UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter
Michael Sean Winters | Dec. 4, 2014 Distinctly Catholic
Two news items this week pointed to the arduousness of Pope Francis’ efforts to reform the central administrative organs of the Holy See. Pope Francis and other Vatican officials met with officials from the Dominican Republic to discuss the ongoing investigation of Joseph Wesolowski, the former archbishop and nuncio to the Dominican Republic who was defrocked earlier this year on charges of sex abuse of minors. The other item was Cardinal George Pell’s statement that his work reforming the finances of the Holy See had unearthed millions of unaccounted-for euros in the Vatican bank.
Whatever the other achievements of the last two pontificates, it is becoming painfully obvious that the degree of corruption within the highest ranks of the hierarchy is almost unimaginable. The cover-up of sex crimes and the financial shenanigans have no basic connection except that as the investigations continue, many, many more prelates are likely to be exposed for one of the two crimes, or both.
The news that the Vatican is working with authorities in the Dominican Republic is not earth-shattering, but it is meme-shattering. The New York Times did a masterful job exposing just how despicable Wesolowski’s sex crimes were, but its reporting overplayed the idea that the Vatican was circling the wagons in the face of Dominican claims to jurisdiction in the case. I am sure there were some prosecutors champing at the bit to try Wesolowski in the Dominican Republic. I am also sure there were plenty of high-level government officials who knew there existed plenty of pictures of them mugging with the nuncio. In an overwhelmingly Catholic country like the Dominican Republic, the nuncio is a key player in the diplomatic world. Some Dominican authorities, no doubt, wanted Wesolowski tried where the crimes were committed, in the Dominican Republic, but others were only too happy to have the Vatican take a complicated and difficult case off their hands.
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