Usa, Germany, Italy, Uk, ET Al., Must Press Pope

By Jerry Slevin
Christian Catholicism
May 29, 2015

http://christiancatholicism.com/usa-germany-italy-uk-philippines-et-al-must-press-pope-like-ireland-australia-have-to-restore-church-democracy-to-protect-catholics/

The Vatican’s sexual morality policy errors on same sex marriage, contraception and other matters are only sick symptoms of a fundamentally deformed Church management structure. These errors stem mostly from the Vatican’s self-interested goal of preserving the myth of a top down, unaccountable, infallible and absolute papal ruler with his unaccountable Vatican bureaucracy and subordinate worldwide bishops. True monarchies like the papacy are doomed in this world of democracies.

The editors at the National Catholic Reporter recently referred to the pope’s many seemingly intentional and contradictory statements and actions as the “Francis two-step”, or the “Pope Francis shuffle”. On the issue of church teaching on sexuality, the editors believe the time for dialogue is likely passed. Action is needed. The strongest message out of the Irish referendum is that on its teaching about sexuality, the Church today faces a watershed moment, just as it did in 1968 with Humanae Vitae banning the birth control pill.

The editors note that Pope Paul VI, whom incidentally Pope Francis unnecessarily, hastily and unwisely beatified, addressed contraception with a disastrous formula. By rejecting the evolving learning about artificial birth control and married love — documented by social science and the testimony of committed, faithful married Catholics on the papal commission he appointed — Paul contributed mightily to the erosion of episcopal credibility. Pope Francis is doing likewise with his “son of the Church” ideological nonsense.

The editors at the National Catholic Reporter view the recent Irish vote for same-sex marriage as a watershed moment for Catholic Church teaching. As an experienced international lawyer, I am more sceptical.

Pope Francis has failed in two years even to initiate any significant permanent reforms in the Catholic Church’s top down governance structure — the source of most papal scandals and sexual morality errors. After much spin, the unnecessary Vatican Bank has reported still almost 150 suspicious transactions in 2014 involving many hundreds of millions of dollars.

Moreover, the pope’s failure to address seriously his biggest challenge, the priest child abuse scandal, is telling. This is clear, for example, from the pope’s acquiescence in the continuing merciless abuse of survivors in Milwaukee, as described below by Fr. Thomas Doyle, and the pope’s outrageous promotion and protection of Cardinal George Pell, also described more below.

It is clear the Vatican is mainly trying to ride out the scandals — keeping the hierarchy out of jail and flush with cash as top priorities. German and US bishops are in a battle with each other over giving remarried divorced Catholics access to communion — a big money issue for bishops in both countries. The German bishops want to loosen up the marriage rules to appeal to divorced couples to protect the multi-billion dollar annual German governmental subsidies. US bishops want to preserve the rigid marriage rules to appeal to US billionaire donors to the bishops who need the anti-gay marriage fundamentalist US voters to elect a “low tax, less regulation and least safety net” US Republican president next year.

The pope’s current trajectory will leave children, poor couples, women and divorced and gay persons at continued risk of harm from unaccountable and self interested Catholic hierarchs. Hence the need for more outside goverment pressure to press the Vatican to restore Church democracy as existed for centuries in the Church Jesus first disciples, including women, left behind.

More governments, including the USA, Germany, Italy, UK, Philippines, et al., must follow Ireland’s and Australia’s impressive lead and press Pope Francis hard to begin real reforms now. The recent Irish vote has shown clearly that this is what a large majority of the world’s Catholics also want, so political leaders must wake up before Pope Francis and his “low tax” US billionaire allies succeed in launching a new major Middle East war “to protect Christians”.

The pope knows well he could change many of the Church’s repressive social policies if he really wanted to. Indeed, for example, Australian Bishop Paul Bird, just stated that the Catholic Church should consider ordaining women. Bishop Paul Bird reportedly said that he had no theological problem with the idea of women priests. “Essentially I don’t have scriptural problems with that,”he said. Of course, the repressive ex-Pope removed Australian Bishop Morris for making statements like Bird made.

Pope Francis will be finishing his papacy soon enough, to be replaced as pope perhaps by the current major power behind the papal throne, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State. Parolin recently and amazingly called Ireland’s referendum to allow civil same sex marriage “not only a defeat for Christian principles, but also a “defeat for humanity.” It appears that the pope and Parolin appear are playing “good cop-bad cop” on same-sex marriage. They are fiddling while Rome (the Vatican) burns, no?

It is abundantly clear now, to me at least, that Pope Francis was picked as an interim place holder to change the subject with papal platitudes about mercy, capitalism and the poor, and with distractions like papal media junkets, absurd “celibate men only Family Synods”, gratuitous and amateurish climate change, capitalism and other vague and ambivalent encyclicals and statements, countless photo ops and the like.

Pope Francis may have given some incurable and docile Catholics temporary hope and a new excuse to avoid stepping up as a Christian to curtail priest child abuse and obtain justice for abuse survivors, after the regressive last two popes, but the recent Irish vote makes clear by almost a two one margin that Catholics, even in the world’s most Catholic country in recent centuries, are no longer buying any pope’s self interested and secretive acts any more. Pope Francis may be liked by many, but he has very limited moral authority over most Catholics as the Irish referendum and recent Chile protests clearly indicate. The Irish vote, in particular, shows that the Catholic Church is rapidly losing its tight grip over its flock

The Catholic Church has only one choice to survive — by democratizing its structure to provide for bishop selection only by the entire People of God, as was the case for over three centuries in the Church Jesus’ own disciples, including women, left behind.

Francis can implement this structure only by a widely representative (including women) general council, that includes the laity and not just bishops and cardinals . If the Pope is serious about reforms, he must call for a general council as Pope John XXIII did. Yes, the Pope must now really openly address the crisis he faces with more than just platitudes, diversions and spin.

Concerning the continuing cruel “re-abuse” of priest abuse survivors, “[t]he Milwaukee situation is the most insidious and openly destructive one I have seen in 31 years…”, said Dominican Fr. Thomas P. Doyle recently. Tom Doyle gives the reasons for his concern and outrage in his recent full remarks below. There he addresses the horrendous and ongoing mistreatment, indeed “re-abuse”, by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee of local survivors of priest sexual abuse, including some of the more than 200 deaf boys who were abused a single priest. See the related HBO Emmy and Peabody Awards’ winning documentary, Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God , and here .

This abusive Milwaukee priest was protected for decades by unaccountable cardinals and bishops, including ex-Pope Benedict and his Secretary of State, Tarcisio Bertone. For years, these defenseless deaf boys tried to tell of their priest abuse in Milwaukee, to little avail.

This Catholic hierarchical cover up of a “one-priest” sexual abuse tsunami and of the related “re-abuse” of survivors are outrageously not unique, as is evident from the recent grilling by the Australian Royal Commission of Fr. Gerald Ridsdale, who was protected by his close ties to Cardinal George Pell, whom Pope Francis nevertheless promoted to a top Vatican position.

Most of the Ridsdale allegations had been well established and publicized before Pell’s promotion. Almost 75,000 people in just a few days have signed a Change.org petition calling for Pell — the Vatican’s financial chief and former Archbishop of Sydney — to answer questions under oath in Australia, despite Pell’s initial efforts to duck giving testimony there on new matters. Reportedly, Ridsdale raped an 11 year old girl at a home he shared with George Pell and other priests.

If Pell ever does testify again, the world’s Catholics can expect Pell’s classic “three monkey act” — he saw, heard and knows nothing, that he can recollect in any event. Even “no recollection” replies by Pell are an admission that he does not rule out that Ridsdale’s horrendous abuse of innocent children did occur and that Pell knew about it at the time! In any event, it is crucial that Pell gives evidence to Australian commission .

Moreover, Pell, in effect, under oath also earlier admitted, in effect, to “re-abusing” abuse survivors with cruel and punitive legal tactics, for example, in the so-called Ellis case, like the Milwaukee Archbishop and Cardinal Timothy Dolan also apparently have similarly done.

A Vatican confidante reportedly spoken to by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp Australia confirmed Pope Francis was personally aware of the allegations against Cardinal Pell, but was treating them as just that — unconfirmed allegations. Unconfirmed beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law, perhaps. But in my experience over three decades as an adviser to top leaders of multinational organizations and corporations, not one of them would ever have promoted Pell like the pope did in light of the well known, widespread, multiple and plausible allegations against Pell. Indeed, Pell admitted before moving to the Vatican under oath to, in effect, using ruthless legal tactics to punitively “re-abuse” abuse survivor, John Ellis.

Of course, Rupert Murdoch appears to be very close to the Vatican and Pell, and also apparently to a top Pell supporter, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, and to the indicted Adelaide Archbishop, the first Catholic archbishop ever criminally charged in a priest child sexual abuse cover up case . And the pope and Murdoch also appear to be partnering to elect a “low tax” Republican as US president next year, possibly Jeb Bush with Big Oil backing.

If the pope were really sincere and serious about curtailing priest child abuse, he would forthwith fire the Archbishop of Milwaukee, as he should have long ago fired, not promoted Pell, and replaced Pell with a woman executive .

It seems evident now, to me at least, that Pell fled Australia to try to get the benefit of the Vatican’s immunity protection from prosecution, with Pope Francis’ full knowledge and support, as Cardinal Bernard Law did earlier under Pope John Paul II. Please see “Australia’s worst pedophile priest’ ” , and “Cardinal Pell is ‘weak and ineffectual’ and not very smart” .

While Pope Francis talks often publicly of “mercy”, his US bishop subordinates privately practiced, and still practice, cruelty, including New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan, relating to, among other matters, the Milwaukee priest sexual abuse scandal . Even many college students at a NY Jesuit college recently showed their disgust with Cardinal Dolan and his abuse cover-up hypocrisy when they protested Dolan’s addressing them at their graduation.

Tom Doyle is a Dominican priest in good standing with a doctorate in canon law and five separate master’s degrees. He worked in the early 1980’s for the Vatican’s top US official shortly after then Argentine Jesuit provincial, now Pope Francis, was under the direction of the same official. Tom sacrificed a rising career at the US Vatican Embassy, and a likely bishop appointment in due course, to become instead the world’s most outspoken advocate for Catholic Church abuse victims. For this prophetic and courageous choice, Tom has endured much pain at the Vatican’s hand.

Since 1984, when he became involved with the issue of sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy while serving at the Embassy, he has become the world’s top expert in the canonical and pastoral dimensions of this problem—working directly with victims, their families, accused priests, bishops, and other high-ranking Church officials. Doyle has interviewed over 2,000 victims of clerical sexual abuse in the U.S. alone, and has been the only priest to provide expert testimony in over 200 cases as to the legal liability of the Church. He has developed policies and procedures for dealing with cases of sexual abuse by the clergy for dioceses and religious orders in many countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Significantly, Robert Blair Kaiser’s final book, Whistle: Tom Doyle’s Steadfast Witness for Victims of Clerical Sexual Abuse, is due out in a few weeks. Kaiser left the Jesuits after a dozen years and covered the Second Vatican Council for Time magazine and was later a writer for The New York Times. He was until his recent death a well known author of a half-dozen insightful and unapologetic books on the post-Vatican II Catholic Church. Kaiser was particularly proud of having written The Politics of Sex and Religion, the definitive history of Pope John XXIII’s joint lay and clerical commission that called for the Church to change its official teachings on birth control and to approve of artificial contraception. Kaiser generously in 2012 republished this classic as a free e-book (click here) .

Pope Francis inexplicably and inexcusably failed to appoint Tom Doyle to the pope’s “go lightly and slowly” abuse commission, which just confirmed finally the low priority the pope gives to protecting children and the high priority he gives to protecting unaccountable bishops and their wealth.

The many continuing and new priest abuse scandals and bishop cover-ups, as reported 365 days a year by journalist stalwart, Kathy Shaw, at Bishop Accountability.org’s ABUSETRACKER , just confirms the pope’s smokescreen strategy on curtailing priest child sexual abuse and on holding bishops accountable for covering up for the criminal priests. The recent charges, and the pope’s related inaction, by Philadelphia Monsignor Lynn’s family that lay his abuse crimes on Cardinals Justin Rigali and Anthony Bevilacqua, just further confiems this.

It is abundantly clear, to me at least, that Pope Francis was picked as an interim place holder to change the subject with papal platitudes about mercy, capitalism and the poor and distractions like papal media junkets, absurd “celibate men only Family Synods”, gratuitous and amateurish climate change, capitalism and other vague and tw0 sided encyclicals and statements, countless photo ops and the like. It may have given some incurable and docile Catholics temporary hope after the regressive last two popes, but the recent Irish vote makes clear by almost a two one margin that Catholics, even in the world’s most Catholic country in recent centuries, are no longer buying any pope’s self interested and secretive acts any more.

The Catholic Church has only one choice to survive — by democratizing its structure to provide for bishop selection only by the entire People of God as was the case for over three centuries in the Church Jesus’ own disciples, including women, left behind. Francis could implement this structure only by a widely representative (including women) general council, that includes the laity and not just bishops and cardinals .

Pope Francis is unlikely to convene such a council, so prosecutors will have to force the Catholic hierarchy to reform. Either way, the top down Vatican hierarchy is on “life support” as the Irish just showed. Amen!!!