory “vibrant Latino Church” is a myth. For much of the last few decades, Pope Francis and several of his clique of protegees of Cardinal Angelo Sodano, with their ties to right wing billionaires, have overseen the Latin American Catholic Church’s demise.

And now right wing US billionaires appear to be depending on Francis to deliver more of the US Latino vote next year for their “low tax/less regulation/least safety net” candidates, like Jeb Bush. Good luck! Many of these voters and/or their parents escaped from the harsh conditions they lived under due often to oppressors who were catered to by local Catholic bishops. How dumb does Pope Francis think US Latino voters are?

For a relevant and perceptive analysis by an expert on US Catholic Latinos as to why US Latino voters should avoid voting for Ted Cruz as a US presidential candidate, (Cruz shares many of the positions of Francis’ subordinate US bishops), please see, “Why Latinos won’t, shouldn’t support Cruz for president” here,

[ncronline.org]

Francis is scrambling to find distractions from the Chilean Catholic rebellion, including by over hyping Holy Week parades and rituals, and announcing well timed government tax deals that were dictated mainly by prosecutorial pressures on Vatican officials emanating from Vatican financial scandals.

The pope through a majority of his clerical picks will still control all Vatican finances — with no commitment or obligation ever to disclose the audited financial statements of the Vatican’s own holdings, even assuming the pope eventually hires an international auditing firm for the Vatican’s own operations and assets. So far, it appears he has yet to do so.

As an international lawyer and lifetime Catholic, I had thought that Pope Francis’s well funded “white” public relations’ balloon as the “happy pope” would float until this Christmas. By then, in the pope’s 80th year, it will have run out of air and he will most likely have completed his fruitless and “family-less” Family Synods with little to show for it.

As the pope cannot spin forever his “de facto” disregard for children’s safety from predator priests, he cannot spin forever his “de facto” disregard for women’s equality and sensible family planning, and his inexcusable disrespect of divorced and remarried Catholics, and gay Catholics as well. Steadily, also, more and more poor Catholics, as well, realize that many extravagant “bishop barons” are wasting money on their mansions and personal lawyers, etc., that was intended to help the poor.

The unexpected Chilean rebellion (with its “black” balloons), that began in the Osorno Cathedral over the pope’s outrageous recent appointment of bishop Juan Barros, indicates that Pope Francis’ PR balloon may not make it to Christmas. He will be visiting the USA and the UN this summer and can now expect Osorno-like demonstrations there, perhaps led by Juan Carlos Cruz, a survivor of the sexual abuse that Cruz and others swear Barros condoned. Cruz now lives in Philadelphia where he is a key executive for a top global corporation. He appears to be a brave, shrewd and media savvy advocate for abuse survivors.

Courageous UN leaders and political leaders in many nations like Australia, the UK, Chile, Ireland, et al., are already challenging the pope’s and his subordinates’ indefensible and ongoing records on protecting child abusers. By summer, USA and German leaders will likely also be compelled to get on the governmental investigation bandwagon.

The sad, simple and undeniable truth is that Catholic bishops and priests worldwide will look at Barros’ promotion and now have clear confirmation that, despite all the pledges, policies, protocols, promises and panels, this pope is really no different than any who came before him, when the subject is protecting children, treating abuse survivors mercifully and holding bishops accountable for complicity by covering up sexual abuse.

Francis has at least one major flaw — he seems unable to hold bishops accountable when he should and must, as was clear even a year ago, if not earlier. Please see, “Pope Francis Defends Church’s Response To Clergy Sex Abuse” here,

[pbs.org]

When push comes to shove, Pope Francis does mainly what his predecessors have done, time and time again – he moves complicit colleagues up the hierarchical ladder no matter how egregiously they have helped priest predators and hurt vulnerable youths. He also tries to bury in secretive Vatican proceedings the details of their crimes from public view, as is now happening with Archbishop Wesolowski and perhaps even with the former Jesuit leader from Chile referred to below in Jason Berry’s report.

As the informed, astute and fair observer, Ann Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org. , an independent organization that documents child abuse by the Catholic Church and other religious groups, has wisely indicated, in pertinent part:

“What’s at stake here {in the Barros case} is nothing less than papal accountability. Francis has pledged to discipline bishops who fail to protect children, and the Chilean public, along with members of his own abuse commission, are determined to hold him to his promise.; see Catholic Herald.

Today’s {3/31/15} statement is a disingenuous attempt to shift blame for this decision from the pope to the Congregation for Bishops. Pope Francis made the appointment and must own it. He should begin by explaining his deliberate choice to ignore multiple victims’ testimony that Barros witnessed their sexual abuse by Karadima. Concepcion archbishop Fernando Chomali, who discussed Barros with Francis in person last month, told the New York Times that the pope knew about these serious allegations. “The pope told me he had analyzed the situation in detail and found no reason” to rescind the appointment, Chomali said; see The New York Times .

This response evokes not the compassion and honesty of Pope Francis but the coldness and dismissiveness of Cardinal Bergoglio. As Buenos Aires archbishop, he ignored repeated requests by anguished victims for intervention in their cases. While his colleagues in the US and Europe issued apologies, implemented reforms, and met with victims, he stayed largely silent on the issue of clergy sex abuse, except to issue an implausible denial that he had ever handled an abusive priest. His only known action was to commission a behind-the-scenes report to Argentine Supreme Court judges that impugned the credibility of victims of a criminally convicted priest – an action eerily consistent with the disregard the Pope has shown survivors’ witness in the Barros/Karadima case.

{See} BishopAccountability.org’s report on pope’s response to crisis as archbishop; Victims ignored by Cardinal Bergoglio; Bergoglio’s statement that he never dealt with a guilty priest; Summary of case of convicted Argentine priest Julio Cesar Grassi, including Bergoglio’s effort to exonerate him.

To regain public trust in his reforms, Pope Francis must explain why he chose Barros despite the victims’ testimony, and he must immediately rescind the appointment. Barros must be suspended from ministry while his alleged wrongdoing is investigated.

Going forward, the pope must apply the lessons of the Barros fiasco to appointments, as well as to disciplinary reviews like the {Kansas City Bishop Robert} Finn investigation, which has been pending for many months. The leaders selected by him in the future must have records that indicate the moral capacity to execute the measures that the pope himself has invoked repeatedly — ‘zero tolerance’ and accountability.

It is noteworthy and troubling that neither zero tolerance nor mandatory reporting is included in the universal policy framework – the CDF’s 2011 Circular Letter – that Pope Francis said in early February he wants to be “fully implemented.” The provisions in the framework are weak, leaving far too much to the individual bishop’s discretion. Little good shall come from the Pope’s efforts if he holds bishops – or himself – to such a low standard. For the Pope in the Barros/Karadima case, accountability begins at home.

{See} May 2011 Circular Letter from CDF; Pope’s February 2015 letter to bishops and religious superiors. “

The ex-bouncer pope is pushing back. A contest of wills seems to be going on between the papal sex abuse commission head, Boston Franciscan, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, and the “wannabe” Franciscan Pope Francis, with his team of Cardinal Angelo Sodano protegees. The pope’s spokeman has (3/31/15) said that the Vatican is confident the correct decision has been made in appointing Juan Barros as Bishop of Osorno, in Chile.

The amazing Vatican statement said: “The Congregation for Bishops carefully examined the prelate’s candidature and did not find objective reasons to preclude the appointment, …”. At least the statement did not allude to the pope’s “infallibility”, as a previous related statement appeared to do.

Once again, there is no indication the members of the pope’s almost farcical “abuse commission” were consulted on this “doubling down”, further indicating their seeming irrelevance to the pope on the fundamental issue of bishops accountability for their sex abuse misdeeds. Why have an irrelevant commission, Pope Francis? Many of the commission members are well informed and sincere, not some clerical hacks too often appointed to papal commissions.

Once again, it seems quite clear to me as an experienced international lawyer that Pope Francis will act to curtail effectively priest child abuse only when and if outside governmental pressure, especially from the USA, is strongly applied.

Members of Francis’ Vatican “go slow” commission have criticized sharply Barros’ appointment, as well as their exclusion from the decision process as indicated in NCR interviews last week and below. Many Catholics also are outraged by the pope’s arrogant confirmation of his original mistaken appointment; see the comments here, National Catholic Reporter .

Only celibate men living in the childless Vatican bubble could have made this bad decision, and then arrogantly by a written statement declared it to have been made objectively. Pathetic and outrageous, really. Catholic parents will not have it!

This statement is the “death knell” of the pope’s flawed public relations commission, it would appear. The curtain is rising on the real Francis, no?

US political leaders of both parties are shamefully continuing to give the pope a pass on the child abuse scandal, likely to try to gain political advantage in next year’s presidential and congressional elections. Courageous UN leaders and political leaders in other nations like Australia, the UK, Chile, Ireland, et al., are challenging the pope and his subordinates’ indefensible records, but leaders like the USA’s Obama and Clinton, and even Catholics like Boehner, Biden, Peter King, Nancy Pelosi, Jeb Bush, Rubio, Guiliani, Cuomo, Christie, Jindal, Panetta, Santorum, Jerry Brown, et al., look the other way too often on priest child abuse and bishops’ cover-ups. I was a classmate of Guiliani and King and went to the same law school as Obama. I know they know better and deeply believe the others do as well!

Why this political cowardice? Pope Francis’ high poll numbers, that’s why! Francis’ recently created media star image, created by opportunistic supporters, including low tax/less regulation billionaires like FOX’s Rupert Murdoch, appeals to desperate Republicans and scares unprincipled Democrats. Francis supports through his US bishops’ right wing policies, like anti-gay marriage, anti-contraception/abortion and pro Mideast war policies, as he winks disingenuously to the left with platitudes about helping the poor and controlling climate change, and signals to fundamentalist Latinos with references to the devil and Our Lady of Guadalupe, to canonizations for Archbishop Romero and Franciscan Serra, and to empty promises about the desperate immigrants fleeing Latin American Catholic countries where cardinals too often politically pimp for plutocrats.

Meanwhile, most politicians try to ride the pope’s media made coattails, followed by a mostly complicit and robotic media echo chamber. Yet, well over a hundred thousand (the Vatican’s experts’ own estimate) USA children have reportedly been abused by priests, while the pope and his selfish old boys club spend billions on themselves and try to to shift the cost of helping priest abuse survivors and their families from the bishops to government welfare programs. At the same time, Francis limits entry to the priesthood by excluding married men and women, which only exacerbates the abuse crisis by narrowing the priest candidate pool.

The head of an Australian royal commission into child sexual abuse recently said he has uncovered enough material to justify public hearings on more than 1000 Australian institutions (which include mostly Catholic, but also some Protestant and Jewish institutions) where child sexual abuse has been alleged. Simple arithmetic indicates that the number of comparable US institutions would exceed 5,000 and few US politicians seem to even give a damn. It is a disgrace and hardly a “profile in courage”.

Unlike Chilean Catholics, USA Catholics by and large act like sheep, and just “pay, pray and obey”, while their children are raped by predators who work for clerical con men, who usually live well in tax subsidized palaces with no accountability for their complicity and corruption.

Significantly, Martin Luther, five hundred years ago, quietly began at a German cathedral his revolt over Vatican scandals. Now outraged parents have reignited his revolt at a Chilean cathedral amid chaotic scenes of thousands of protesters. Many shoved their way into the cathedral, as Juan Barros, personally known to and appointed by Pope Francis, was installed as Bishop of Osorno, not far from Francis’ Argentina.

Fr. Alex Vigueras, Chilean provincial of a major religious order, reportedly warned that a “small fire” like this appointment could become “a catastrophe with irreparable losses.” Almost half of Chile’s parliament and an ex-president reportedly even tried to get Francis to reverse his decision on Barros.

Will this be a precedent for US protests of the pope or pleas on behalf of defenseless children from President Obama or political leaders like John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi and Jeb Bush, when Francis visits the USA in a few months?

It seems that the Vatican papal monarchy has learned little since Luther’s time. Barros is accused by a top US communications executive, Juan Carlos Cruz, and several other credible victims, of having been present during their abuse by, and of shielding, Fr. Fernando Karadima, a charismatic, high-profile Santiago priest — and serial abuser of youths— from investigation.

Five years ago, Angelo Sodano, likely the most influential cardinal since popes became “infallible” in 1870, arrogantly dismissed at a televised Easter Mass, in front of approving ex-pope Benedict, the priest abuse scandal as so much “petty gossip”. Please see Sodano’s infamous “petty gossip” NBC video here, Today.

Sodano at times was “de facto” pope during John Paul II’s incapacity. He is still Dean of Cardinals and oversaw the election of Pope Francis. His longtime protegee, Pietro Parolin, is now No. 2 as Secretary of State, and will likely be the next pope. Sodano’s former secretary now heads up Francis’ aimless and futile Family Synods, that are a poor substitute for the general ecumenical council that Francis should convene if he were serious about permanent reforms.

After over 1,500 years of rule by general councils, in 1870 popes succumbed to the “infallible pope curse”. One pope rules and makes decisions often out of fear — of sex, women, secularism or just plain accountability. The next pope then fears to change his predecessors’ mistaken policies, while he “infallibly” makes more mistakes. And many brainwashed Catholics still buy this “papal bull”!

Just before Francis’ election, Jason Berry, a “non-brainwashed” Jesuit educated award winning investigative reporter, in the NY Times urged Pope Benedict XVI to right some of the wrongs of the recent past by forcing out Cardinal Sodano, in Berry’s words, as “… the man who, more than any other, embodies the misuse of power that has corrupted the church hierarchy. …”. Please see, here, New York Times .

Barros had as a seminarian been secretary to the late Chilean Cardinal Fresno, a position in which, says Cruz reportedly, “he knew everything going on in Chilean church. The triumvirate of power in the 1980s was Karadima, Cardinal Fresno and Archbishop Angelo Sodano” — the Italian papal ambassador, who was openly supportive of the military dictator Pinochet’s regime.

Sodano’s Chilean service overlapped in part with Pope Francis’ Jesuit leadership during the nearby Argentinian military dictatorship.

Sodano left Chile in 1989 to become John Paul’s Secretary of State, and in that position was responsible for the appointment of many nuncios, or ambassadors, until 2006. Sodano wielded immense power over appointments of bishops in Latin America and was likely influential in Pope Francis’ earlier promotions by John Paul II as bishop and cardinal.

Another Sodano protegee, Archbishop Ivo Scapola, is the papal envoy to Chile today. According to news accounts, he reportedly influenced Francis to appoint Barros as bishop of Osorno. At Cardinal Sodano’s direction ???

Why then did Francis appoint Barros? Objectively, Francis’ decision to install Barros in Osorno was a preventable disaster. It appears that a key force behind this monumental mistake by the media star Francis was the increasingly evident and dominant influence of Cardinal Sodano and his protegees, as suggested also by recent remarks discussed below from two of the top investigative reporters of Vatican scandals, Gerald Posner and Jason Berry.

“We are used to getting slapped in the face by the Chilean hierarchy, but we didn’t expect this from Francis,” Cruz, one of Karadima’s victims, reportedly and pointedly said of Barros’ appointment. “We had such high hopes of him as pope. … Francis knew about Barros. He knew about my case. If he was from Japan or Serbia, maybe. But he is from next door {Argentina} and he knew all about Karadima. How could he still make Barros a bishop?” .

Please see Cruz in his own very memorable words at the end of this brief video clip here RTE News .

“Pope Francis’ reform broom has not swept up Cardinal Sodano, who at 87 relishes the Vatican power game,” Berry reported as having been said by also Jesuit educated former Wall Street lawyer, Gerald Posner, author of the explosive and comprehensive new book, “God’s Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican” , see here, Amazon.

Berry continued and added: “Despite his age and outsider’s stance when it comes to Francis’ inner circle, Sodano still wields influence with his acolytes, some of whom still have prominent Vatican positions. During Sodano’s tenure as nuncio to Chile, he not only was close to the pedophile priest whose abuse Barros is charged with covering up, but he also influenced Ivo Scapolo, the nuncio who reputedly led the effort to get Barros elevated to bishop. When all the dust settles in the Chilean fiasco, Sodano’s fingerprints will probably be found somewhere central in the Juan Barros appointment.”

Please see the Global Post’s “Church wavers on child sex scandals in pope’s homeland ” and both Jason Berry’s “Backlash against Chilean bishop threatens Francis’ reform agenda” and “Chilean cardinals close to pope stained by abuse cover-ups“, here, National Catholic Reporter .

The pope, however, does have some predictable defenders, including an editor of the Mexican edition of the Catholic magazine Buena Vida. Given the Fr. Maciel precedent in Mexico and the continuing plutocratic billionaire papal influence in Mexico, is it any surprise?

Indeed the prolific and perceptive blogger, Colkoch, recently and pertinently noted, “The Karadima story has too many parallels with the Maciel story to be coincidence. This is especially true in how Karadima and Maciel were handled by the Vatican…’sentenced’ to a life of prayer and penance. Both of the characters and their supporters preyed on wealthy Latin American Catholics, both were allowed to go on doing so in spite of very credible evidence [against] them, both were involved with Sodano and protected by him. and none of their main clerical supporters and abettors have been disciplined or had their careers derailed. This has now gone on through three papacies. What is up with this? ” Yes, Colleen, what is up?

The continuing clerical sex abuse scandals have already helped lead to one pope’s failure and ultimate resignation. Alarmed cardinals then elected an interim pope/media star, Francis, to try to limit potential harm to bishops from the scandals’ continuing and massive waves.

Francis has apparently followed for two years a dual strategy of (a) trying to underplay and string out the scandal with a near farcical abuse commission under disgraced Cardinal Law’s former canon lawyer, and (b) changing the subject with media distractions, like needless foreign trips and endless photo ops, contrived canonizations and aimless synods, papal “double speak” and mixed messaging, pontifications on stopping global warming and militarily opposing ISIS threats and other public relations gimmicks, like pizza deliveries in St. Peter’s Square.

Francis’ cynical strategy has failed. Children’s safety is too important to Catholic parents to be buried for long in distractions.

The pope now faces escalating risks from governmental pressure and/or investigations and even prosecutions in the UK, Australia, Chile, the USA, Germany and many other countries. The pope also faces a serious revolt among at least several non-clerical members of his papal advisory abuse commission, as well as among everyday Catholics, as the unprecedented protests in Chile just showed.

John Allen, the Vatican friendly journalist who seems close to Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley, head of the pope’s abuse commission and member of his elite cardinals’ group, in an untypically critical column (3/27/15) noted: “It’s not clear if Francis fully grasped this at the time, but when he named survivors to that group {the abuse commission}, he was handing them significant control over his reputation. If {Marie} Collins and {Peter} Saunders were ever to walk out, saying they’d lost confidence or feeling that they’d been exploited for a PR exercise, it would have a vast media echo. (emphasis mine)

Allen may be understating the impact of potential commission resignations (potentially by more than just the survivor members, it appears). It also appears that he may have been unaware of investigative reporter, Jason Berry’s important column, earlier in the day, that reported that Peter Saunders, a UK priest abuse survivor and member since last month of the pope’s abuse commission, had already indicated in an e-mail interview that: “Pope Francis has to withdraw this appointment {of Chilean Bishop Juan Barros} or I and others may find it impossible to stay on the commission, …”. Saunders, after less than two months on the commission, reportedly added to this implied threat of resignation: “I am beginning to get a sense of the misguided way in which many church officials operate, … {and} I also sense that they {many church officials} feel extremely uncomfortable, probably threatened by the real prospect that their power — the ‘church’s’ power — will diminish” through the oversight of bishops. (emphasis mine} .

Please see Jason Berry’s “Backlash against Chilean bishop threatens Francis’ reform agenda” and John Allen’s “Pope Francis may be nearing a tipping point on sexual abuse . Both of their reports followed Josh McElwee’s day earlier and extensive “scoop”, here, “Members of Vatican abuse commission question Francis .. “. McElwee’s report is followed by over 200 interesting comments to it so far, many from Catholics increasingly skeptical about the pope’s commitment to holding bishops’ accountable for failing to prevent the sex abuse of youths.

The pope’s conduct so far seems to require the necessary inference that Pope Francis’ top priority in his first two years has been to protect bishops above all else, including above making innocent children safe.

Well informed and balanced Nicole Winfield of the Associated Press reported on Thursday, 3/26/15, that five members of the pope’s own abuse commission have expressed “concern and incredulity” that Bishop Juan Barros has been given command of the Diocese of Osorno in Chile, despite his documented public record of defending the country’s most notorious sex abuser priest.

Apparently, the abuse commission members were not consulted by Vatican officials about the Barros matter, which makes one wonder what purpose the commission serves. In their comments to the AP, Marie Collins, a prophetic Irish abuse survivor and commission member, was sharply and clearly critical: “The voice of the survivors is being ignored,” she reportedly said, “the concerns of the people and many clergy in Chile are being ignored and the safety of children in this diocese is being left in the hands of a bishop about whom there are grave concerns for his commitment to child protection.”

“I am very worried,” said commission member, Dr. Catherine Bonnet, a French child psychiatrist and authority on child sex abuse. “Although the commission members cannot intervene with individual cases, I would like to meet with Cardinal O’Malley and other members of the commission to discuss a way to pass over our concerns to Pope Francis.”

UK Commission member, Baroness Sheila Hollins, a psychiatrist and life peer in the House of Lords, said accountability must be enforced when it comes to protecting children. “The hierarchical rank of the perpetrator must be of no consequence in evaluating the facts,” she reportedly told the AP.

Commission member, Dr. Krysten Winter-Green of New Zealand, an expert in social work and pastoral psychology, reportedly with long standing US ties to Cardinal O’Malley, echoed that view and said she understood that Francis’ “zero tolerance” pledge meant he too, must believe the same. “It is my presumption therefore that in the ultimate analysis justice will prevail and that Bishop Barros and all hierarchy will be held to account as the Holy Father sees fit,” she reportedly said in an email to AP.

As a lawyer, I wish Dr. Winter-Green did not “presume” these important matters that she is supposed to be transparently investigating. I also wish that she said justice will prevail “objectively” and transparently”, not only as “the Holy Father sees fit”. The Catholic Church has this growing cancer of priest child abuse and related bishop cover-ups mainly because popes have too often not seen “fit” to protect children fully from clerical predators. So far, Pope Francis seems to be mainly more of the same.

The governmental pressures are continuing. Germany’s Chancellor Merkel recently spent considerable time at the Vatican with 15 of her top aides. Why? About what?

The pope will be meeting at the White House in a few months. Why? About what? President Obama’s Chief of Staff’s brother, the former Minneapolis Archdiocesan Vicar General, is frequently in the headlines with respect to ongoing investigations of alleged priest child abuse cover-ups. Will the pope and president discuss that matter or any other child abuse subject? President Obama, as national and Federal protector of USA children, should surely raise this important subject with the pope, for God’s sake!

In Australia, a top Archbishop has recently been indicted over allegations of covering up for a priest ultimately convicted of child rape. The sole Australian cardinal, Pell, had earlier exited the country, after giving devastating testimony before the ongoing Australian Royal Commission investigation about his mishandling of a priest abuse victim’s claims. Recently, allegations have even surfaced of sex abuse of students at the Jesuit school attended by Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, around the time he was a student there.

In the UK, a major investigation has just commenced that will investigate church institutions, among others. As UK Home Secretary and top law enforcement official, Teresa May, said earlier this month, the abuse is “woven, covertly, into the fabric of British society”. She warned that “what the country doesn’t yet appreciate is the true scale of that abuse”, but might have added “or the scale of the cover-up.”

The almost daily UK revelations suggest collusion between the various arms of the “Establishment” to protect the great and the good from investigation, either for abuse or for covering it up – police, priests, politicians and performers are all implicated one way or another, it appears. Beyond the police, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is another arm of law enforcement that has some questions to answer. Some have indicated that among the top questions , in the light of all that has been revealed in the intervening 12 years, is why did it instruct Sussex police to drop a 2003 investigation into the then head of the Catholic Church in the UK, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor? And further, why did the CPS decide that its reasons remain confidential?

And now the stories keep coming about disgraced Cardinal Keith O’Brien of Scotland, which may end up before the UK investigation panel. In an recent interview with UK Catholic newspaper, the Tablet, an unnamed priest alleges there were multiple incidents of sexual misconduct by O’Brien against seminarians and young clergy dating back to 1985, the year the cardinal became archbishop. While not involving very young children, some of the seminarians were likely younger and entrusted to O’Brien as their confessor, mentor and superior, which raise issues of sexual harassment as well as abuse. The unnamed person, one of five to have previously made allegations against the O’Brien, said reportedly that he believed at least 40 cases took place involving O’Brien between 1985 and 2010.

The Murphy-O’Connor matter reportedly related to decisions made by the cardinal when he was a bishop in Sussex between 1977 and 2000, and centered on how he handled allegations of child rape by priests and a notorious Father Michael Hill in particular. At the time, the chairman of the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers, which was dealing with a number of claims against various orders of the Catholic Church, reportedly called Murphy-O’Connor’s role in the case “indefensible” and called for his resignation. A key question is why did the CPS abandon investigation into Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor?. See, here,

[secularism.org.uk]

Last weekend, supporters of Pope Francis’ Chilean appointment, Bishop Juan Barros, incredibly tried to drown out the chants of protest against his ordination in Osorno Cathedral. This unprecedented revolt occurred despite Osorno’s close proximity to Argentina and Francis’ longstanding close ties to Chile. In Italy, Pope Francis and his media machine have since focused instead on pizza, relics, gossip, gender theory, etc. — anything but Chile, it seems.

Not so elsewhere. In Ireland, the prophetic abuse survivor, Marie Collins, who now with UK abuse survivor, Peter Saunders, advise Pope Francis on priest child abuse matters, has called on the pope to remove the recently-appointed Chilean bishop. The bishop is alleged by several credible abuse survivors to have covered up for Chile’s most notorious clerical abuser.

Collins says she accepts as truthful the testimony of a male survivor that Barros watched him being abused, yet did nothing about it. See “Irish abuse survivor calls for removal of bishop accused of abuse cover-up”, with a brief but pointed video of Collins’ giving her no-nonsense statement, as well as of the unforgettable statement of the male survivor, here, RTE News .

In the USA, a perceptive and careful Catholic has carefully dissected the captive Catholic media’s shameful and inept attempt to spin the reports (confirmed by vivid videos) of the unprecedented revolt of thousands at the bishop’s chaotic installation. This suggests that Pope Francis may face considerable similar protests from outraged parents and grandparents when he visits Philadelphia, New York and Washington DC in several months. See “Catholics: Don’t Believe CNA’s Spin on Bishop Barros and the Situation in Chile“, here, Waiting for Godot to Leave .

Moreover, in the UK, where a major national investigation of church and other institutional child sexual abuse is just beginning, Peter Saunders, the pope’s other featured abuse survivor who now sits on the pope’s belated “go slow” abuse commission, is also, as indicated above, bravely speaking out — evidently after now having seen over two months up close what the abuse commission’s flawed approach to date has been. Saunders has reportedly said that proof of the Church’s seriousness in tackling the problem will be revealed by its action – or inaction – in cases like the one involving Barros in Chile.

If Francis fails to remove Barros promptly, will either Marie Collins or Peter Saunders or both of them, and/or other commission members resign from the seemingly ineffective abuse commission? As a Catholic grandparent, I hope they both do. As an international lawyer, I think they should. If Barros stays, they are all then just being used, it appears.

Saunders has reportedly also been critical of the Vatican’s handling of another case where Bishop Robert Finn (USA) has remained in power even after he was convicted of failing to report clerical child sex abuse. Finally, Saunders recently volunteered to take over managing the Vatican’s child protection efforts. presumably indicating his dissatisfaction with the currently slow “pro forma” approach.

In his new “Francis the Miracle” book, Vatican journalist, John Allen, describes in detail, presumably based on his conversations with Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the considerable efforts that O’Malley had to make recently to get Pope Francis to act even weakly on seriously curtailing priest child sexual abuse and on holding bishops accountable for protecting predatory priests. At this point, it appears that O’Malley may have gotten much more than he bargained for when he decided to give Collins and Saunders a Vatican platform on the abuse commission to criticize the Vatican’s continuing cover-up. It is hard to believe this is what Pope Francis expected from his evidently “go slow” advisory abuse commission members, even if they purport to speak only as individuals.

Significantly, Pope Francis already had a reported weak record on curtailing priest child abusers in Argentina; see “Pope Francis and Clergy Sexual Abuse in Argentina” here,

[bishop-accountability.org]

Please see also the reported weak record as well of O’Malley, the head of the pope’s new “go slow” advisory abuse commission , “Six Ways Cardinal Sean O’Malley Has Mishandled the Abuse Crisis” here,

[bishop-accountability.org]

O’Malley is assisted by his commission “chief of staff”, Fr, Robert Oliver, who earlier served as infamous Cardinal Law’s canon lawyer.

Pope Francis’ and his discredited ex-pope predecessor have permanently failed with their over hyped and false slogan of “zero tolerance on sexual abuse”. Increasingly, outraged Catholic parents and grandparents are not buying the “papal bull” anymore. They are instead closely watching Francis’ hypocritical actions now, not his empty promises. As just happened in Chile, Catholics are even shouting down their bishops in church, with some violence and even arrests, as early Christians also sometimes did to bad bishops. Political leaders are also watching this closely, as the “Hollywood like Francis facade” fades fast.

Click here to see a BBC video of what is fairly described as a “near riot” — the unprecedented Chileans’ angry protest recently against Pope Francis’ choice of Bishop Barros, alleged to have silently witnessed sexual abuse of young men by his mentor, famous Chilean priest, Fernando Karadima. Francis named Barros to head a small diocese that is close to Argentina and to an active volcano. Francis misjudged. The sex abuse volcano has erupted. See the extraordinary pictures here, Pubimetro , and also the shocking second video of everyday Catholics protesting here, YouTube .

“I hold the Pope responsible,” said Juan Carlos Cruz, a 51-year-old credible journalist who is allegedly a Karadima abuse survivor and also one of the accusers of Bishop Barros.

“This contradicts everything the Pope has said. He was aware of the situation but named [Barros as bishop] anyway,” Cruz told reporters. “We were accustomed to getting slapped in the face by the Catholic Church [in Chile], but getting slapped by the Pope himself is the saddest part. …”, Cruz reportedly added. (my emphasis)

Please see Cruz in his own words in this brief video clip here RTE News .

Bishop Barros is apparently part of a broader Chilean priest sexual abuse culture, that may have even included, according to reported allegations, a former Jesuit superior in Chile. Francis reportedly spent his Jesuit novitiate years studying in Santiago, Chile. Francis likely knew, and knows, some of the key culprits, since Argentina’s and Chile’s Catholic and Jesuit organizations are tied closely. For the broader Chilean abuse situation and Francis’ Chilean connections, please see Jason Berry’s comprehensive description, “Chilean cardinals close to pope stained by abuse cover-ups“, here, National Catholic Reporter .

As the Chilean abuse volcano was blowing the top off the abuse cover up, top researcher, Betty Clermont, was releasing her extraordinarily thorough and revealing new analysis, Pope Francis and the Dirty War: Keeping the Record Straight – Part I and Pope Francis and the Dirty War: Keeping the Record Straight – Part II . Her well documented essays, in my view, blow the top off some key episodes in Francis’ calculated and uninspiring (at best) relations with the murderous Argentine military earlier.

It is not a pretty picture of the pope, but one that must be told, even by a courageous and relentless grandmother if scholars fear to tread. Much of what has been written to date by opportunistic papal cheerleaders appears to have either material omissions or “cherry picked data” or both. Francis’ methods appear to have more in common with Machiavelli’s Florence than with St. Francis’ Assisi. Many Chileans seem to see that by now.

Yes, the sex abuse volcano has erupted in Chile. Francis can only contain its aftershocks now by convening a worldwide ecumenical counsel. The Vatican, even under Francis, has no credibility any longer. The days of {Holy} “Father Knows Best” are over, even in Francis’ own Latino backyard!

Pope Francis, who already faced significant Catholic demonstrations recently in Manila, can expect major demonstrations this summer in Philadelphia, New York City and Washington DC. Catholic parents have reached their limits. The priest child abuse cover-up with respect to US bishops appears to far exceed the Chilean situation that lead to the recent eruption. SNAP and other Catholic groups, if they are smart, can be expected to organize Catholic protest groups as the Francis’ facade fades further. Perhaps they should seek to enlist some Chilean volunteers, since US Catholics seem at times incapable of even standing up to protect their own children from clerical criminals.

In Philly, Francis will be visiting the USA’s Pedophile Priest Paradise recently overseen by Cardinal Justin Rigali, whom Francis still honors. In the criminal trial testimony and documents of Rigali’s former priest personnel official, Monsignor Lynn, a couple of years ago, it appeared that Lynn had determined at one point that almost a quarter of Philly priests had instances of reported sex abuse related claims in their secret files.

In NYC, Francis will get to visit Cardinal Dolan’s cathedral and mansion that are being restored for almost $200 million. Meanwhile, Dolan tries to duck lawyers seeking some access to the $50+ million he apparently had “buried” in a cemetery trust to keep it from helping, among others, some of the 200 deaf children sex abuse victims of a Milwaukee priest pervert whom Cardinals Ratzinger and Bertone reportedly gave a free pass. Of course, Dolan’s predecessor, Cardinal Egan, admitted, in effect, to priest sex abuse cover-ups, then retracted with impunity his admission. Cardinals and bishops are mainly unaccountable, even to the pope, it appears.

Pope Francis may even address the UN in NYC. Hopefully, he will explain why his subordinates are stonewalling two Geneva UN committees (on torture and children) over the Vatican’s child abuse cover-ups.

In Washington DC, Francis will get to rub elbows with the Jeb Bush crowd, as the Vatican gears up again, it appears, to help elect next year a third Bush US President via anti-gay marriage and anti-contraception/abortion crusades. The election push will likely get help from Cardinal Raymond Burke and his Knights of Malta and Carl Anderson and his Knights of Columbus, as they apparently helped elect the last Bush in 2004.

Per top Bush political adviser, Karl Rove, essential help in 2004 from Catholic voters, who were apparently influenced by Burke, Anderson, et al., helped re-elect George W. Bush, the man most responsible for needlessly starting the Iraq War, sending him back to the White House. Bush then proceeded to help Wall Street almost bring down the world’s economy in 2008. So much for Pope John Paul II’s and the ex-pope’s purported opposition to the Iraq War and concern for the poor.

Jeb Bush was recently pictured in a NY Times article with the ex-pope, Ratzinger, and Cardinal Sodano in early 2005. Sure they were all smiling. They in 2005 had just helped get Jeb’s “lied us into the Iraq War” brother re-elected, as Betty Clermont’s excellent “Neo-Catholics” book documents amply.

Now the Vatican under Pope Francis can help Jeb Bush push a war against ISIS that would seem more to advance, it appears, the interests of the Vatican’s Big Oil backers and their present and/or former associates, e.g. Peter Sutherland, former BP Chairman, and James Mulva, former ConocoPhillips CEO, than to advance the USA’s national interest. Haven’t two unnecessary Middle East Bush wars, apparently to protect Big Oil’s interests mainly, been enough for the USA for a lifetime?

Of course, if Jeb Bush were elected, Pope Francis and Cardinal Sodano can expect Jeb to appoint “bishop friendly” US Supreme Court and Federal judges. This is important to the Vatican, as bishops will almost inevitably be frequenting more US Federal criminal and bankruptcy courts in coming years.

And Pope Francis’ likely successor and Sodano’s protege, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, now the Number 2 man at the Vatican, could then ask the US Secretary of State for legal protection whenever needed, as Sodano reportedly did in 2005 did with George W. Bush’s Secretary of State, Condeleeza Rice, when US civil lawyers were trying to get US judicial jurisdiction over the Vatican. Somehow, I am unable to imagine Parolin calling USA President Hillary Clinton. Can you?

Will Pope Francis’ encyclical on global warming be vetted by Big Oil interests? Has it already been? Will Pope Francis blame the devil for using Hell to increase global warming? Please read the encyclical closely and remember the Roman adage — “Cui Bono?” — who benefits?

The Catholic Church is steadily collapsing under the weight of multiple “out of control” sexual scandals, yet Pope Francis spends considerable time on environmental physics, non-essential foreign trips, gender theory, the Mafia, kissing babies, etc. Is someone trying to change the subject from the clerical sexual scandals, the contraception ban, women’s clerical subordination, etc., or what? Hello?? Please see here,

[nytimes.com]

The Chilean revolt has a further likely negative consequence for Pope Francis. Many of his US bishops and their right wing, low tax/less regulation billionaire US Republican backers appear to have assumed that a Latino pope like Francis would be a real plus in steering US Latino voters in next year’s US presidential election away from the Democratic candidate, likely Hillary Clinton.

Even with Francis’ conveniently scheduled election campaign canonizations of Archbishop Romero and Franciscan Junipero Serra , Francis has now shown clearly he has serious problems with Latinos like those in Chile. In Argentina, which he puzzlingly has avoided visiting even to see his lone surviving sibling, a sister still living there, barely 10 % of Catholics reportedly regularly attend weekly Mass. And Francis has recently created a mess among Mexicans by his derogatory use of the term “Mexicanization”, see here, A Mess: Mexico & Electing Bishops & Jeb Bush Too. Mexican American voters are a significant US voting bloc.

Pope Francis can also expect a backlash among women voters, especially if as expected, Hillary Clinton is the Democratic candidate, see, Hillary Clinton vs. Pope Francis in 2015 ?

Predictably, Chilean Bishop Barros has denied any wrongdoing. “I never had knowledge or imagined the SERIOUS abuses that this priest [Fernando Karadima] committed with his victims,” he reportedly said in a recent statement. (my emphasis). Why this carefully crafted and belated denial by Barros? Did Barros know of “non-serious” abuses? Can any sexual abuse of young persons by a charismatic adult priest (or powerful Scottish cardinal for that matter) with considerable influence over them ever be considered “non-serious“? Why is the pope honoring this tainted cleric, Barros?

Pope Francis is publicly and disappointingly increasing the gap between his noble words and his less noble deeds. Francis’ opportunistic “media groupies” may love him, but Latino parents seem to have reached their limit. Chilean parents understand, better apparently than the celibate Vatican and some of the seemingly clueless childless among the media, Nelson Mandela’s reported wise words, “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way it treats its children.”

As the scandal cover-up revelations evidently contributed to the ex-Pope’s hasty exit, Pope Francis is facing, badly, his own out of control abuse scandal crisis recently. It is becoming increasingly clear that neither any pope nor any limited group of bishops can cure a Catholic Church suffering seriously from pervasive sexual abuse scandals.

The pope should follow Good Pope John’s experienced and wise lead and convene a general ecumenical council as promptly as practicable. No pope alone, even an infallible one, can repair the continuing damage, especially a pope whose record as cardinal and pope on holding priests and bishops accountable on credible claims of sex abuse and related cover-ups is as questionable as Pope Francis’ record appears to be.

Francis by now should see the pressing need for a full worldwide Church council. The examples just keep growing, in Chile with the significant “revolt” over Francis’ inexplicable and unnecessary appointment of Bishop Barros, as well as the increasing fallout in the UK from his “wrist slapping” of disgraced Cardinal O’Brien over O’Brien’s reported abuse of young gay subordinates, and in Australia with the criminal indictment of top Archbishop Wilson for an alleged cover-up or a serial priest child predator. All these otherwise unaccountable Catholic Church leaders were allegedly enmeshed in scandals related to the sexual abuse of young and vulnerable victims by adult priests.

The long simmering Chilean revolt by disgusted Catholic parents against the absolute and celibate papal monarchy may finally have now begun, triggered by a quite misguided bishop appointment by a seemingly tone deaf Pope Francis. The revolt began not at Paris’s Bastille, but in a modest cathedral in a small Chilean city near the main pass to Argentina. Barely, a third of Chile’s bishops and half the diocese’s priests attended the new bishop’s installation. The Chilean bishops’ conference sheepishly “rubber stamped” Barros appointment recently, apparently mainly out of “obedience” to Pope Francis. Hardly actions befitting purported “successors to the Apostles”, who too often behave like papal puppets!

As the linked video above indicates clearly, from now on Catholic bishops may need to fear, more, mobs of outraged Catholic parents than abuse survivors’ advocates or lawyers or even government prosecutors. An estimated 4,000 people, dressed in black as a sign of mourning, gathered in front of the Osorno, Chile cathedral, to demand that Bishop Juan Barros Madrid, not be installed, because of alleged connections to notorious priest sex abuse cases.

Outside, several thousand protesters, including local politicians and members of Chile’s Congress held signs and chanted demands that Barros resign. Many of the protesters even made their way inside, despite police efforts to keep them out. Inside the cathedral, supporters of Barros even scuffled with opponents who shouted denunciations. As the video shows, it seemed more like an Argentina vs. Chile football match than a bishop’s installation.

AP reported recently: “While Barros himself is not accused of molestation, at least three victims of sex abuse say he was present when they were molested by the Rev. Fernando Karadima in the 1980s and 90s. …”. Many Chilean Catholics have repudiated Barros’ appointment. For example, Father Alex Vigueras, a provincial superior of a religious order in Chile, reportedly indicated earlier this week that the appointment has “left us perplexed.” “His [Pope Francis’] naming [of Barros] is not in accordance with the zero tolerance that the Church wants … ,” he reportedly added. (my emphasis)

Some 30 priests and deacons from the Osorno area reportedly also had futilely sent a letter to the Chilean papal nuncio last month asking that Barros resign, and some politicians have also opposed the appointment. What is really up with Pope Francis on the critical abuse scandal?

The UK and Australia fallout is also especially ominous as a major investigation of institutional sexual abuse, including in Church settings, is just beginning in the UK ,while the Australian Royal Commission is gathering steam, with hundreds criminal referrals reportedly so far from the different religious groups being investigated there.

Pope John XXIII, with his experience of over a half century as an Italian church official and a quarter century as a Vatican bureaucrat, knew deeply that a pope alone cannot reform the Catholic Church. Pope Francis seems to be slowly learning this lesson. So within a few months of his becoming pope, Good Pope John called for the Second Vatican Council. He died early in the Council process.

John’s successor popes, mainly elected with critical votes of Vatican bureaucrats opposed to John’s unexpected reform process that could undercut their power, negated or reversed some key reform initiatives, especially structural reforms that would curtail the absolute power of the pope and his papal court, the Curia.

Before 1870, ultimate Catholic Church power had resided mainly in periodic worldwide general councils of bishops for most of Church history. In a desperate move to salvage power as Pope Pius IX was about to lose his Papal States’ kingdom in 1870, he pressed bishops to declare popes personally “infallible”. This move, coupled with both the decline of outside European monarchical powers’ direct influence over the Vatican, and the Vatican’s access to modern media outlets enabling it to wield increasing worldwide influence over diverse Catholic populations via “semi-infallible” encyclicals, episcopal appointments and papal diplomats, increased the personal power of popes considerably. John XXIII who served directly under papal autocrats, Pius XI and XII, and saw up close their misguided alliances with Mussolini and Hitler, knew that all powerful popes “were history” by the end of the Second World War.

Pope John seemingly knew when elected in 1958, and Pope Francis evidently has learned by now, that this modern and secretive “papal power surge” was a very mixed blessing, as well as unsustainable in an increasingly democratic and open world.

The Chilean controversy has been closely watched by victims, advocacy groups and lawmakers as a test of Pope Francis’ promises to crack down on clerical sex abuse. Pope Francis has failed that test badly. More than 1,300 church members in Osorno, along with some 30 priests from the diocese and 51 of Chile’s 120 congress members had sent letters to Francis last month urging him to rescind the appointment. But the Pope confirmed his decision to appoint Barros after he recently met with him. “The die is cast”, as an earlier absolute Roman “pontiff maximus”, Julius Caesar, reportedly said..

Cardinals under unprecedented stress two years ago elected Pope Francis as an interim pope to stabilize a Vatican nearly collapsing in sexual and financial scandals. The scandals involved unaccountable cardinals and bishops under the out of touch ex-pope who, in effect, was forced to resign. The cardinals evidently wanted Francis to concentrate on preserving the Vatican’s assets, while protecting cardinals and bishops from prosecutors, thereby maintaining cardinals’ unaccountable power. Francis has done some asset preservation, but is failing in both in protecting bishops and in holding them accountable. Paradoxically, the only way to protect them is to make them accountable.

Pope John XXIII wisely and courageously called, within barely two months of becoming pope, for an ecumenical council that effected some permanent reforms. He quietly backed squarely, without much spin, the large majority of bishops who wanted consequential reforms that only an ecumenical council could (and still can) permanently adopt. He did this until 81 years old as he battled both cancer and entrenched Vatican bureaucrats.

The new pope prioritized by addressing the financial scandals primarily, while seemingly hoping he could defer almost indefinitely curtailing the abuse scandal, He changed the subject with a massive public relations strategy of well publicized papal trips, ambiguous interviews, inconsequential synods and platitudes about helping the poor, condemning Islamic terrorists, growing larger families, subordinating women and even curbing global warming. He took a year to meet with abuse survivors and two years to name a full “go slow” abuse commission under the operational control of disgraced Cardinal Bernard Law’s former Boston canon lawyer. This strategy has failed.

The incomplete financial restructuring has left the monarchical pope solely in charge of the financial committees that are still run by clerics mostly, all answerable ultimately only to the pope and replaceable at any time only by him. Pope Francis has yet to select an independent outside auditing firm for the Vatican’s assets and operations or to commit to making the Vatican’s own audited reports public fully and promptly.

Pope Francis for two years has mainly continued the quarter century old priest child abuse cover-up policy of his two predecessors, it appears. The policy includes keeping secret Vatican records relating to the cover-up, including some records most recently requested futilely by Australia’s Royal Commission. The papal cover-up policy has completely failed.

Now an Australian Archbishop has become the world’s most senior Catholic leader criminally charged with concealing child abuse.The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide, Philip Wilson, has been charged with concealing child sexual abuse by Fr, James Fletcher, who died in prison while serving time for raping an altar boy. If found guilty, the archbishop could serve up to two years in jail. It is uncertain at present whether Wilson’s criminal proceedings will involve any secret Vatican records.

Pope Francis needs to ask whether more criminal charges against bishops, and even cardinals, will soon follow. He needs to revisit his “go slow” approach to curtailing priest child abusers and to holding complicit bishops accountable only to secretive Vatican proceedings. Even one of the pope’s two showpiece abuse survivor commission members, the UK’s Peter Saunders, has now even bravely and boldly offered to take over personally the Vatican child protection efforts, presumably after Saunders has gotten to see up close the “go slow” commission’s selective and inadequate efforts.

Francis needs a real “gamechanger”. He needs to call for an ecumenical council, as Pope John XXIII did over a half century ago. and make the subject of bishop accountability a top priority item for the new council.

Given the escalating governmental investigations, in Australia (including of Archbishop Wilson and Cardinal Pell), in the UK ( including of Cardinal O’Brien), in Minneapolis (including of Archbishop Niensted and his former vicar, the brother of President Obama’s Chief of Staff), in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico (USA) (including of Archbishop Wesolowski), and in many other countries, Pope Francis, in his self declared short remaining papacy, will need all the trust he can generate now by giving the full truth, without spin, to Catholics. A full airing at a council can help build that trust.

Pope Francis seems to think he can do the main investigations “in house” at the Vatican. He needs to “get real” and talk to Anglican Bishop Paul Butler who reportedly said recently: “A full public {governmental} inquiry is required because under those terms people have to take oaths and therefore swear to tell the truth. My fear is the whole story won’t come out without that,” reportedly said Bishop Paul Butler of the Church of England, which has uncovered evidence of sexual abuse by clergy. “We have to be investigated just like anybody else.”,

Archbishop Wilson’s criminal trial will further harm the diminishing credibility of Pope Francis. The Archbishop is vice-president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, a body he previously led as president for six years.

An abuse victim of Fr. Fletcher, Peter Gogarty, reacted to the criminal charges against Wilson with significant insight. He reportedly stated:

“This is an important step in the process of identifying who did know what was going on with these priests, and it’s significant for anyone who has ever been sexually abused as a child, whether in the Catholic Church or other institution, or for that matter in their own home by a family member. What this says is that no-one’s above the law.” (emphasis mine)

Gogarty indicated he had believed that no senior Catholic bishop would ever be charged with concealing a child sex allegation because “it was like a hill too high”. A significant factor is changing prosecutors’ perceptions has been the dramatic impact of a major national commission like the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse called a brave former Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. A similar commission is beginning in the UK called by UK Home Secretary, Teresa May. Similar ones seem inevitable in due course in other nations, including the USA and Germany.

In a related matter, the Australian Royal Commission had found last month that Cardinal George Pell and the Sydney Catholic Archdiocese repeatedly failed in their dealings with Sydney priest sex abuse victim John Ellis.

After Pell testified before the Royal Commission, Pell exited quickly to Rome to become the top money man in the Catholic Church. Pope Francis had rewarded Pell’s mixed (at best) Australian service by making him the powerful head of the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy. He lives in luxury in his palatial Roman “guest house”, Domus Australia, renovated reportedly with $30 million of Australian donations.

If Pope Francis is serious about holding cardinals and bishops to account, he must not only call for an ecumenical council to address the issues, he must do more promptly. Pell must be fired pronto, not promoted and honored. Otherwise, the pope is making a mockery of Jesus’ mandates about protecting children and serving, not dominating, the People of God. Please see “Pope Francis Must Fire Cardinal Pell Now?” here, Christian Catholicism.

With two years as pope under his belt, Pope Francis should also be in a position now to answer, as a self proclaimed servant of the People of God, some key questions on the minds of some Catholics in the 99%. “Friendly” and “opportunistic” journalists, some apparently seeking to preserve their special access to Vatican sources, have failed predictably to pose many of these questions directly.

So here goes. Hopefully, Pope Francis will respond to some or all of them openly and fully. If he chooses not to answer them, the questions will linger to undermine trust in the pope and his otherwise promising message.

So Pope Francis:

Why did you, Pope Francis, call for a two step, carefully staged and secretive Synod, instead of an open and more promising ecumenical council, like Good Pope John did within two months of his papal election? As you know, only a full council after a thorough deliberation can infallibly adopt much needed and permanent structural reforms and overdue and updated definitive teachings on sexual morality that cannot then be changed readily by future popes.

Why and how did you select the Synods’ limited agenda that omits pressing issues like (a) holding bishops accountable to the Catholic 99 % for protecting predatory child abusing priests, and (b) adding urgently needed married and women priests?

Why are women and married couples excluded as full participants at Synods on family matters? Pope John’s birth control commission, for example, as a half century old precedent, had them as full participants on similar issues.

Why (a) have you stacked your new financial commissions with clerical majorities and wealthy male lay members that all serve at the pope’s pleasure, and (b) why have you failed so far to select, to review the Vatican’s assets and operations, an outside independent audit firm whose audit report you would now commit to make public fully and promptly?

Why have you appointed a cardinal, George Pell, to oversee Vatican financial administration, given that he left his country, Australia, seemingly in disgrace after spending a fortune to defeat an abuse survivor’s valid and much smaller claim? Good financial administration requires both experience and integrity. Staffing for finance differs from fielding a rugby or football team.

Why have you failed to rebuke publicly by name so many clerical subordinates for child abuse cover-up missteps, like Cardinals Law, Mahony, O’Brien, Rigali, Egan, George, Danneels, Brady, et al. and Bishops and other clerics, like Vangelhuwe, Mueller (Norway), Finn, Nienstedt, George Ratzinger ( Regensburg choirmaster), et al. ?

Why have you failed to rebuke so many bishops for excessive expenditures on cathedrals and/or lavish residences like Dolan, Mahony, Bertone, Joseph Ratzinger (retirement convent), et al.? And now you even promote the Bling Bishop (with his reported two moving vans of “bling”, etc.) to a Vatican position? Why?

Why in connection with their canonization proceedings, did you keep relevant files on John Paul II and Paul VI secret, as you also did with respect to Holocaust financial related files reasonably requested by Jesuit educated author, Gerald Posner, and with respect to priest child abuse records reasonably requested by the Australian Royal Commission? Are you hiding something?

Is the issue of communion for divorced and remarried Catholics (a) being mostly pushed by German bishops to save the related tax subsidies, and (b) being mostly resisted by USA bishops worried about undercutting their anti-gay marriage crusade aimed seemingly at electing next year a bishop friendly, “low tax/light regulation” US President like Republican Jeb Bush?

Why do you pump Catholic population growth, in speeches and by banning the birth control pill, when your saw up close in Latin and South America and in the Philippines, the horrible plight of desperate couples and their innocent children? These couples already have more children than they can afford to raise properly, no?

In light of the realities underlying the above questions, it seems clear that Pope Francis, sadly for Catholics, has failed so far to match up to the important example of “Good Pope John”. Francis practices “clever clericalism” that, under cover of platitudes about caring for the “poor sheep”, seems almost always to put protecting cardinals and clerics (and their plutocratic donors) ahead of the Gospel message and the poor and defenseless. At the same time, the pope “jesuitically” feeds, to a gullible and opportunistic media, popular “pious platitudes” to write about, without much original thought or effort being required on their part.

In contrast, Pope John XXIII wisely and courageously called, within barely two months of becoming pope, for an ecumenical council that effected some permanent reforms. He quietly backed squarely, without much spin, the large majority of bishops who wanted consequential reforms that only an ecumenical council could (and still can) permanently adopt. He did this until 81 years old as he battled both cancer and entrenched Vatican bureaucrats.

Pope John also had the wisdom and courage to investigate thoroughly the moral implications of the birth control pill with a commission that included married couples as full participants. Francis has gone backwards with his Family Synods with all celibate male participants, and some token “natural family planning” couples to sell that limited approach. Cardinal Walter Kasper, Francis’ preferred theologian, referred to Francis’ approach here as “absurd”, while former Irish President, Mary McAleese, a mother and civil and canon lawyer, referred to it as “bonkers”.

Francis could have followed, and could still follow, Good Pope John’s wise and courageous example. Francis could and should convene a worldwide ecumenical counsel now, with a broad representation and fully open meetings. Instead, Francis has so far mostly and secretively protected the hierarchy, no matter what they did and do. His Family Synods are no “profiles in courage”.

Of course, so far Francis has also salvaged the Vatican Bank’s profitable operations, as he protected Vatican cardinals from prosecutors investigating financial crimes. And he has also tightened his and future popes’ absolute control over Vatican finances — that seems mostly to be about it in terms of significant actual results after two years under Pope Francis.

Predictably, Francis has now, it appears, made a firm decision to stand behind his indefensible decision to assign a bishop in Chile, linked to one of the country’s most notorious clerical sex abusers, as the new leader of a local diocese.

Bishop Juan de la Cruz Barros Madrid was previously Chile’s military chaplain, and likely in that position well known to Francis’ evidently strong ally and former Chilean Papal Nuncio, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, seemingly a long time supporter of Chilean military dictator Pinochet. Barros had been appointed in mid-January as the new bishop of the small Osorno diocese.

Barros is one of at least four bishops mentored by the Father Fernando Karadima , a longtime prominent Chilean cleric. In 2011, the Vatican sentenced Karadima to a life of “penitence and prayer” after finding him guilty of pedophilia and abuse of his ecclesiastical position.

The victims of Karadima have accused Barros of covering up for Karadima, while he sexually abused devoted followers during the 1980s and 1990s. Barros, and three other bishops associated with Karadima, defended their mentor and tried to discredit the victims, even after the Vatican ruled against him. The Chilean Bishops Conference nevertheless forced the four to publicly apologize for supporting Karadima.

Since the Vatican announced the transfer of Barros to Osorno, laity in the diocese, as well as clergy and even local politicians, had written to the papal envoy in Chile to void the bishop’s transfer. More than 1,000 signatures were sent to Rome. Last month, a leader of the Chilean parliament issued a letter signed by 51 MPs to the Vatican to oppose Barros’ appointment.

Nevertheless, Francis has once again, it appears, opted to put the interests of the hierarchy as his highest priority. The Apostolic Nunciature in Chile on Saturday (3/14/15) issued a statement in “trust and support” of Bishop Barros. Once again Francis appears to have disregarded the “sheep” and acted to protect at all costs the interest of seemingly hierarchical wolves.

At least two Chilean members of the hierarchy reportedly had also asked Pope Francis to rescind the appointment. Bishop Barros, it appears, has the support of Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz, archbishop emeritus of Santiago de Chile and a member of the pope’s over hyped Council of Cardinals. Errazuriz himself reportedly has faced substantial criticism for alleged priest child abuse cover up missteps.

During his time as archbishop, Errazuriz reportedly refused to meet with some of those who claimed to have been abused by priests. He also reportedly refused public calls for an investigation of Father Karadima and of the issue of priest sexual abuse of Chilean children more generally. And yet Francis picked Errazuriz for his Council of Cardinals.

The Karadima case has been a major blow to the moral authority of the Catholic Church in Chile. But as Francis has done with the likes of Cardinals Law, Brady, Rigali and Danneels, as well as Bishops Finn, Vangeluhwe, et al., and even Monsignor Ricca, Francis once again appears to back the “boys’ club” members to the hilt, if at all possible.

Three prominent Chilean survivors had denounced Karadima for sexually abusing them at his residence in the early 1980s, when they were 17 years old. The first complaints to the Vatican were reportedly made in 2010. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith opened a secretive Vatican internal process, and found Karadima guilty of pedophilia and sentenced him to a life of “penitence and prayer.”

Soon after the Vatican finding, Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz, then archbishop emeritus of Santiago and currently member of Pope Francis’ council of nine cardinal advisers, publicly apologized for not believing the first accusations made against Karadima in 2004.

After the Vatican’s earlier ruling, a Chilean civilian judge reopened the case. but dismissed it because the statute of limitations had expired. She reportedly did, however, determine that the abuse allegations were truthful.

Meanwhile, Pope Francis has taken his unprecedented public relations efforts to new heights on Mexican TV. In front of a large painting prop of Our Lady of Guadalupe, he predicted in an interview that he may retire very soon, or within three years.

Retire with so much undone? Pope John XXIII at least called, within barely two months of becoming pope, for an ecumenical council that effected some permanent reforms. He did this as he battled both cancer and entrenched Vatican bureaucrats until 81 years old. Francis has so far mostly just salvaged the Vatican Bank’s profitable operations and protected Vatican cardinals from prosecutors, while also tightening popes’ absolute control over Vatican finances — that seems mostly to be about it.

Now Pope Francis is discussing his exit plans and lowering expectations about permanent reforms. Really? What is now stopping Pope Francis from following Good Pope John’s shrewd example by convening an ecumenical council in his final years, instead of taking more unnecessary, almost diversionary, foreign trips?

Moreover, the heat on the pope may have only barely begun, especially from public outrage over the child abuse scandals in the UK, the Philippines, the USA (Minneapolis), Poland, Australia, Germany and elsewhere. Indeed, a UK abuse survivor appointed to, and well advertised by the Vatican clerics associated with, the pope’s new “go slow” sex abuse commission, has recently indicated publicly his dissatisfaction with the Vatican’s overall approach to protecting children, which he now has observed up close as a commission member. Please see, “Leading anti-abuse campaigner offers to take charge of Holy See child protection office” here, The Tablet .

Mexico is an important source of billionaire donations to the Vatican, as well as significant for the pope’s and his US bishops’ evident efforts to elect next year, with some additional US Latino votes, a “bishop friendly” right wing Republican US President.

The Mexican TV interview was triggered by Francis’ unwarranted and ill advised slur about a purported “Mexicanization” process related to drug violence. Pope Francis is now, it appears, trying to pass the buck on Mexican drug wars to the “devil”. The pope reportedly said, ” … I think the devil is punishing Mexico with great fury, …”. Please see, reminiscent of the “Exorcist” movie, the almost surreal video clip of Pope Francis in the recent interview seemingly blaming “El Diablo”, “Mexico is being punished“, here, Washington Post. Please see also my recent related remarks, “A Mess: Mexico & Electing Bishops & Jeb Bush Too“, here, Christian Catholicism.

Now Pope Francis is discussing in detail his exit plans? Did we miss a chapter? Other than salvaging the Vatican Bank and tightening up papal power, what has Pope Francis really achieved in two years? Was Pope Francis elected mainly just to change the subject for a couple of years while the heat was increasing on the Vatican following the abrupt and unseemly departure of the ex-Pope? Perhaps, but the real heat may have only just begun.

For two years now, opportunistic papal promoters, including some “softball” journalists, have pleaded that Francis needs time to “warm up” to address the sexual abuse and financial scandals and the underlying lack of bishop accountability. Pope Francis, in the long TV interview continued his seeming effort to change the subject from what after two years still remains undone at the Vatican. He pays much too little attention in the ‘softball” interview to what specifically, and how procedurally, he intends to help the hundreds of millions who still suffer needlessly under the Vatican’s irrational and self serving policies.

Please Pope Francis, before you tell us more of your retirement and future travel plans — since you took the pope job on voluntarily — please tell a billion plus Catholics what, and when, specifically are you really going to do for the hundreds of millions who suffer because of irrational, unnecessary and unchristian Vatican polices?

Please also, Pope Francis, let the informed experts and democratically elected leaders worry about global warming, containing ISIS and other secondary issues that you spend too much time on. Please focus more instead on making Catholic leaders, including cardinals and popes, accountable and children safer. The pope’s fellow Jesuit, a UC Berkeley political scientist and expert on the Vatican’s organizational structure, has even significantly faulted the pope’s reorganization plan for the Vatican’s bureaucracy.

Some Catholics may smell like sheep to some clerics, but they are not all as dumb as sheep. Many really could care less if Pope Francis likes pizza, soccer, kissing babies or the like! Many of them think Francis was selected to reform a corrupt, possibly even criminal, Church leadership, not to be a transitory “feel good” therapist or an international relations or economics theorist .

In his interview discussion of retirement, Pope Francis reportedly said: “Sixty years ago there were no emeritus (retired) bishops. And now we have 1,400. They (church leaders) came to the idea that a man after 75, or close to that age, cannot carry the weight of a particular (local) church. …”.

When asked if he could imagine a situation where a pope must offer his resignation at 80 (barely 20 months away for Francis), Francis responded that he could. but rejected the idea saying it would create the feeling that a pontificate is drawing to an end. It is incomprehensible to me how Francis can think dioceses may be too much for bishops to manage after 75 years of age, but the entire church can be managed well enough by popes who are even older.

Francis now needs to call for a new ecumenical council as John XXIII did. Francis may win a short term public relations “battle” in the polls if he refuses to convene a full ecumenical council like Pope John did, but he surely then will also lose the longer term permanent reform war after the polls settle down.

Unlike Pope John, Francis faces multiple major scandals in a 24/7 media Internet Age, especially unprecedented scandals involving priest and even bishop child sexual abuse. These scandals alone could well bring down an unreformed Catholic Church, sooner rather than later.

On Vatican finance, Pope Francis seems naively overconfident. Even under Francis, financial matters are still managed by men who report to him privately and serve at his pleasure. After Francis, who knows who will be calling the financial shots in Rome. This is a real concern expressed even by the perceptive Jesuit educated former Wall Street lawyer, Gerald Posner, author of the troubling and comprehensive book, “God’s Bankers : A History of Money and Power at the Vatican” .

On the sexual abuse scandal, the worst for the Vatican may be coming soon, in the UK, Minnesota (USA) the Philippines and elsewhere.

Theresa May, in effect, the head of the UK police and security services, has recently reportedly stated in pertinent part in connection with the new investigation commission with power to compel testimony: ” … We already know the trail will lead into … our churches, … and many other institutions that should have been places of safety but instead became the setting for the most appalling abuse. However, what the country doesn’t yet appreciate is the true scale of that abuse. … ”

May added: ” The inquiry won’t probe individuals but where there is evidence a person has abused their position – no matter how high or how low that position – it will be passed to the police to investigate. So if there has been a cover-up, we will uncover it. And if perpetrators of child sexual abuse are found, they will be brought to justice.”.

Why otherwise would Pope John XXIII have convened a massive Church council in the early 1960’s if he thought he could fix the Church alone or with only minor groups of selected cardinals and bishops? This is about all that Pope Francis has tried to do so far for two years, unsuccessfully for the most part. Francis was elected by the cardinals who helped create the multiple Church crises. He has mainly relied on some of these same cardinals, mostly secretively so far, to try to resolve the crises. That cannot succeed. In the little time he may have left, he must now convene a full worldwide council as John XXIII did. Pope John, when he convened the Second Vatican Council, had much more Vatican bureaucratic experience than Francis has even today.

Councils have been considered infallible by Catholics and other Christians from the Church’s beginning. They alone have resolved major Church crises over almost 2000 years from the first “Council of Jerusalem” attended by Jesus’ earliest followers in the year 50. So called “infallible” popes’ had, in effect, only been invented by Pope Pius IX in 1870 at an unfinished council he convened and controlled.

John XXIII, with much more experience than Francis with the entrenched Vatican bureaucracy and with international politics, had been born under the first pope that had been elected after popes “became infallible”. He had worked directly under the imperious Pope Pius XI, who made his harmful deals with Mussolini in 1929 and Hitler in 1933 and also recklessly banned birth control in 1930.

John knew with certainty that only an infallible council could possibly succeed in reforming the corrupt Church. He knew that it was ultimately futile to rely, as a cure for Church crises, on merely an “infallible” pope who could always be overruled by a successor “infallible” pope, as has happened often since John’s papacy untimely ended in 1963. Francis will be overruled by opportunistic future popes as well, if Francis unwisely fails to convene an open and representative worldwide council soon, a council that alone can infallibly and permanently fix the Church now.

Francis may win a temporary public relations “battle” in the polls if he refuses to convene a full ecumenical council like Pope John did, but he surely then will also lose the longer term permanent reform war after the polls settle down. Unlike John, Francis faces multiple major scandals in a 24/7 media Internet Age, especially unprecedented scandals involving priest and even bishop child sexual abuse. These scandals alone could well bring down an unreformed Catholic Church, sooner rather than later.

Gary Wills wisely indicated recently in an interview for his new book, The Future of the Catholic Church with Pope Francis, “If he [Pope Francis] follows the example of 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 … “. Minor temporary fixes, such as all celibate male Family Synods, financial oversight under the continuing control of an absolute monarch, and superficial media management moves under FOX News alumni are not enough, and can never be, to save the Catholic Church.

Wills, a former Jesuit seminarian and award winning papal historian, is once again right. This confirms why in 2008 the leading Vatican expert, John Allen, described Wills as” … perhaps the most distinguished Catholic intellectual in America over the last 50 years”. Allen, in his new book, The Francis Miracle: Inside the Transformation of the Pope and the Church, perhaps unintentionally confirms in my view Wills’ wise advice that Francis needs to follow good Pope John’s experienced path. Francis must either convene a full council soon or face failure.

Pope Francis has in his first two years warmly reminded Catholics of why their Church and its unique Gospel message are worth saving. But most importantly, he has also shown why Pope John XXIII convened the Second Vatican Council, instead of just deciding changes secretively alone or with a select group of cardinals and bishops.

Pope Francis appears to have desperately done his best for two years to explore changes and reforms to try to save the Catholic Church, despite considerable clerical opposition and the ever present fallout from the priest child abuse scandal. But most importantly, Francis has showed why Good Pope John was right— convening an open and representative ecumenical council is the only way to save the Catholic Church. Anything less than a full council now can never succeed.

Francis’ opposition clerics are mainly among the large majority of cardinals and bishops appointed by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI as “yes men”. This “yes” was especially critical on “papal infallibility sensitive” issues like Pope Paul VI’s 1968 ban on the birth control pill.

The recent Family Synod’s vote of bishops and cardinals was, in effect, approximately 95 % in favor of continuing the ban on the birth control pill, indicating that artificial contraception should generally be avoided, apparently to promote more Catholic babies, among other goals. This should be a sufficiently ominous example of the strength of the current episcopal opposition, even to change a “teaching” that the vast majority of Catholics, including most priests, in good conscience have rejected for a half century.

To see the effect of the “cherry picked” bishop selection process of the last two popes, compare this to the vote on the same issue of John XXIII’s birth control commission, which included cardinals and bishops and the Jesuit’s top moral theologian of the twentieth century, Fr. Josef Fuchs. The earlier vote was approximately 95% in favor ending the ban on the birth control pill. That is an approximate shift from 95% in favor of ending the ban to 95% in favor of keeping it, accomplished mainly by “infallible” popes’ bishop selection process.

In 50 years, the “natural law”, that purportedly was the philosophical foundation for the ban of the contraception Pill, was unchanged, but the papal politics and bishop appointments did change over the half century. Incidentally, not only was the most prominent Jesuit moral theologian of Francis’ lifetime, Fuchs, opposed to banning the Pill, so was the most prominent Jesuit systematic theologian of Francis’ lifetime, Fr. Karl Rahner, who was also opposed to the ban. Were not Fuchs and Rahner also true Jesuit “Sons of the Church” like Francis claims to be?

Pope Francis over the past two years has also shown clearly, intentionally or not, that neither he, nor any future “revolving infallible monarch” (an 1870 non-biblical invention of Pope Pius IX), could ever really save the Church. This has just been confirmed for me again by the above linked recent “Francis books” of Gary Wills and John Allen.

Pius IX, in effect, for the first time in 1870 made “infallible” whomever is the current pope, rather than the Church general councils that had exclusively been “infallible” for the 1800 prior years. Since 1870, popes have been “infallible” and, for all practical purposes, the “last word” on moral “dogma”, Church “structure”, bishops’ status and even Church finances. The latest pope was always the “most infallible”.

To try to compensate for the loss of his Papal States kingdom in 1870, Pius XI created an ultimately unaccountable and fatally flawed “top down” Church management structure. Recent and ongoing Vatican scandals are the inevitable fruits of that misguided structure, as Francis must painfully be learning daily.

The post-1870 unaccountable Church hierarchy up to the present, who mostly benefit in power and wealth from an absolute papal monarchy under an “infallible” pope, have resisted, and should be expected always to resist, strongly, every pope’s reform efforts that seeks to hold them accountable even for facilitating child rape or to forgo papal infallibility as is absolutely necessary.

It is becoming increasingly evident that many of the current hierarchy are just waiting for the next pope’s election to reverse Francis’ present, and expected, further reforms that they may object to. Some cardinals clearly are already trying to do this with Francis’ initial reform efforts, as their hierarchical predecessors did with John XXIII’s key reform initiatives a half century ago.

Most importantly, “Good Pope John” knew he needed a full ecumenical council’s decisions to make any meaningful permanent changes. He realized, as Pope Francis should realize by now as well, that mere decrees of a pope and determinations of marginal synods would always be ineffective longer term against a future “infallible” pope seeking to avoid the earlier decrees and determinations.

In the final analysis, it is for Pope Francis to decide now which way to go, either to adopt needed changes by his “own personal fiat” ( a big mistake) or by decisions of a new ecumenical council, the only approach that may work. The haphazard, staged and “cherry picked” Synod, with its narrow and pre-selected agenda and secretive discussions, hardly adds any weight to what would still after the Synods be Francis’ personal fiats, should he unwisely make decisions without at least the concurrence of a full vote of a legitimate general council. The Synods’ insignificant “imprimatur” would fool few intelligent Catholics, any more than the Synods’ inane questionnaires fooled them as representing meaningful input from the Catholic 99% “People of God”.

Unfortunately for Catholics, including Pope Francis, Pope John XXIII died in 1963 before his Second Vatican Council could complete essential structural reforms needed then, and still needed. The Vatican hierarchy knew in 1963 that it had an ally in John’s likely successor, Pope Paul VI, an experienced Vatican bureaucrat whom they helped elect, as they helped subsequently to elect the two other “Curia friendly” Popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

Forget the hapless celibate male Family Synods! The initial all celibate male Family Synod last October was ineffective, almost embarrassing as a serious effort, and the Final Synod in several months appears to be no more promising.

The Catholic Church’s only hope now is with a truly representative and open worldwide general council. It could be convened either by Francis or even by concerned Catholics (perhaps funded in part by the likes of the Gates Foundation, co-headed by a practicing Catholic, Melinda Gates, an advocate for women’s equality and for universal contraception access).

If such an open worldwide council effort fails to occur or to be effective if it is convened, I am convinced, as an experienced Catholic international lawyer, that the Vatican, sooner rather than later, will then be reformed forcibly by outside governments’ pressure. These governments will most likely seek, among other matters, to curtail the hierarchy’s illegal sexual and financial scandals and the continuing threats to defenseless children from predatory priests. If cardinals and bishops refuse to listen to the Catholic 99%, then they will have to listen to the governmental officials the 99% elect.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s recent papal “visit” with 15 of her top advisers, the Australian Royal Commissions’s massive institutional child abuse investigations, and the similar UK investigation now underway, are all likely preludes to this governmental pressure. Outside governments in 1870, in effect, reformed the unacceptably corrupt and incompetent Papal States’ governance by letting Italian nationalists take control of the Papal States kingdom, without serious opposition from major European powers, even from so-called Catholic monarchs.

Governmental intervention, at least by indirect legal and financial pressure as is already beginning to happen, will inevitably increase if an ecumenical council is not held soon. This pressure may happen even if a council is held, since the Vatican may have stalled for too long in making real reforms. But Pope Francis would most likely still be better off by being “proactive” by convening a general council soon with a detailed and specified mandate. Otherwise, he risks having to accept outside governments’ terms, which are quite likely to be worse, at least for the hierarchy and their opportunistic plutocratic supporters, than any reforms the Catholic hierarchy may voluntarily adopt.

Without an open and effective general council, the Vatican in due course will most probably self destruct under the weight of its unending scandals, irrelevant and irrational “dogmas” and its unaccountable “top down” management structure.

Very significantly, following the Vatican’s own disastrous conference on women, an open and “unofficial” Vatican conference on women was held recently. It was a stark contrast to last October’s tightly stage managed and ultimately ineffective all celibate male Family Synod. It provided some indication of the really positive potential that could be expected from an open ecumenical council.

Please note the Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter (“NCR”), Josh McElwee’s enthusiastic report, and comments thereto, “Vatican event tackles women’s equality, inclusion, ordination“. Josh’s report got over 800 comments, many very supportive, in only two days before NCR conservatively first closed comments, and then moved the report off its face page, it appears. See here:

[ncronline.org]

[ncronline.org]

Pope Francis’ cannot reform the Catholic Church permanently, unless he gets off the “infallible pope seesaw”. Anything he decides personally will likely be ideologically challenged internally, and will also be reversible by his “infallible successor”, as the latest “reform of the reform” as happened with some of the key reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

Pope Francis, with help from his capable and eager Jesuit “army”, must convene a broadly based worldwide council with an express and detailed mandate, including as specified tasks publicly making bishops (including popes) accountable again to the Catholic 99% “People of God”, as well as of adopting an overhaul of Catholic teachings in light of current scholarship and scientific knowledge. No more ideological Catechisms crafted, in effect, in secret.

Absolute monarchies and pervasive secrecy are obsolete in the 24/7 media Internet Age. With modern technology and good planning, this council should be more efficient and significantly shorter than the Second Vatican Council, which had tried to address 400 years of accumulated neglect of pressing issues following the Council of Trent. That was an impossible task for one Council. The 1870 First Vatican Council had had only a limited agenda and ended abruptly, thanks to advancing and unfriendly Italian nationalist troops.

The “infallible pope seesaw game” was invented in 1870 by a desperate Pope Pius IX. It still persists. When Francis said after the initial Family Synod last October that he will be the “guarantor” of Synod determinations, he was playing that “game”, intentionally or not. Guarantor of what? On what authority? Pius IX’s rigged council? Does the Council of Constance decision that council decisions always trump popes’ decisions apply to Synods? Does a papal decision trump a Synod’s determination? For how long? Until Francis’ successor is elected? Francis now needs to convene a council, or likely face being a footnote in the papacy’s final chapter.

In the “game”, the latest monarchical pope’s preferences are always the “last word”. For example, John XXIII changed Pius XII’s positions. Paul VI changed John XXIII’s positions. John Paul II and Benedict XVI not only changed their predecessors’ positions, but they cunningly and arrogantly tried to cement almost all of their personal preferences into a permanent and “semi- infallible” Catechism that they almost dictated! Who will change Francis’ positions in a few years if he continues on the infallible seesaw without the needed general council?

Unfortunately for Pope Francis’ situation compared to John XXIII’s situation, the “infallible pope seesaw” is most likely about to experience some abrupt stops if Francis fails to change his current trajectory by convening a general council. Ex-Pope Benedict has, in effect, already been knocked off the infallible seesaw by fallout from the priest child abuse scandal.

Also, the Vatican still faces several potentially decisive challenges from the priest child abuse scandals. Francis and many of his cardinals, in my legal assessment, still unwisely underestimate this threat. For example, Francis and his advisers are clearly shortsighted with their “go slow” sex abuse commission and with Archbishop Wesolowski’s delayed and secretive Vatican trial.

And going forward, the next pope will also control, absolutely and privately, Pope Francis’ powerful new financial staff. Who watches the papal hand in the till? Most of the recent Vatican financial scandals occurred right under papal noses, in some cases apparently with papal acquiescence, if not actual direction. For example, Cardinal Bertone, in effect, said that the ex-Pope approved the December 2012 $20+ million loan that the Vatican Bank’s outside auditors pressed to have written off as uncollectible.

Francis seems to suggest he cannot get off his Vatican seesaw so easily. He indicates he is restricted because he is a “Son of the Church”. Which prior pope’s “Church”?

Recent “infallible” popes have differed on major matters. Francis has not yet really even questioned one iota of the Catechism. He is running out of time. He is on top of the papal seesaw at present. The papal playground may soon be overrun by prosecutors. He can, indeed he must if he wants real change, get off the seesaw and return decision making permanently to a general council, as has been the acceptable tradition for over 90% of Catholic Church history.

Moreover, as to whatever structural and teaching changes Francis might ultimately try to adopt on his own as pope, without convening a council, following his Final Family Synod in October, those changes would be, and I expect likely will be, up for further changes again in a few years by his “infallible” papal successor. Is that all Francis gave up his retirement years for? A few years in the Roman sun and a lot of “photo ops”?

This seesaw effect even happened, after John XXIII’s untimely death, with respect to key matters like collegiality, married priests, contraception and priest child abuse. All of these matters were left unfinished by the Council under Paul VI, or in the case of contraception, married priests and priest child abuse, even unaddressed or untouched, by the 2,500+ bishops at the Second Vatican Council.

Paul VI’s papal mismanagement of the Council’s agenda and spirit was possible likely only because of the post-1870 Catholic Church’s fundamental structural flaw of “infallible popes”, instead of only “infallible councils” as was the case for almost 1,800 years before 1870. The Church is still paying the high price of Pius IX’s and Paul VI’s misguided strategy.

New popes are not really bound much either by their predecessors’ positions or even general councils’ loosely defined preferences. Indeed, since 1870, popes have been generally unaccountable to anyone.

To prevent this currently embedded “infallible pope seesaw effect”, where the latest pope is always the “last word”, Pope Francis must act bravely to end this potentially perpetual and ultimately fatal “latest infallible pope tyranny”. Otherwise, he likely will be just the latest temporary turning point on the papal seesaw. Given the escalating outside pressures on the Vatican, the time for such games is over.

Yes, Pope Francis must call for a decisive worldwide and representative Church council after, if not before, his inconclusive Final Synod meets in October. The farcical Synods make clear that more and broader dialogue is long overdue and desperately needed. This dialogue cannot happen at all secretive all celibate male synods.

“Infallible popes” have ruled the Vatican often badly since 1870. Popes are free to disregard their predecessors’ decisions. Despite hollow talk about decentralization, popes still control all Church matters like absolute monarchs, at a time when absolute monarchs are obsolete for many good reasons.

Even under Francis, financial matters will be managed by men who report to him privately and serve at his pleasure. After Francis, who knows who will be calling the financial shots in Rome. This is a real concern expressed even by the perceptive Jesuit educated and former Wall Street lawyer, Gerald Posner, author of the explosive and comprehensive book, “God’s Bankers : A History of Money and Power at the Vatican” .

This seesaw approach can no longer work in the current 24/7 media Internet Age— that is very clear. As an experienced international lawyer. my growing fear, recently confirmed by my inferences from John Allen’s and Gary Wills’ new “Francis books” linked above and by a recent and unprecedented UK police raid, is that the pope, on his current trajectory, will likely ultimately fail due to escalating cardinal opposition. This opposition will likely then forestall essential accountability reforms until the Vatican itself is completely overwhelmed soon by growing legal pressures, as evidenced by both the UK raids and the relentless pressure from the Australian Royal Commission that, in effect, already drove Cardinal George Pell to Rome, and the UK investigation that has just begun.

Yes, my fear was just strongly confirmed, first, by my reading of the newly released books by Allen and Wills. These reinforce considerably my fear of an impending Francis’ failure. John Allen’s book, “The Francis Miracle: Inside the Transformation of the Pope and the Church“, is by one of the best connected Vatican journalists. Gary Wills book, “The Future of the Catholic Church with Pope Francis “, is by the Pulitzer Prize winning historian and one-time Jesuit seminarian. Both Allen and Vatican reform authority, Jason Berry, have indicated they consider Wills to be a top Catholic public intellectual. Wills, like Jason Berry, is an independent thinker. Like Berry, he also has some evident Jesuit sympathies in my view.

My fear of Francis’ impending potential failure was also confirmed by the recent UK dawn police raids on very prominent public figures’ homes in a decades’ old pedophile ring investigation. This indicates clearly that the heat is rising rapidly, even for the most senior officials with any possible alleged tie to child abuse scandals. If homes of a recently deceased UK Home Secretary. Lord Brittan, and the UK’s 91 year old former top military leader, Baron Bramall, can be raided by teams of plainclothed detectives, are the residences, records and even persons of senior Catholic clerics immune from prosecutors’ reach? If the Vatican hierachy’s lawyers are telling them this cannot happen to them, Vatican officials would be well advised to get a second opinion!

My concern is that there may soon be more than enough cardinals, who are insufficiently focused on the Vatican’s serious and increasing abuse scandal legal risks, who will be positioning to get the next “infallible” pope to try to undercut Francis’ reform efforts. Even Pope Francis seems to believe he can contain the priest child abuse scandal with pious platitudes and a “go slow” commission and also control related Church leadership investigations secretively within the Vatican.

I am quite skeptical as an international lawyer that this Vatican effort to “lowkey” the abuse scandal can succeed, no matter how wealthy and well connected the Vatican may think it is. The recent police raids in the UK of prominent officials’ residences, the recent Australian Royal Commission’s very adverse public findings with respect to Cardinal George Pell’s mishandling of priest sex abuse claimants, and other recent aggressive governmental actions tend to suggest the Vatican can expect very rough sailing for many years to come. How much can a pope with a partial lung in his 79th year be expected to manage? Yes, he needs to convene a general counsel promptly.

As mentioned above, cardinals a half century ago undercut some of Pope John XXIII’s key reform initiatives, including his birth control commission. Reversing the ban on contraception still remains a pressing major reform issue for most Catholics under the current pope. Pope Francis’ initial Family Synod bishops seemed more focused, however, on breeding more Catholic babies than on helping stressed couples plan their families. Did not the recent trip to the Philippines teach the hierarchy anything?

I am disappointingly doubtful that Pope Francis will call for a general council, as he really needs to do, to end the pernicious modern tyranny of infallible popes. I expect, if he does not do so, that he will fail ultimately because whatever he “decides” upon solely as “infallible” pope, even with a thin “Synod veneer cover” can be, and likely will be, cunningly reversed by his successors’ “reform of the Francis’ reforms”. That assumes, of course, that Francis, and any of his successors, survive as unaccountable monarchs after the worldwide child abuse investigations in Australia, the UK and likely Germany and the USA and other countries eventually run their course over the next few years.

Is the de facto tyranny of personal papal infallibility, that Pope Francis and all future popes face, really inevitable? Must the latest pope always be “idolized” as the “final word” on Church teachings? Pope Francis has expressly acknowledged popes make mistakes, including himself, as some of his public gaffes confirm.

For over 90% of its history, the Catholic Church survived without infallible popes. For more than 450 years after the Council of Constance in 1415, the earliest tradition that held that representative general church councils (like Nicaea) were the “final word”, had been formally accepted and observed as “definitive”, notwithstanding some powerful Vatican popes who may have intentionally avoided convening a general council to avoid being “overruled”. Modern Catholic Church history since 1870 when popes were first “made infallible” and the “final word”, indicates very clearly, especially as it relates to the priest child abuse, that purportedly infallible and effectively unaccountable popes can be doubly dangerous for the integrity of the overall Catholic leadership, as well as for that leadership’s fidelity to the true Catholic faith and to the Vatican’s conformity in practice to the Gospel message. The latest pope can often craftily overrule his predecessors, hardly a mark of infallibility or an acceptable way to handle the “truth”.

Popes can, of course, also buttress this “mystical manipulation” of the truth by requiring candidates for bishop to declare allegiance to the latest “papal truth”, as the last two popes did with the “pope made ban” on contraception. Most significantly, personal papal infallibility is also historically unprovable, scripturally unsound, theologically unnecessary and morally dangerous. Gary Wills succinctly summarizes fairly and clearly, in his new book linked above, the overwhelming historical and scriptural case against personal papal primacy, the foundation for popes’ claim for personal infallibility, among other “papal truths”.

Can Pope Francis end the cycle of infallible tyranny in practice that Pope Pius IX began in 1870, in effect, by having himself declared infallible just as he was about to lose his papal kingdom to Italian nationalist troops? Francis can end it — but his only real option, as discussed above, appears to be to call boldly for a broadly representative ecumenical council of all Christians, ideally with male and female, Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox independent representatives as full participants. It may also be advisable to have in attendance as auditors representatives of other major religions, such as Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. Nothing less than a general council can preserve a Catholic Church that wants truly to try to follow the Gospel message, in my view.

The pope might also consider declaring now that the decisions of this new general council, with or without papal concurrence, will be definitive. Yes, the Council of Constance trumps the First Vatican Council — an honest historical reality and a wise outcome.

This conforms honestly to what the first Council of Jerusalem showed in 50 with apostles in attendance, to what the first ecumenical council showed in 325 at Nicaea with the Roman Emperor Constantine in attendance, and to what the major Council of Constance decided in 1415 expressly, namely, that the decisions of ecumenical councils trump the decisions of popes. The earliest and clearest Church tradition, then, is about free and open dialogue among representative Christians who decide by consensus, not by coercion pursuant to top down decisions of unaccountable and self perpetuating monarchs.

It is important for Pope Francis to be ever mindful henceforth, that a half century ago, the public prosecution of senior Catholic clerical leaders for covering up priest child abuse cover was unthinkable. Today, it is both thinkable and almost inevitable in due course. One readily available way to reduce prosecution risk for cardinals, and even popes, would be for Pope Francis and a general council to preempt prosecutors by reforming the Catholic Church voluntarily first. This would reduce future public pressure on prosecutors that the the UK police raids on senior officials clearly show is building.

The Council of Constance solved in 1415 the then major problem of three simultaneously competing popes. Francis and future pope now face the problem of serially competing popes — the latest pope has all the power and thus is the “last word”. The superiority of a council over any pope was the absolute rule of faith for most of Catholic history and must be restored by Francis. That is the only way to resolve the problem of serially competing popes and to preserve the Catholic Church from the major challenges it still faces.

Otherwise, any future pope can rewrite the rules, as post-1870 popes have done too often with mostly negative consequences — the worst being the efforts of the last two popes, who without the benefit and authority of a council, often disregarded the clear import of the Second Vatican Council’s decisions and spirit, and instead pushed. under color of a “creeping infalliblility”, their personal positions on many debatable matters, most egregiously in a “semi-infallible” Catechism. Gary Wills in his new book linked above provides excellent examples and succinct analysis of the weaknesses of some of these two popes’ positions, including those related to papal primacy, contraception, abortion, women priests, child abuse and confession.

Even the all powerful Roman Emperor Constantine respected, at the first worldwide general Council of Nicaea in 325, the need for a spirited and open discussion among several hundred bishops, and a vote by the bishops on important teaching and structural matters, which Constantine accepted. Modern popes, ironically, who have personally benefitted from the top down coercive style that Constantine and his successors introduced to Church governance, have shown much less respect for the process, precedents and decisions of 1800 years of Church councils than Constantine likely would have shown.

This “papal tyranny” has been most evident during the last three decades with the so-called “reform of the reform” in which Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI sought to “rewrite” positions that conformed to the spirit, and sometimes even the letter, of the Second Vatican Council’s pronouncements. These pronouncements had reflected the affirmative views and considered judgments of the vast majority of the world’s bishops who attended the Council.

Are some Vatican cardinals then really just waiting for the next “infallible” pope to negate Francis’ efforts, as greatly concerns me. The well informed John Allen, in my reading of his latest book linked above, seems to think that is exactly what at least some cardinals are expecting will occur. Allen, with good sources, appears in my view surprisingly pessimistic about Francis’ potential permanent impact. Given Allen’s up close observations of what I call the “infallible pope seesaw effect”, this is perhaps unsurprising, but still quite troubling to those with high hopes for permanent reforming changes seemingly promised by some of Pope Francis’ pious rhetoric. The recent and extensive mostly negative assessment of Pope Francis in the influential German newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, seems to confirm the building resistance to Pope Francis reflected by the Vatican officials that Allen alludes to.

Also, Wills, per Jason Berry in his review of Wills’ latest output, ” … in the new book had the option to say much more about Francis. Instead he sent off a flaming arrow of cautionary good news, and held back, waiting. …”. In the March 2015 boo linked above, Wills appears to me to be mostly hedging his bets on Pope Francis. However, as mentioned above, in an earlier interview last October about the upcoming book, Wills indicated, as mentioned above, that: “… If he [Francis] follows the example of 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 also seems here to be in favor of an new general council as the way Francis can have the most positive impact. Wills added in the interview that he personally believes “the changes [to be expected under Pope Francis], 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 predicted in October “church authorities [will] rather let practices lapse than end them with formal decrees.”

Perhaps I am too much the lawyer, but it is difficult for me to see how one can “ease off” on some of these prohibitions. For example, there is no such option to become “half pregnant”! It the birth control pill sinful or not? If the knowledgeable Wills projected priorities are sound, it is difficult to see how reversing Paul VI’s 1968 ban on contraception could occur other than at a new broadly representative worldwide council. As indicated above, the initial Family Synod’s celibate male participants voted, in effect, over 95% to retain the ban on the birth control pill.

In this new book, Wills revisits the blunders behind Paul VI’s fateful birth control encyclical of 1968, which permanently weakened popular belief in the pope as some mystical wizard. Paul had appointed an advisory commission of senior clerics and lay people, women and men, who over four years extensively analyzed the morality, biology and psychology of contraception and of the the birth control pill. They voted 64-4 in favor of the ending the birth control pill ban.

Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani a reactionary in charge of the old Holy Office of the Inquisition and long time friend and colleague of Paul VI, even stacked a small group of bishops to press for the upholding a natural law argument, that nothing should prohibit the fertile ends of sexual intercourse. The conservative Jesuit on the commission, John C. Ford, had told the commission that masturbation would now run wild. Souls had been sent to hell for committing the mortal sin of contraception. Would they now be given passes to leave?

Paul VI agreed with Ottaviani that if he gave way on this, the entire structure of Church teaching (and papal infallibility) would crumble. So Ottaviani got Ford, after the commission’s final and only report was delivered to Paul VI, to write a “counter report” to give Paul VI some ‘cover”. This shabby effort, which was spun misleadingly as a “minority report”, as is told by me here in light of recent disclosures from Ford’s assistant on the “counter report” . Please see my NCR column, “New birth control commission papers reveal Vatican’s hand” here,

[ncronline.org]

Instead, the promulgation of the 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae saw a huge crumbling of papal prestige, a demystifying of the office in the media age, massive dissent on a global scale, with theologians and even some bishops siding with the freedom of conscience invested in People of God, the new term for lay people. I expect this will happen again if pope Francis fails to convene a general council soon as discussed above.

Paul VI’s ruthless disregard for his own birth control commission’s pro-contraception advice has been documented fully in Robert Blair Kaiser’s classic “The Politics of Sex and Religion”, which he generously has made available as a free e-book here:https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/151118

An organization’s management culture and structure significantly influence the organization’s output, including within the Catholic Church. Structural changes, which can be implemented in a shorter period, change an organization’s culture over the longer term. I learned this first a half century ago at the Harvard Business School. This was confirmed numerous times since then while advising over several decades many multinational organizations, including religious ones.

The Catholic Church’s structural absence of minimal bishop accountability and its accepted culture of pervasive secrecy, even after two years under Pope Francis, have significantly contributed to, and will continue to contribute to, the Vatican’s ongoing (and organizationally lethal) sexual abuse and financial corruption scandals. The pernicious structural defect cannot be repaired merely by replacing some officials and the culture cannot be changed merely by covering over it over with some vague “feel good veneer of mercy” and an emphasis on popular piety, including more papal saints, relics, myths, etc.

Restoring transparent accountability for Church leaders, that clearly existed in the earliest Catholic Church, is the most important need that Pope Francis must address. All else are secondary needs that cannot be reformed permanently, unless bishops are once again accountable to the Catholic 99% faithful majority.

Most importantly and perhaps paradoxically, in the 24/7 media’s Internet Age, the more popes continue to try to operate in this secretive and unaccountable way, the less moral authority they will actually have, the weaker the Vatican will really become, and the greater the prosecution and reputation risks for cardinals and bishops.

For much of the time since Constantine until 1870, popes exercised power as absolute monarchs of a sizable Italian kingdom. Popes still in different ways, sometimes almost delusionally, try to continue exercising similar power. Popes base this exercise on their declining worldwide moral authority. Popes still also try to resist others rulers’ conflicting oversight on worldly matters, such as women’s equality, birth control access, child abuse prevention, marriage regulation, financial corruption, and, especially, Vatican management accountability to the rule of law for illegal actions.

Papal monarchy is an increasingly counter-productive management structure both for spreading the Gospel and even for protecting bishops. In any event, the papal monarchy structure is no longer really necessary — popes almost everywhere can now evangelize openly and freely, raise sufficient donations readily, and communicate easily with bishops worldwide, without imperial or similar interference. The unaccountable papal monarchy is otherwise also unsustainable in an Internet Age of democratic oversight. Pope Francis must know that well by now.

Popes have struggled to resist outside rulers’ oversight at least since Fourth Century Roman Emperor Constantine first sought to control popes directly. Popes resisted often by mimicking emperors and kings with popes’ own top down and self perpetuating male leadership structure that operated often secretly, usually without management accountability, and used religious propaganda broadly to protect the hierarchy’s power and wealth. The Vatican still operates this way in key respects. That is a big mistake — both religiously and politically.

Moreover, Catholics want open dialogue with, and honest answers from, their bishops, no? They want more than absurd all celibate male Family Synods, with a chance to offer obtuse and/or irrelevant questionnaire responses that likely will barely be read. Catholics want, and need, to know if bishops, including popes, really serve the Catholic faithful, including sinners? If they do, then why do bishops not dialogue openly and honestly more with the faithful? Are couples who use contraceptives truly sinners? Are divorced and remarried persons who receive communion truly sinners? Are same sex couples truly sinners? Is covering up priest child sexual abuse more than a “church sin” — is it also a civil crime to be reported always and promptly to the police?

Catholics want honest answers from bishops to these and other questions, not patronizing acceptance by bishops as “sinners”, especially for actions many millions of Catholics do not think in good conscience are really “sins”. A clear corollary of bishops’ lack of accountability is that the faithful’s insights are rarely ever taken seriously by bishops, including Pope Francis, it increasingly appears. For example, the pope sets the agendas and selects the participants and timetables on Family Synod matters that are critical for hundreds of millions of families, with little significant input from real families, especially, God forbid, women.

These pernicious Vatican management practices of lack of accountability and secrecy have also led to the related and continuing steady decline in papal moral authority. History shows clearly that in human experience serious scandals and moral decline are inevitable consequences of the lack of effective organizational accountability and true transparency. Checks and balances are needed in the Catholic Church as in every other organization. Whatever the Holy Spirit’s role, the Spirit is not a “hands on” papal manager, as Vatileaks made abundantly clear.

Bishops watch very closely what Vatican officials, especially the pope, actually do, much more than what popes say in defensive public relations statements often intended to ward off other governments’ scrutiny. Francis continues to this day to protect shameful cardinals and bishops, seemingly as his top priority. This tells other cardinals and bishops clearly that they will not be held accountable either. This does not advance the Gospel message, and long term will not even protect cardinals and bishops who may be free of wrongdoing.

Popes have struggled to resist outside rulers’ oversight at least since Fourth Century Roman Emperor Constantine first sought to control popes directly. Popes resisted often by mimicking emperors and kings with popes’ own top down and self perpetuating male leadership structure that operated often secretly, usually without management accountability, and used religious propaganda broadly to protect the hierarchy’s power and wealth. The Vatican still operates this way in key respects. That is a big mistake — both religiously and politically.

Harvard’s renowned foreign policy scholar and at times top US State and Defense Departments official, Joseph Nye, had earlier fairly ranked the Vatican as the world’s No. 1 “soft power” with its influential worldwide moral authority. This power has been declining rapidly over the last decade with the Vatican’s continuing sexual and financial scandals, that are now regularly exposed worldwide in a 24/7 media world. For example, New York Cardinal Edward Egan’s recent obituaries focused more on his dismal priest child abuse cover up record than on his ministering to World Trade Center 9/11 attack victims.

Moral authority must be earned regularly to be sustained. The massive Australian child sex abuse investigation, the similar new UK investigation (with its related “dawn detectives’ raids” on former UK officials’ homes) and likely other similar investigations that appear inevitable in the USA, Germany and elsewhere, only guarantee the steady erosion of Vatican moral authority. So will the release expected worldwide later this year of the Hollywood movie, “Spotlight”, starring Michael Keaton. The movie will dramatize the Boston Globe’s exposing a decade ago of Cardinal Law’s massive Boston pedophile priest scandal. Meanwhile, Pope Francis and his Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, continue to invite Law as a honored guest at official functions. Pope Francis recently even made Law’s former canon lawyer, Fr. Robert Oliver, the key staffer on the Pope’s “go slow” advisory sex abuse commission. Talk about the absence of accountability, no?

Pope Francis in practice appears to be continuing to try to underplay the child abuse scandal, evidently to try to protect shameful cardinals and bishops, whenever possible, as his top priority. This weakens, not strengthens, the pope’s moral authority. Paradoxically, that also weakens the legal and political positions of all cardinals and bishops, even those with nothing to hide.

It is virtually certain that papal moral authority will continue to decline so long as Pope Francis tries to preserve the Vatican’s secretive lack of accountability, which inevitably diminishes the trust of Catholics and others in the Catholic Church’s leadership.

This continues to be the case increasingly, even after the superficial and steadily diminishing returns from the Vatican’s massive public relations efforts to sell this “Friendly Pope”. Francis has been seen positively mainly by a fickle and discouraged public that had been fed up with his predecessor German Shepherd’s perpetual growling, endless evasions and incompetent management. Francis has had two years with few real results to show. He must now act decisively to restore accountability and transparency or else! The bloom is steadily fading from the papal rose.

The slow and secretive Vatican prosecution under Pope Francis, for example, of a Polish Archbishop diplomat who allegedly abused many poor children and had over 100,000 child porn pictures on his computer, hardly enhances Vatican moral authority. Neither does a “go slow” child sex abuse advisory commission with “showpiece” abuse survivor members, nor financial “oversight” commissions dominated by conflicted clerics and “cherry picked” papal plutocratic pals, who are all replaceable at will by an unaccountable pope and his secretly to be selected successor. Pope Francis is clearly trying to build an even stronger papal monarchy that cannot possibly succeed in the post-monarchical Internet Age in the midst of endless scandals, civil lawsuits and governmental investigations.

Secret papal elections and bishop appointments, and top down celibate male control of women, couples and children, are harmful holdovers from a long gone era that have little to do with the Gospel message. Making bishops, including the pope, accountable to the 99.99% Catholic faithful, female and male, is the most important challenge facing the Catholic Church, especially Pope Francis. Facing the challenge squarely is also the only way to preserve the Vatican’s moral authority and soft power. When will Pope Francis realize this sufficiently?

Pope Francis has for two years now avoided facing this accountability challenge seriously — instead he unwisely, if not desperately, depends on slick media gimmicks, bureaucratic delay tactics and farcical distractions like all celibate male Family Synods to discuss families and sex. Francis’ avoidance of moving to restore transparent management accountability is his fundamental flaw to date, and also his Achilles’ heel! He is running out of time. He cannot succeed in saving the Catholic Church unless and until he begins to make the entire Church leadership, including and especially popes, accountable permanently to the Catholic 99% faithful, as they originally were, for good reasons and in conformity with clear Gospel mandates.

Pope Francis cannot stop the momentum for democratic oversight no matter how many “low tax” billionaires, right wing politicians and papal promoters back him opportunistically in the short term. Powerful kings were unable with armies, torture and executions to avoid the inevitable democratic changes in leadership accountability and transparency wrought by the American and French Revolutions. Francis and his current clique of conflicted cardinals cannot avoid much longer, merely with platitudes, publicists and plutocrats, the related Catholic Democratic Revolution. He must act expeditiously to begin inexorably to eliminate the Catholic Church’s self interested and self perpetuating hierarchical structure, and also to restore permanently a leadership selected by, and accountable to, the Church’s 99% faithful, as Catholic leaders usually were pre-Constantine. If Francis fails to act accordingly, outside governments will soon force him to act. His recent “command performance” for German Chancellor Angela Merkel and fifteen of her key advisers should have taught him enough about how fragile his situation really is.

Pope Francis, in his 79th year, has earned on his 2 year papal report card a “B” for effort as a senior citizen, a “C” for generating hope for change with his skilled public relations and mixed messages, and at most an “Incomplete” for real and permanent results. Even John Allen, a usually friendly “papal grader” perhaps concerned with preserving his Vatican access, appears to be hedging his bets. Allen has indicated recently with respect to permanent changes, that Francis has retained traditional teachings and that the ultimate impact of Pope Francis, after two years as pope, remains unclear. Unless Francis changes some “traditional teachings” (several of which have not been “traditional” for very long), his ultimate impact would be negative, as false and high hopes once again disappoint millions of Catholics, significantly as a result Francis’ skillful, but then misleading, mixed messaging.

I think, as a concerned Catholic with some relevant experience who is not dependent on Vatican access to make a living, that Francis’s likely ultimate impact by following his current plans can now be seen clearly enough. The pope is, if one is objective, failing on his interim report card, as his real positions are becoming clearer. He will also most likely fail fully ultimately, for reasons I discuss below, unless Pope Francis changes course substantially before his 80th birthday at the end of next year.

Pope Francis says Catholics should “create a mess” to help him promote changes in the Catholic Church. The Catholic majority are pleased for now; although many are skeptical. Some see a bright ray of hope shining through the crisis of trust triggered by Church scandals. Others think the window of opportunity for hopeful light from Pope Francis will close soon if he is not prophetic and transparent. Indeed, some even think the Vatican’s current “holy mess” will be its final mess.

Yet, Francis has so far offered few indications about concrete changes he really wants. Many Church leaders seem fearful of any changes. Yet, many Catholics and others are finally pressing for permanent changes. They have by now seen Vatican misconduct up close and too often. They now also understand better that many of the Vatican’s frequently ambiguous, if not vague, basic biblical and historical sources supporting papal power have too often been overplayed, if not misused, in encyclicals and a Catechism, to justify supreme papal power . Significantly, these permanent changes, that the Catholic majority seeks in good conscience and good faith, may differ ultimately from what many in the Vatican now want. As the “infallible Supreme Pontiff” for millions of Catholics, Pope Francis has the best papal opportunity in many years, if not centuries, to fix the broken Catholic Church. This may also be the final papal opportunity to clean up the “holy mess”. Time will soon tell.

This crisis has led to one papal resignation already. Pope Francis appears for many reasons to be the Vatican’s best and last chance to lead on initiating overdue Church changes. Pressures beyond Vatican control can be expected to compel more severe changes if Francis fails to act effectively and transparently. This has already begun to happen with respect to Vatican finances, as a result of the continuing European governmental investigations of multiple misdeeds involving both the Vatican Bank and the Vatican’s own significant portfolio assets. Prospects for criminal prosecutions of Catholic Church officials have seemingly caused the Vatican to focus on overdue reforms in ways that earlier financial penalties and shameful publicity had rarely done before. As with corporate criminal executives worldwide, prosecution risk is generally a uniquely effective deterrent to future crimes by senior leaders.

Almost 150 years ago, facing a similar crisis, Pope Pius IX refused to initiate overdue changes to his arbitrary and ineffective leadership of his Kingdom of the Papal States in central Italy. His key misguided “fix” was to push to be declared “infallible” in July 1870. Two months later, he militarily lost the Kingdom completely to Italian nationalists. Traditional papal protectors like France and Austria-Hungary stood by and passively watched, unwilling to support further papal mismanagement and capriciousness. Will Pope Francis make a similar mistake like Pius IX did by misjudging his precarious position?

The Vatican no longer even has comparable powerful protectors. It is mostly on its own now in the international political arena, like Pius XI’s Vatican was by 1870. Popes since 1870 have counter culturally tried secretively to rule mainly as “semi-divine infallible” absolute monarchs with tightly controlled subordinate bishops worldwide in an increasingly democratic world now linked by an open Internet and an 24/7 worldwide free media. The Vatican is running out of time to adjust to current reality and may be forced to do so soon.

Building governmental pressures indicate currently that if the Vatican does not adopt key changes voluntarily and soon, the Vatican can be expected to be compelled to change involuntarily. This has recently already happened repeatedly, for example, in the financial area. Another recent example of increasing governmental pressure is the Australian national investigation into child abuse in religious organizations. It has already led to the Vatican changing both internal policies, and key leadership in Australia, including Cardinal George Pell, and Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Papal Nuncio, following a massive effort by government investigators. Similar investigations can be expected in other countries as well.

The Vatican likely will be unable to contain much longer the cumulative and growing pressure, both internal and external, for change. Well publicized Vatican scandals continue to proliferate before a steadily skeptical world audience that is unconvinced either by the Vatican’s limited efforts so far or by its many public relations diversions. Many Catholics and others are becoming more impatient about protecting innocent victims of continuing Vatican scandals and misguided policies — including millions of poor women, children, couples, divorced persons and gay folks. The building governmental pressures indicate increasingly that the Vatican can change voluntarily or, as has already repeatedly happened in the financial area generally and in the child protection area in Australia, the Vatican will be compelled to change involuntarily.

Significantly, the Vatican no longer benefits from the powerful international protection that had enabled the Vatican to avoid overdue changes for centuries. In the current world of democracies and a free press and Internet, the secretive Vatican is vulnerable. Neither the Vatican’s high priced consultants, lawyers and lobbyists, nor the Vatican’s opportunistic financial elite allies, who seek Vatican backing to protect the income inequality status quo that benefits them so disproportionately, are hardly comparable substitutes for the earlier military backing of the Holy Roman Emperor and other powers. These powers had effectively protected the Vatican for centuries from demands for change. No more.

Meanwhile, Pope Francis’ Synod strategy has pulled back the curtain on the Vatican’s fallible and incoherent management structure and helped explain why ex-Pope Benedict had no real choice but to resign. In our 24/7 media world, as the Church’s scandal and mismanagement dominoes fall, a further domino effect will likely take over beyond the Vatican’s power to control it. Fear of this effect has likely contributed to provoking some of the strong opposition that Pope Francis is facing among many in the Church’s leadership.

Pope Francis acts at times like a radicalized realist. He is pressing forward relentlessly on a novel path to change. When necessary, he is even bypassing or sidelining fearful and entrenched opponents and factions. His opponents often overlook the many risks that presently exist in the Vatican’s vulnerable predicament. Pope Francis is evidently well aware of these risks. At times, some of his opponents prefer “to play their fruitless fiddles while Rome burns”.

And of course, money is usually lurking in these factions’ approaches to changes. For example, the German and US bishops seem to have basically different approaches to changes like permitting communion for divorced and remarried Catholics. German bishops depend mainly on a per capita government subsidy, presently totally more than $6 billion a year, that pays the bishops more if more Catholics remain on the government registry; hence the German bishops’ inclusive approach to divorced and remarried Catholics and their families. US bishops, on the other hand, depend significantly on fewer major donors who reward the bishops’ ability to draw out fundamentalists to vote for low-tax right wing US political candidates. These fundamentalists oppose most changes, especially those relating to traditional marriage. Not surprisingly, US bishops tend to oppose changes to traditional marriage sacramental rules. As with understanding approaches to other changes, sometimes it pays to follow the money.

Significantly, the Catholic majority intuitively understands that these risks generated by the present crisis, especially from building 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 will be a welcoming Church again that satisfies the needs of both conservative and progressive Catholics.

Well publicized Catholic Church scandals have triggered a unique situation — both an unprecedented crisis and an unexpected opportunity. This crisis (A) erodes Catholic trust in light of the 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 Church structure and doctrine. The crisis has also contributed, as indicated, to one pope’s unanticipated resignation and to the replacement pope’s unpredictable revolution.

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 Francis fails to act effectively soon, the consequences will likely be quite negative for the leadership of the Catholic Church.

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.

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 be expected to do so, given the current Catholic majority’s momentum 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 Making of the Unique Present Crisis: 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, Church changes are badly needed now and the Vatican no longer has any dominant outside protectors willing to help it avoid the changes. The changes cannot be deferred much longer if the Vatican wants to avoid both further Church decline and splintering into competing factions and constant interference from outside governments. 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.

According to Augustine: “God judged it better to bring good out of evil, than to suffer no evil to exist.” Catholics are now pondering whether God will soon bring some good changes out of this evil crisis, likely with some help from either Pope Francis or the worldwide Catholic majority or some international investigators or some combination of all three.

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.

This 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 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 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 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 papal authority over bishops and the Catholic majority and this building outside 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.

Pope Francis has brought fresh hopes after centuries of papal evasions. Martin Luther, an Augustinian friar, by 1520 had sought similar changes to an earlier Vatican bureaucracy then slithering through major scandals. Only military protection initially from the Holy Roman Emperor ultimately saved, for another 350 years until 1870, the Vatican’s centuries old Kingdom of the Papal States from many of the religious wars, internal divisions and radical reforms that followed Luther’s revolt. But Vatican scandals and structural shortcomings continued mostly as unresolved problems.

The usually well positioned papacy generally remained unchanged structurally after the Reformation until the popes’ imperial protectors faded by 1870 and then finally disappeared in the First World War. This was almost 1,600 years after the powerful Roman Emperor Constantine in the Fourth Century first sought, often in practice by threats and bribes, to redirect the early Catholic Church leadership to become part of his imperial bureaucracy. Constantine’s and his successor’s imperial designs still infuse the current Vatican’s coercive and top down leadership structure.

In 1870, Pope Pius IX (1846-1878) lost his last major monarchical protector due to the Franco-Prussian War. Pius IX then, without a strong outside protector, promptly lost the Kingdom of the Papal States finally on September 20, 1870 to a direct military assault on the Vatican by Italian nationalists. Both the Vatican and the Italians suffered fatalities. Two months prior to this assault, Pius IX had desperately tried to offset some of the projected negative effects of the Vatican’s expected military and political defeats. He sought to salvage some papal prestige on July 18, 1870, by being declared infallible at the First Vatican Council (Vatican I) that then soon ended prematurely due mainly to the military risks.

A new era of “semi-divine Supreme Pontiffs” thus began in 1870 and still continues under Pope Francis today, as he presses to solidify, at least temporarily, his extensive power over the Vatican bureaucracy, the Curia, as well as over the world’s bishops.

The powerful prestige of infallibility has been the keystone of papal power from 1870 until now. Papal infallibility, ironically, has also been the tragic papal flaw. Concerns for preserving a claim to being infallible have, it seems, prevented politically insecure popes from making long overdue changes out of fear of appearing to be fallible and, yes, a mere mortal.

This almost obsessive papal concern has been quite evident, for example, in the continuing papal opposition to contraception, mainly based on outdated natural law philosophy and medieval physiology, despite the overwhelming contrary witness in good conscience of the Catholic majority, and the latest strong and contrary evidence from natural science and modern philosophy.

Incidentally, the Vatican’s opposition to family planning seems to be a “win win” proposition for the Catholic leadership and a “lose lose” situation for couples. especially with other children, who cannot afford more children financially or emotionally. From the Vatican’s perspective, if Catholic babies survive and thrive, they can then become potential future Church donors and docile voters to enhance the Vatican’s position in bargains with desperate vote seeking political forces. If the babies do not thrive, they become their parents’ or society’s problems, not the Vatican’s to be sure.

Nevertheless, the Vatican’s strong pro-pregnancy opposition to contraception is unlikely to generate at current birthrates enough new Catholic babies to offset the Church’s escalating exodus among the practicing Catholic majority. This ongoing net decline in practicing Catholics is further eroding the Vatican’s already declining political influence and financial resources.

Ironically, the more that recent popes press their opposition to positive ongoing human advances like pharmaceutical contraception, that enable couples, especially poor women, to plan their families, the less infallible they appear to be to more Catholics. The present crisis, exacerbated by the disarray among the pope and some cardinals and bishops exhibited at the recent Vatican Synod that ironically had been intended to curtail part of this crisis, also has put unsustainable additional weight on the already weak claim to papal infallibility.

For almost 150 years until now, popes have been shrewdly able, despite the loss by 1870 of their actual Kingdom in central Italy, to maneuver politically, diplomatically and financially to retain some of their international influence, operational independence, considerable wealth and legal immunity, free of international laws and foreign restraints. Are the Vatican’s unique international status and contrived legal immunity claim both now about to collapse in the present crisis? Yes, it appears that the Vatican’s unique status and legal immunity are both likely facing collapse soon enough, no matter what Pope Francis now does.

Many of the problems Luther initially noted in 1517 remained unresolved even after Vatican I in 1870, and still remain unresolved. These include Luther’s issues with the Vatican’s top down, coercive and unaccountable Renaissance structure and with recent popes’ historically and biblically questionable, if not idolatrous, claim of unaccountable absolute papal power. Vatican I was terminated abruptly and prematurely due mainly to the military risks, before the relationship of bishops and the Catholic majority to the newly proclaimed infallible popes could be addressed fully. Pius XI and many of his successors, through Pope Benedict XVI (2005-2013), have at times used this uncompleted and unexpected result for almost 150 years to extend papal power over bishops and the Catholic majority.

These continuing problems remain after (A) unsuccessful Vatican efforts prior to 1945 to seek favorable and special political arrangements with powerful leaders, such as with the Fascist dictators of Italy, Germany and Spain, (B) numerous Vatican efforts since 1945 to solidify in many countries favorable arrangements with various powerful political, financial and media elites, and (C) significant and still uncompleted and frustrated reform efforts from 1962 to 1965 at the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II).

Most significantly, there are no longer any Holy Roman Emperors, or any other powerful monarchs, dictators or even democratically elected leaders, who appear willing to save the Vatican from facing the international legal and political consequences of its seeming sins and harmful policies. On the contrary, outside governments are already currently and forcefully pressing the Vatican firmly on its financial misconduct. Moreover, these outside forces are now also pressing hard, including through UN committees and national investigation commissions, on other Vatican misconduct, including facilitating priest child abuse.

The current crisis paradoxically presents all Catholics worldwide with an unprecedented, even hopeful, opportunity to resolve longstanding problems, some that even predate Luther. Whether the Vatican will on its own initiative seize this opportunity positively or will imprudently wait, like Pius IX did in 1870, (A) to be invaded, now by Italian, Australian and other government investigators and prosecutors, and (B) to be forced to accept the latest geopolitical reality, remains to be seen.

Catholics believe that God providentially guides their Church in mysterious ways. Some even wonder if God is not using this crisis as an opening for Church structural reforms overdue for centuries. Catholics increasingly are losing trust in their top leadership and want effective changes now. Many Catholics are curtailing their donations or just leaving the Church. Others are remaining nominally, but opting out of many Church rituals and doctrines for themselves and their children. And many younger Catholics are at best just indifferent about participation in a seemingly out of touch organization run, in effect from all appearances, as an all male absolute monarchy for the benefit of a few.

The well publicized Church scandals include clerical sexual misconduct and widespread child abuse, as well as financial corruption and excesses — some longstanding and pervasive. As mentioned above, this crisis paradoxically may offer Catholics some hope and the best opportunity since the Reformation to restore the Church to the consensual, bottom up and distributed management structure that Jesus’ first disciples, prominently including women, originally left behind for centuries.

Catholics overwhelmingly want leaders they can trust, which essentially means leaders who are accountable, not absolute, and who act transparently, not secretively. Given the Catholic Church’s pervasive worldwide influence and its universal potential as a strong public force, and counterweight to non-religious leaders, for either good or evil, the issue of how the Catholic Church is structured matters to all the world’s citizens, and to their political leaders as well.

Governments worldwide are responding more actively to citizen complaints and media pressure about these Church scandals by investigating and prosecuting clerical crimes being revealed. Catholics elect and influence their political leaders, who in turn can influence Church leaders, who currently remain completely free of any democratic oversight by the Catholic majority.

At present, the pope is still the last word on almost all matters concerning the Church and its leadership and laws, even on matters that impact the overall society like access to contraception and protection of children. The pope, as Supreme Pontiff, is purportedly accountable to nobody else, which is at the heart of the present crisis. Making sure no man is above the law is the modern antidote to the ailment of modern popes who seek to be, and to operate as, Supreme Pontiff without accountability.

Citizens worldwide can be expected steadily and increasingly to encourage their political leaders to press the Vatican for major Church structural reforms, especially by these leaders enacting and enforcing vigorously civil laws against Catholic leaders who commit crimes. This legal process, especially prosecutions of alleged crimes, will very likely, if not inevitably, lead to the outside imposition of Church structural reforms in the near term if the Vatican fails to adopt the reforms on its own initiative.

Continually hard pressed Vatican leaders really have no alternative, as earlier European absolute monarchs in France, Germany, Italy and elsewhere painfully learned, other than to submit to independent oversight by the Catholic majority.

Meanwhile, the Vatican is risking the division of the Church into numerous splinter cults and the incarceration of some of its leaders for crimes related to the sexual and financial scandals, as the Catholic hierarchy wastes precious time at Synods debating arcane theological topics like graduality.

This crisis for the “99.99% Catholic faithful majority” appears to be mainly about TRUST. For many of them, it is mostly about losing trust in the “0.01% Catholic leadership minority”, given the leadership’s frequently flawed and unaccountable management and the scandalous and repetitive misbehavior of too many of them.

By contrast, the crisis for the leadership minority appears to be mainly about SURVIVAL. For many cardinals, bishops and priests, this crisis seems too often to be largely about trying to save at all costs the current top down and coercive Church structure that has supported and rewarded many of them so handsomely.

The present crisis has already led to unintended negative consequences — even to unprecedented and growing challenges to worldwide Catholicism, including: (A) a leadership challenge, to the Pope’s ethical authority and doctrinal infallibility as the “last word”; (B) a political challenge, to the Vatican’s modern immunity from outside governmental oversight and to its opportunistic support of plutocratic political promoters;(C) a financial challenge, to the Vatican’s long term financial viability and to its self interested arrangements with selective financial, oil and media moguls; and (D) a competitive challenge, to the Catholic Church’s prospects in its continuing competition with other Christian and world religions, especially Islam, and even with non-religious secularism.

These accelerating challenges surely have influenced, if not at times dictated, the Vatican’s recent tactics, and even its public style on many issues. This historically is almost a new papal experience, since modern popes mostly had operated secretly as near absolute monarchs for centuries. It is becoming increasingly evident, however, that popular popes alone are insufficient to resolve the crisis — the Vatican can no longer defer confronting these challenges fully, honestly, transparently and promptly, even if they would rather defer them as recent popes often have. Both internal Church political factions, and external governmental legal forces, are increasingly pressing for greater papal accountability, sooner rather than later. Deferral is no longer a viable papal alternative.

Jesus left a short, simple and revolutionary oral message of “Good News” about a caring and trustworthy God. Jesus, it appears, thought this message could be passed on by word of mouth by his usually uneducated disciples. 2,000 years later the oral message has been buried seemingly under millions of written words by thousands of scribes that have obscured Jesus’ direct simplicity, often to advance the personal agenda of those overseeing the scribes with their countless and opportunistic “explications” of what Jesus really meant.

Was Jesus naive or foolish? And is his originally oral message essentially that simple? Even a quick perusal of the New Testament indicates Jesus’ core message is simple and direct, especially when stripped of some of the heavily philosophical and selectively imposed explications in Latin and Greek. This often stultifying and self serving explication process was most recently illustrated amply by the Catechism of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

Will the Vatican now finally begin to try to remove the self serving papal gloss and counterproductive clerical crust that have for many centuries obscured Jesus’ radical and revolutionary Good News — to trust in a caring God and to love one’s neighbors, even enemies, as oneself? Or will the the Catholic leadership minority once again futilely try to contain the current crisis within its latest hierarchical structure?

Will the Church leadership minority now restore its management structure to the early Church’s consensual and distributed network of bishops accountable to the faithful majority from the current coercive, top down and unaccountable model? And will the leadership minority now restore its general Church-state policy to Jesus’ earliest approach of peaceful coexistence with political leaders and prophetic witness for the poor and disadvantaged from the current Vatican approach that seeks opportunistic financial, legal and other leadership preferences in exchange for papal political support?

Hopefully, the coercive and top down Vatican will finally soon restore, or be required to restore, some meaningful consensual and bottom up power to the Catholic faithful majority. Anything less will merely be at best a temporary glue on a crumbling structure. 500 years after Luther had been more than enough time to fix the structure, but the Vatican has failed, and is continuing to fail, to do so. It will continue to fail unless and until it submits to effective and transparent oversight by the Catholic majority, as almost all other absolute monarchies in history have already learned, often the hard way following violent revolutions.

A consensual and bottom up Church management approach had been a common norm in the Church that Jesus’ disciples, including women, left behind for the first three centuries. That was before the decisive top down takeover, in effect, of the Church hierarchy that began under the powerful Roman Emperor Constantine and his imperial successors. Constantine’s top down and coercive Fourth Century legacy has survived in Rome in key respects, and still fundamentally overshadows Vatican decision making and operations. This must and will change, perhaps much sooner than the Vatican presently anticipates.

As indicated with Pius IX’s underestimation of Italian nationalists, and Pius XI’s and Pius XII’s overestimation of Mussolini’s and Hitler’s protections, whatever else infallibility encompasses, international politics is evidently excluded. Time will soon tell if the current Vatican leaders are any wiser than their modern predecessors were.

Millions of disrespected couples, women, children, divorced and gay persons and other innocent and marginalized victims of the Vatican’s current unchristian policies deserve the initiation of positive Church changes, as soon as practicable. Moreover, the beneficial worldwide potential for Jesus’ simple message of loving God and one’s neighbor, including enemies, needs to be freed of the blinders and constraints that too many popes have opportunistically and selectively imposed on it for centuries. Not only were modern popes “Prisoners of the Vatican” unnecessarily. So was Jesus.

It is important in my judgment that citizens of the world, especially Catholics, weigh in now strongly and often, and try to influence the potential Vatican outcomes. Since the Vatican operates mostly secretively and often covers its real objectives with frequent and well funded media diversions, I have at times tried to draw my best inferences and projected what seemed to me to be likely outcomes, in light of the evidence available to me and my long legal experience. Some, of course, will object, but this appears necessary to assess the actions of an organization that still too often is shown to be dissembling considerably.

My approach is intended to assist concerned readers in acting timely and proactively to advance structural and other reforms, and not just reacting defensively, after the fact, to papal faits accomplis. It is the Church of all Catholics, including the 99.99% faithful majority, and not just of the 0,01% leadership minority, and all need to weigh in now as their situations permit.

The present crisis presents major risks for the Catholic Church’s leadership minority. Providentially, it also presents an unprecedented opportunity for the Catholic majority to recover their Church from the clerical clique that centuries ago hijacked Jesus’ message. By recovering their Church, Catholics can then re-direct it and unleash the full potential of Jesus’ simple message of love of God and neighbor to a world that at times seems eager to hear that needed message of hope and peace.

The Current Unprecedented Situation:A free media in a steadily more accountable world is pulling back the Vatican’s dark curtain letting all see the scandals, up close and personal. Luther, as mentioned above, had complained loudly about similar scandals as early as 1517. Yet, it took 500 years for the many misdeeds of Pope Alexander VI and other Renaissance clerics to be featured in several “Borgia TV Series”. Today, the latest “Secrets of the Vatican” are widely reported almost simultaneously, as in a recent PBS documentary by that name covering several current Vatican scandals.

Moreover, Renaissance popes were protected by a powerful Holy Roman Emperor whose last successor lost power a century ago. Politically and militarily, popes since the end of the Second World War in 1945 have been dependent for protection and support mainly on Western democratically elected leaders.

Even now after 1700 years, however, Constantine’s Fourth Century legacy of an imperial top down and coercive leadership structure remains influential in Rome, centuries after most of the world had rejected unaccountable monarchs. European monarchical protection of the Vatican diminished after 1850 and disappeared completely by 1918, replaced soon thereafter with de facto alliances with Fascist dictators in Italy and Germany and Spain until Italy and Germany’s defeat by 1945.

As late as 1903, significantly, the Austria-Hungary Emperor reportedly vetoed a top contender in a papal election leading to the election of Pope Pius X. That was the last election prior to the start of World War I, in which the Austria Hungary Empire was dismembered, in effect, ending imperial veto power in papal elections. That veto power, however, had sometimes worked positively to restrain elections of some less dependable papal candidates.

The defeat of the Fascist powers by 1945 has contributed to popes subsequently having almost to scramble opportunistically at times to make arrangements on a local basis with many countries for political protection and financial advantage for the Vatican and its bishops and priests. These papal arrangements have often been negotiated with local dictators and wealthy elites, as well as with some democratically elected leaders seeking local papal political support as opportunities arose in particular countries, most noticeably Pope John Paul II’s close ties with US President Ronald Reagan and his right wing Republican successors, including President George W. Bush.

Popes Benedict XVI and Pope Francis continued to maintain close ties with right wing US Republicans and continue to provide them with political support through the US bishops and otherwise. This is reportedly already underway for the 2016 US presidential election. Popes tend to be more pragmatic than ideological when under considerable pressures as in the present crisis.

With the unrelenting spotlight that the 24/7 modern media now shines, the timeless “philosopher king” leadership question of Plato’s Republic now arises in Rome publicly and dramatically: Can any man, even a popular pope, be trusted honestly to face a major crisis of trust like the Vatican is facing, and to set important policies for over a billion people, unless he is truly accountable to others and also decides key issues transparently?

Given the current pope’s age, the further question arises, are his successors also to be trusted without accountability? What have Catholics learned from the sordid history of bad popes, as well as from the revelations of current scandals that seem at times to be as sordid as the earlier scandals? Given the present crisis, the Vatican’s procedures and processes, now and in the future, in evaluating and adopting reforms are almost as important as the potential substantive reforms themselves.

Pope Francis had little choice, it appears, but to try to contain this crisis of trust, after suddenly, in the midst of this crisis, unexpectedly succeeding the first pope to resign in almost 600 years. Francis’ Synods of Bishops strategy, his ongoing sophisticated and well funded media campaign, and his efforts to shore up favorable arrangements with some powerful world leaders of government, finance and media, all appear to be key parts of his strategy to contain this crisis.

The Vatican under the current pope and his successor surely must soon either “lead and act”, or they will most likely be compelled to “follow and react”, by internal and external pressure. Neither this present crisis of trust, nor the resulting challenges, can be avoided much longer to any significant extent.

Some Relevant Recent History: The Vatican under Pope Pius XII (1939-1958) had aligned itself in the Second World War (1939-1945) with the once seemingly invincible, but losing Fascist dictators, Hitler and Mussolini and their “neutral” ally, Franco. Pius XII had been born into a Roman family that had been immersed earlier in the monarchical Papal States. He served for almost two decades under the autocratic Pope Pius XI (1921-1939). A top down coercive leadership must have seemed natural to Pius XII.

Nevertheless, it had become increasingly clear by Mussolini’s removal in July 1943 that Western autocratic structures were losing to Western democratic structures and that major Catholic Church reforms were sorely needed, if not inevitable. By September 1943, Pius XII was endorsing modern biblical scholarship, which eventually planted the seeds that undermine some papal claims as Supreme Pontiff.

Pius XII’s less well born immediate successor, Pope John XXIII (1958-1963), an experienced diplomat and church historian, knew change was inevitable in the postwar situation populated by powerful Western democracies and decided boldly in early 1959, after only a short time as pope, that major Church reforms were badly needed and even overdue. This was clearly evident, especially after the defeat of the Vatican’s powerful European allies, Italy and Germany, and the takeover by 1950 of Eastern European Catholic countries like Poland, Hungary, Croatia and the Baltic States, by the Soviets.

John XXIII must have also understood that as an “infallible pope” that he could ultimately control the key outcomes of the Second Vatican Council (1962- 1965), or “Vatican II”. He called for the Council in 1959 less than a decade after Pius XII had in 1950 exercised the ultimate papal “infallibility power” in declaring Mary’s Assumption. That dramatic papal exercise appears to have been a desperate attempt to flex his “semi-divine infallibility” power after suffering the defeat of his Fascist allies and in the face at the time of the rise of Soviet power under Stalin.

So John XXIII could risk letting the 2,500 plus Vatican II bishops talk with some freedom at Vatican II. As Pope, he would still have the last say. Pope Francis seems to have a similar understanding that he has the last word no matter what his current Synods may decide or however the Synod bishops may vote. For modern popes since the 1870’s declaration of papal infallibility, councils like Vatican II and Synods of Bishops are ultimately only advisory. This positions Francis to act decisively on Synod Bishops’ advice and otherwise.

Unfortunately, John XXIII died in 1963 before he could implement many essential reforms as he may have planned to do. John had served in key diplomatic posts directly under two autocratic popes, Pius XI and Pius XII. These popes had enjoyed until 1945 powerful Fascist protection and support. John XXIII evidently understood well that the days of unaccountable autocratic popes protected by conservative European monarchs or Fascist dictators were over, especially with the postwar expansion of democratically accountable governments in many Catholic countries, including Italy and Germany.

John XXIII in January 1959 had suddenly, unexpectedly and almost haphazardly announced publicly his reform intentions and initiated the preparation for the massive 2,500 plus bishops’ Second Vatican Council. His old friend, Paul VI, who was an experienced Vatican bureaucrat and his successor, reportedly thought in 1959 that John was stirring up a “hornets’ nest”. Similarly, Pope Francis appears intentionally now to be “creating a mess” with his unusual Synods. Undeterred, however, by John XXIII’s unexpected boldness and realizing that a retrenchment opportunity had been presented by John’s death early in the Council’s proceedings, the Vatican’s “hornets” reacted, specifically some of its entrenched bureaucrats like powerful Cardinal Ottaviani (1890-1979), and their preferred choices of subsequent Curial accommodating Popes, Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

These Vatican bureaucrats like Ottaviani and their successors, in effect, sidelined several key Vatican II era reforms for a half century with their “reform of the reform”, generally, a rhetorical euphemism for obstruction. These sidelined reforms included those relating to papal power sharing, married priests, contraception and even priest child abuse.

These and other inevitable reforms can no longer be sidelined by the Vatican without risking dire consequences, given the escalating internal and external pressures at present on the Vatican. Maintaining, at times, the almost medieval Vatican status quo is no longer a papal option, as it may earlier have been for Pope Francis’ predecessors.

This current crisis is now forcing the Vatican to try harder (A) to defend its exclusive doctrinal authority, (B) to maximize its wealth and solidify its allies among powerful national elites, and (C) to counter its religious competitors, as it tries try to survive reasonably intact.

After a half century of frequent papal resistance and Vatican bureaucratic diversions that thwarted key elements of John XXIII’s and Vatican II’s reform approach, Pope Francis appears to be seeking to resume some of what John XXIII had tried to initiate. But Francis may not be doing enough, soon enough, as he approaches his eightieth birthday in two years.

Many Catholics’ mistrust has now even led some of the Catholic 99.99% publicly to question the Vatican’s selective interpretation and application of Jesus’ simple Gospel message of love of God and neighbor. The Vatican’s opportunistic approach to the Gospels had earlier been at least widely tolerated, if not accepted by many Catholics. Now even at the initial Vatican Synod of the Family in October 2014, a significant number of bishops selected by conservative prior popes even voted against several traditional Vatican positions. Such episcopal independence had been scarce since 1980 under the prior two popes.

The Vatican dam has burst under the pressure of the current scandals and the the floods being released will not likely by contained by anything short of a return to the consensual, bottom up approach that prevailed in the Church and that Jesus’ disciples, including some women, left behind for over three centuries. The current coercive and top down papal management structure is not likely to contain the floods much longer, without major reforms, including especially power sharing with an independent Catholic majority. Cardinals and bishops who resist this pressure will likely be swept away by the flood of reforms, as happened with Cardinal Raymond Burke even before Pope Francis strengthened his authority to remove bishops.

Strategic Alternatives and Assumptions: Any serious and objective assessment of this current Church crisis must consider at the outset several key questions. How is Pope Francis, after almost two years as pope, addressing this current crisis, as well as the related challenges to the Pope’s moral leadership and doctrinal authority, to the Vatican’s political and financial positions, and to the Catholic Church’s competitive advantage that this crisis has dramatically and unexpectedly provoked? What are Francis’ strategic options to resolve the crisis and which strategy has he selected? Is his selected strategy based on valid assumptions and truthful analysis? What are the likely outcomes from this crisis for the Vatican?

The Expanding Crisis and Interplay of Related Challenges: The current Catholic Church crisis, and the four challenges the crisis has provoked, have been occasioned by almost unending scandals These scandals involve priest child abuse, bishop misconduct and financial corruption. 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, as well as the Vatican’s hierarchical structure and unquestioned control of biblical and moral theology, especially regarding sexual and gender matters.

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-birth’ 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.

The major current Church challenges, on top of the present scandal crisis, are:

(A) 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;

(B) A political challenge — to the Vatican’s modern immunity from outside governmental oversight and to the Vatican’s opportunistic arrangements with plutocratic political promoters ;

(C) 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; and

(D) 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.

Strategic Alternatives Presently Available to the Vatican: 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.

The Vatican’s Current Strategy and Strategic Assumptions: 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 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.

Complicating Pope Francis’ difficult tasks are many opportunists, including several very wealthy and powerful Church donors, who appear to be seeking, for their own personal agendas, to exploit the considerable “spiritual power” possessed by the modern papacy and to benefit from the political prestige and financial assets that popes control. For more than the last three quarters of the Catholic Church’s 2,000 year history, popes have at times been important “players”, sometimes a major player, in the international political economy; hence, the age old objective of wealthy donors to influence both papal decision making and wealth management.

These opportunistic donors at times rely implicitly and selectively on several present weak papal assumptions, as do many in the Catholic hierarchy of cardinals and bishops. Of course, some of these Catholic religious leaders, with over 1,500 year years of accumulated political and economic traditions behind them, often also share some of their wealthy donors’ primary goals of maximizing their personal wealth, while also minimizing their individual accountability.

Neither Pope Francis, nor any of his potential successors, can make many of the needed positive changes, without at a minimum revising key elements of his weak assumptions. Pope Francis and his successors, of course, may be unwilling voluntarily to make these revisions. That may matter significantly for the 0.01% minority leadership who may then not survive. It may not matter much, however, to the 99.9% faithful majority, who may still get to see these reforms imposed on the leadership majority by outside governments.

The current likelihood is that Francis or his successor will, nevertheless, be compelled soon enough to make many of these changes, by pressure from outside governments accountable to their constituents, many of whom are Catholic. This is not the 1960’s, with the Second Vatican Council, when a collusive Vatican bureaucracy and their selected popes can stymie for a half century needed reforms agreed to by almost all of the world’s bishops at the Council.

European governments are already beginning to apply considerable pressure in the financial area with mandated reforms for the Vatican Bank and the Vatican’s own asset management operation. This pressure has included so far a Vatican Bank asset seizure, a Vatican City credit card facility freeze and criminal investigations, even an arrest of a key Vatican financial official by the Italian government. The Vatican has been, in effect, required to hire some of the world’s most influential and expensive financial and banking consultants, lawyers and auditors and that may still not be enough to keep all Vatican officials out of prosecutors’ reach.

While Francis bobs and weaves and seeks political allies like anti-gay American fundamentalists, Catholics need to cover their bets by continuing to press their leaders, including President Obama to act. Papal promises of change are no longer a safe bet without concrete papal actions fulfilling the promises. Insufficient papal action to date suggests a need for more caution and prudence, and less cheerleading and wishful thinking.

Please see:

[christiancatholicism.com]