Pope “winks & Nods” on Poor, Children, Women & Real Reforms

By Jerry Slevin
Christian Catholicism
May 1, 2015

http://christiancatholicism.com/pope-winks-nods-on-poor-children-women-real-reforms/

One cannot follow Pope Francis closely without noticing he sometimes says one thing one day (he “winks”), then days later he acts differently (he “nods”). As far back as four decades ago, his two tortured Jesuit teachers reportedly complained bitterly they, in effect, were given assurances of protection one day that he seemed to violate the next. The pope’s most visible recent example of “winking and nodding” was his Christmas party public critique of his Vatican bureaucracy, with Cardinals Bernard Law and Raymond Burke prominently in attendance. Good theater, but little else. Similar “winks & nods” have occurred on condemning “trickle down” economics, on holding bishops accountable for protecting priest child abusers, on respecting women as equals and on treating gay Catholics in a Christian manner.

The latest “wink & nod” that has major implications for poor children and women appears to be coming on climate/global warming. The pope’s long-anticipated encyclical on climate change is now being translated into several languages for release in June, according to press reports.

Please see my related remarks, “The Crisis Pope Francis Faces“, “Two Cardinals’ Aide’s Crime Upheld Yet Philly Visit Is Still On?” , “What Do We Now Know About The Real Goal Of Pope Francis?” , “Francis’ Breeding Policy Fails Kids, Women & Gay Folks“, “Pope’s “Messes”: Philly, Climate, Kids & Now Hillary“, “Pope’s Fix For Street Child Woes: More Babies ?“, “Childless Pope Faces Man-Made “Mess”: Children & Climate Change” , “Vatican Revolt Negates Synod & Sex Commission” , “Hillary Clinton vs. Pope Francis in 2015 USA Politics“, “A Pope, A New US War, Jeb Bush Neocons & Big Oil” , and “Finn’s Law: Police Must Now Handle Crimes Says Pope“.

As Jesuit educated and highly respected investigative reporter, Jason Berry, recently pointed out, Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson, who helped draft parts of this papal encyclical as president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council on Justice and Peace, reportedly said, “So when Pope Francis says that destroying the environment is a grave sin; when he says that it is not large families that cause poverty but an economic culture that puts money and profit ahead of people; when he says that we cannot save the environment without also addressing the profound injustices in the distribution of the good of the earth… He is … restating ancient Biblical teaching.” Of course, large families often contribute to poverty, as self interested childless celibates like Turkson and the pope refuse to acknowledge.

Yet as AP’s balanced Vatican reporter, Nicole Winfield, indicated about a recent Vatican conference of Nobel Prize-winning scientists, Francis’ key environmental advisers and faith leaders, they were unanimous in agreeing that climate change is real, mostly man-made, hardest on the poorest, and a problem that only collective action can solve.

Of course, many US Republicans, who have benefited from Vatican and US bishops’ political support, have opposed efforts to reduce fossil fuels and other pollutants that contribute to global warming, and some deny that human activity is responsible. The recent Vatican conference’s host, Msgr. Sanchez Sorondo, one of the pope’s top advisers who likely knows what will be in the encyclical, had choice words for such skeptics: “It’s the same people who defend the oil industry… . It’s the lobby of profit.”

And as Jesuit educated and well respected historian, Gary Wills recently indicated, ” … The real issue here is not science vs. ignorance, or the UN vs. xenophobia, or my 97 percent of experts against your 3 percent. It is a case of the immensely rich few against the many deprived poor. The few are getting much of their wealth from interlocking interests that despoil the earth. The fact that the poor get poorer in this process is easily dismissed, denied, or derided. The poor have no voice. Till now. If the pope were not a plausible voice for the poor, his opponents would not be running so scared. Their fear is a testimony to him. … “.

What is disappointing here is that Berry and Wills, who seem to have very high hopes for our Jesuit pope, seem often not to notice the papal “wink”. Neither of them raised the counterproductive papal ban on contraception’s adverse effect on environmental degradation.

The world’s population was about 2 billion in 1930 when Pope Pius XI, the first pope of Francis’ lifetime, unnecessarily banned birth control mainly for geo-political reasons. The population is now 7.3 billion and projected to be 9 billion in 2050, only 35 years from now. It is time for the pope to act responsibly and reasonably to solve this self inflicted papal problem.

A key factor in climate change, of course, is entirely “man-made”, namely population growth. More children, which the pope consistently pushes for, means more climate change and more unsustainable and “expendable” children to be abandoned, exploited and abused, including by bishops and priests, as was evident in the Dominican Republic with Polish Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski and priest Fr. Alberto Gil.

As Princeton’s Peter Singer recently observed, what is not so often mentioned, is the extent to which continuing global population growth would undermine the impact of whatever emission reductions affluent countries can be persuaded to make.

Singer points out that four factors influence the level of emissions: economic output per capita; the units of energy used to generate each unit of economic output; greenhouse gases emitted per unit of energy; and total population. A reduction in any three of these factors will be offset by an increase in the fourth. In the “Summary for Policymakers” of its 2014 Fifth Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated that, globally, economic and population growth continue to be “the most important drivers” of increases in CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel combustion.

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.

The pope needs to get past the winking and nodding. The pope’s new media public relations commission (all male and mostly clerics) most get the pope to act, not just talk, about the plight of his silenced and oft forgotten Catholics — poor children and women. Any chance? Is Pope Francis unaware of the plight of many millions of women and children, often desperate as a consequence of his continuing self interested papal ideology of hierarchical male oppression? The pope often seems to be unaware in practice of their plight, despite his occasional crafted public relations pronouncements and staged photo ops. Pope Francis should either get some better script writers, preferably some mothers, or get used to being described as insincere, if not hypocritical.

In his recent Wednesday talk to tourists, Francis spoke about the “radical equality” that Christianity proposes. AP reported he asked “Why is it a given that women must earn less than men? No! They have the same rights. The disparity is pure scandal.” Really, same rights? Not at the Vatican or in any worldwide bishops’ offices from most indications. (emphasis mine)

Francis has paid lip service to women’s equality many times, calling for women to take on greater decision-making roles in the Catholic Church, though he has , in effect, in practice needlessly ruled out women’s ordination, women cardinals or having women head Vatican departments. Only about 18 percent of Vatican employees are women, up from 17 percent four years ago. Currently, only two women hold the rank of undersecretary in a Vatican department. Indeed, it took the pope over two years to get the successor “doctrinal German Shepherd” (that he appointed a cardinal) to release his arrogant fangs that had been clamped on American nuns.

While speaking out about the need for a greater role for women in the Catholic Church, the pope has made repeatedly seemingly tone-deaf comments. He referred to women as “Adam’s ribs”. He has said Europe in many places resembles an “infertile” grandmother. He has urged nuns not to be “old maids.” And he once welcomed some conservative new female members of the Catholic Church’s most prestigious theological commissions as “strawberries on the cake.”

As mentioned above, 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.

The reason many of these poor women cannot get access to contraception is often the political lobbying of the Vatican against effective contraception access since at least as early as Hillary Clinton’s classic “duel” with the Vatican’s Mary Ann Glendon at the 1995 Beijing UN population conference. The pope continues to push for more Catholic babies, e.g., his regular remarks that big families (at least three children!) are better, that having no children is “selfish”, etc. Are these infallible pronouncements from a 78 year old celibate bachelor? What arrogant and uninformed nonsense, no?

If any “Catholic baby” does not survive or thrive, it is not the pope’s and his hierarchy’s problem in the final analysis. It is the child’s problem, and sometimes the parents’ as well, but ultimately never the hierarchy’s problem. Indeed, we read too often of stories of Catholic priests, protected fiercely by their bishops, who sexually prey with impunity on vulnerable children in dismal and “overpopulated” family situations, as with Polish Archbishop Wesolowski and Fr. Gil in the Dominican Republic and reportedly many in Los Angeles, California.

In “dreaming” about the pope’s encounter in the Philippines a few months ago with the young “street child” on the eve of Martin Luther King’s US holiday, I had a dream! The dream is especially relevant now as the pope is about to visit Martin Luther King’s birthplace. I dreamed that the pope told the young former street girl what the Vatican’s real strategy was. If he told her, I dreamed that Pope Francis, if he were truthful, would have had to tell the girl something like this:

(1) I was elected by frightened cardinals to keep them out of jail for crimes related to child abuse cover-ups and financial and tax evasion corruption;

(2) My top priority is protecting bishops, all 5,000 of them, while maximizing their wealth in their unaccountable lifetime positions;

(3) I need to preserve the Vatican’s “richest markets” , especially in the USA and Germany, and among the billionaires of the USA, Australia, the UK, the Philippines, South Korea, Mexico, et al. In the USA, I need by next year to get a friendly Republican, like the Bushes were, in the White House (God forbid Hillary Clinton gets elected!), now that low tax/low regulatory Republicans control the US Congress and, in effect, the US Supreme Court. Our US billionaire donors would like that;

(4) In the USA, I must also appeal to fundamentalist evangelical and Latino voters with a muddled mix of anti-contraception/abortion and anti-gay marriage crusades, and frequent appeals to Our Lady of Guadalupe, Junipero Serra and Oscar Romero, and of course, constant references to the devil;

(5) In Germany, I must protect and help maximize the bishops $6 billion plus annual governmental per capita subsidy, including by getting divorced and remarried Catholics, currently denied communion, to stop taking their families and pro rata subsidies out of the Church;

(6) I must push with my contraception ban to pump up the Catholic birth rate everywhere, especially in light of the high birth rate among our Muslim competitors in Africa and elsewhere; and

(7) If after taking care of my subordinate bishops, subservient priests, opportunistic politicians, “scholars” and media supporters and, of course, our 24/7 insatiable civil, criminal and and bankruptcy lawyers, the rest of the Church’s donations and subsidies, if any remains, may “trickle down ” to the poor, and to a few of those priest abuse survivors who keep silent.

And then I awoke from my dream. And yes, when I awakened, Pope Francis, as expected, continued to push the papal “Rabbit Rule” (Breed & Breed More!) of Popes Pius XI (1930) and Paul VI (1968), and all popes thereafter. This is tied to protecting the papal “power of infallibility” and appears still to be the cornerstone of the Vatican’s key moral “doctrine of procreative sex, ONLY”.

Corollaries of this Rule include:(1) Catholic “opposite sex couples” must “shoot” for pregnancy in each intimate encounter; and (2) Catholic “same sex couples”, who cannot “shoot” for pregnancy, cannot be intimate ever; otherwise heterosexual couples will also demand “unfruitful non-procreative sex”— God forbid!

The continuing Vatican setbacks, involving child abuse cover-up and financial corruption and other scandals, appear to make it strategically paramount in recent popes’ view for the Vatican to generate more Catholic babies, at least to replace millions of younger, and even older, Catholics, who leave the Church increasingly after finding that the Vatican’s Church is neither loving nor infallible.

The Philippines, for example, “exports” millions of its Catholic workers, including many priests and nurses, to Western countries to fill some of the shortages there, including in Catholic parishes and hospitals.

Meanwhile, the Vatican’s main worldwide religious competitor, Muslims, keep producing more babies, at a higher rate than Catholics now do, putting more pressure on the Vatican’s escalating “Baby Boom Crusade”.

Pregnant Catholics are always a “win-win” situation for the Catholic hierarchy. If the baby survives and thrives, the “new Catholic” can be expected, after the customary indoctrination that begins at First Confession no later than 7 years old, to donate meekly and often to bishops, and even often when voting for their political leadership to follow obediently Vatican “political instructions”, a key source of the Vatican’s power and wealth.