“Where does this leave us?” That was the question a friend put to me during the week, after news broke of another powerful cardinal in trouble for misbehaving with minors.
Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, emeritus of Bordeaux, has confessed to “reprehensible behavior” with a fourteen-year-old girl. Churchmen in France and the Vatican have expressed their “shock” at the development. French ecclesiastical authorities are cooperating with secular prosecutors and the Vatican – on Friday – announced that it has disposed a preliminary investigation of its own.
Holy See Press Office Director Matteo Bruni told the Associated Press that the Vatican has opened the preliminary investigation in order “to complete the examination of what happened, given the elements that have emerged in recent days and the declaration given by the cardinal.”
Fine.
Well, not fine – there’s lots to say about all that – but in order to answer my friend’s question, a rehearsal of another set of facts is in order.
John Paul II consecrated Jean-Pierre Ricard a bishop in 1993, when that pope was still physically strong and in effective control of the Church. JPII then named Ricard to Bordeaux in 2001 – the same year Theodore Edgar “Uncle Ted” McCarrick came into the See of Washington, DC – and made Ricard a Member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Pope Benedict XVI confirmed Ricard’s membership in 2005, and created him Cardinal Ricard in 2006.
It’s tough to say exactly how much of a difference that made to the investigation and trial of abuse and coverup cases over the years. I put questions to folks in the Vatican – including the press office – regarding Cardinal Ricard’s judicial role in CDF and how many abuse or coverup cases he may have helped judge. I also wrote to the Archdiocese of Bordeaux to ask how many such and similar cases he handled as archbishop there.
I’m not holding my breath for an answer from either quarter.
In 2014, Pope Francis created a special judicial college inside the CDF (as it was then styled) to judge delicta graviora – the most grave crimes, including but not limited to sex crimes – and verdicts have largely come from that quarter. Just exactly who sits on that panel, which cases they judge, what verdicts they hand down, and what penalties are imposed, is all unclear.
All that that hints at a big part of the problem: Transparency.
It is not easy to credit the claims of shock from senior Churchmen in France or the Vatican at the latest round of disclosures, which include nearly a dozen French bishops credibly accused of abuse or coverup, and come on the heels of other gruesome revelations that include – but are not limited to – a French bishop allowed to retire quietly “for health reasons” even though he was credibly accused of spiritual abuse, as well as a Nobel peace laureate who quietly retired in the late 1990s and is now known to have several credible sexual abuse charges against him.
Cardinal Ricard’s victim twice wrote to Pope Francis – the first time five years ago – but never received a reply.
It is impossible to accept that the Vatican is taking the crisis seriously, given the constant talk and grand gesturing that to date have not produced any significant increase in the staffing or budget of the office tasked with investigating and processing sex crimes the world, over. At last count, there were fewer than two dozen people staffing the disciplinary section of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, not all of them working full-time. There are rural public prosecutor’s offices with more staffing and bigger budgets.
As the appalling, infuriating story of Cardinal Ricard makes abundantly clear, Pope Francis did not on his own create the leadership crisis in the Church. Francis by himself did not even create this episode in it. Nevertheless, Francis is pope now. Francis has been the author of many paper reforms. A mere list of Francis’s glaring failures to apply and enforce the very reform laws he has made, however, would run to significantly more length than is available in this column space.
One may be forgiven the impression that the most honest and sincere statement of the Vatican’s mind when it comes to this awful business has come from Cardinal Peter Turkson. In 2019, Turkson criticized Archbishop Diarmuid Martin for a 2012 apology to abuse victims during the International Eucharistic Congress, which Martin’s Dublin archdiocese was then hosting.
“I thought it was too much,” Cardinal Turkson said. “I thought he was making this huge cloud hang over everything.” Turkson said that he understands the pain victims feel. “Now,” however, “we need to find a way of exiting this experience,” he also said. “Otherwise, it will suffocate us.”
So, where does this leave us?
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Christopher R. Altieri is a journalist, editor and author of three books, including Reading the News Without Losing Your Faith (Catholic Truth Society, 2021). He is contributing editor to Catholic World Report.
Vatican City, May 3, 2018 / 01:38 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican issued guidelines and norms Thursday for calling for new courses in canon law, designed to respond to a worldwide, “urgent need” for more people with adequate training on th… […]
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Pope Benedict XVI announced his intention to resign the papacy during a meeting of cardinals Feb. 11, 2013. The surprise announcement, which he made in Latin, took place in the Hall of the Consistory in the Vatican’s apostolic palace. / Vatican Media
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 2, 2023 / 06:00 am (CNA).
On Feb. 11, 2013, before a gathering of cardinals who had come to the Vatican expecting to hear the announcement of upcoming canonizations, Pope Benedict XVI dropped a bombshell.
After a few announcements about Church business at the conclusion of the meeting, the pope took out two sheets of paper and read a prepared statement in Latin.
“I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry,” the then 85-year-old pontiff told the gathering of the Catholic Church’s highest-ranking clergymen.
Because he spoke in Latin, the language used for official Vatican proclamations, reporters present did not at first realize that the pope had just stepped down.
‘Total surprise, total shock’
The assembled cardinals, on the other hand, who knew their Latin, reacted with stunned silence.
American Cardinal James Stafford later told CNA that the pope’s statement was received with “total surprise, total shock.”
“A cardinal who was sitting next to me said, ‘Did he resign?’ I said, ‘Yes, that’s what he did. He resigned.’ And we just all stood at our places.”
Cardinals react to Pope Benedict XVI’s announcement of his intention to resign the papacy Feb. 11, 2013. The surprise announcement, which Benedict made in Latin, took place in the Hall of the Consistory in the Vatican’s apostolic palace. Vatican Media
Nigeria’s Cardinal Francis Arinze, who was present that morning, said the announcement was a “surprise, like thunder that gives no notice that it’s coming,” reported The Catholic Telegraph.
In renouncing the papacy, Benedict became only the second pope in almost 600 years to voluntarily step down. In 1294, Pietro da Morrone, an elderly hermit, was crowned Pope Celestine V, but finding the demands of the job too much for him, he resigned after only five months.
In 1415, Pope Gregory XII also resigned, but under very different circumstances — he stepped down in order to end a crisis within the Church known as the Great Western Schism.
Title, white clothes, and papal coat of arms
What happened next with Benedict XVI was no less surprising to those who expected him to live as a retired cardinal.
In his last official statement as pope, before a general audience on Feb. 27, 2013, Pope Benedict assured the tens of thousands of people gathered to hear him speak as pope for the last time that even though he was stepping back from official duties, he would remain, in essence, pope.
“The ‘always’ is also a ‘forever’ — there can no longer be a return to the private sphere. My decision to resign the active exercise of the ministry does not revoke this,” Benedict said.
“I do not return to private life, to a life of travel, meetings, receptions, conferences, and so on. I am not abandoning the cross, but remaining in a new way at the side of the crucified Lord,” he told the crowd.
A day earlier, on Feb. 26, 2013, the director of the Vatican Press Office, Father Federico Lombardi, had silenced speculation over what Benedict would be called and what he would wear. He would, Lombardi said, retain the trappings of the papacy — most significantly, his title and dress.
“He will still be called His Holiness Benedict XVI,” Lombardi said. “But he will also be called Pope Emeritus or Roman Pontiff Emeritus.”
Lombardi said Benedict would continue to wear a white cassock but without the mozzetta, the short cape that covers the shoulders. The pope’s fisherman’s ring would be replaced by a ring from his time as cardinal. The red shoes would go as well, Lombardi said, and be replaced by a pair of brown ones.
“The city of León is known for beautiful shoes, and very comfortable shoes. And when the pope was asked what he wanted to wear he said, ‘I want the shoes from León in Mexico,’” Lombardi said at the press conference.
On May 2, the cardinal who designed Benedict’s coat of arms in 2005 told CNA that he had written the pope emeritus suggesting that his coat of arms would need to be redesigned to reflect his new status. Cardinal Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo proposed making the keys of St. Peter smaller and less prominent.
“That shows that he had a historic possession but not a current jurisdiction,” said the cardinal at the time.
Benedict, however, it seems, politely declined a new coat of arms. La Stampa reported the following year that the Vatican Publishing House’s manual of ecclesiastical heraldry in the Catholic Church contained the following note:
“Expressing deep appreciation and heartfelt gratitude to the author for the interesting study sent to him, [Benedict] made it known that he prefers not to adopt an expressive heraldic emblem of the new situation created with his renouncing of the Petrine Ministry.”
By his decision to continue to dress in white like the pope, retain the title of pope, and keep the coat of arms of his papacy, Benedict revealed that in giving up the “active exercise of the ministry,” he was not forsaking the role of pope altogether.
Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI pray together at the papal residence in Castel Gandolfo March 23, 2013, their first meeting after Francis’ election. Vatican Media
An expanded Petrine ministry
In his 2013 announcement, Benedict clearly expressed his intention to step aside, even determining the date and time of his official departure. Nonetheless, his decision to keep the title of pope and maintain the ceremonial protocol that goes along with the papacy led some to speculate whether there were not actually “two popes.”
Benedict’s personal secretary and closest confidante, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, sought to clear up any confusion in 2016.
In a speech at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome on May 20, 2016, Gänswein said that Pope Francis and Benedict are not two popes “in competition” with one another but represent one “expanded” Petrine office with “an active member” and a “contemplative.”
Parsing Benedict’s speech, Gänswein explained that in stepping down, Benedict was not giving up his ministry.
“The key word in that statement is ‘munus petrinum,’ translated — as happens most of the time — with ‘Petrine ministry.’ And yet, ‘munus,’ in Latin, has a multiplicity of meanings: It can mean service, duty, guide, or gift, even prodigy. Before and after his resignation, Benedict understood and understands his task as participation in such a ‘Petrine ministry [munus],’” Gänswein said.
“He left the papal throne and yet, with the step he took on Feb. 11, 2013, he has not abandoned this ministry,” Gänswein explained, saying the latter scenario was something “quite impossible after his irrevocable acceptance of the office in April 2005.”
Benedict himself later made clear in an interview with his biographer Peter Seewald that he saw himself as continuing in his ministry. He said that a pope who steps down is like a father whose role changes, but always remains a father.
“Of course a father does not stop being father, but he is relieved of concrete responsibility. He remains a father in a deep, inward sense, in a particular relationship which has responsibility, but not with day-to-day tasks as such. It was also this way for bishops,” Benedict said.
“I think it is also clear that the pope is no superman and his mere existence is not sufficient to conduct his role, rather he likewise exercises a function.
“If he steps down, he remains in an inner sense within the responsibility he took on, but not in the function. In this respect one comes to understand that the office of the pope has lost none of its greatness, even if the humanity of the office is perhaps becoming more clearly evident,” Benedict said.
Benedict’s decision “not to abandon his ministry” inspired a cottage industry of conspiracy theories, with some questioning whether the pope emeritus truly stepped down because of his age and frailty.
George Weigel, author of the definitive biography of St. John Paul II, “Witness to Hope,” dismissed such speculation in an interview with CNA.
“I have no reason to think that there was anything more to Pope Benedict’s resignation than what he said was its cause: his conviction that he no longer had the strength, physical and intellectual, to give the Church what it needed from a pope,” he said.
“Everything else written about this is sheer speculation. Let’s take Benedict at his word,” Weigel said.
A life of prayer
In retiring to live in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican Gardens, Benedict did not completely withdraw from the world. He attended public events in his new capacity as pope emeritus, received visitors, and pursued a life of fruitful study, writing, and prayer.
Pope Francis visits Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery in Vatican City to exchange Christmas greetings Dec. 23, 2013. Vatican Media
Matthew Bunson, Catholic historian, author, and executive editor of EWTN News, told CNA that Benedict was determined not to exercise authority in his new role.
“He really embraced what it means to be pope emeritus, and refrained from making public comments, to instead live a life of prayer and reflection,” Bunson said.
“Benedict really was on retreat, and in prayer,” he said, “and that means we have his prayer for us as a Church.”
While becoming increasingly frail, Benedict continued to celebrate Mass daily with the other residents of the monastery and was known to enjoy spending time in the Vatican Gardens praying his daily rosary.
In the fall of 2021, more than eight years after Benedict stepped down, his private secretary, Gänswein, told Domradio in Cologne, Germany, that Benedict was “stable in his frailty.”
He described the pope emeritus as very weak physically but still clear in mind. Gänswein said he had not lost his “typical Bavarian humor.”
The meaning of Benedict’s renunciation for future popes
In 2013, after Benedict announced that he would step down as pope, Father Gianfranco Ghirlanda, a Jesuit theologian and canonist chosen by Pope Francis to be a cardinal, wrote an essay on what should happen when a pope steps down.
In the article, published in Civiltà Cattolica, Ghirlanda suggested the retiring Benedict take the title bishop emeritus of Rome.
“It is evident that the pope who has resigned is no longer pope; therefore he no longer has any power in the Church and cannot interfere in any government affair. One may wonder what title Benedict XVI will retain. We think that he should be given the title of bishop emeritus of Rome, like any other diocesan bishop who ceases,” he said.
In December 2021, at a congress on papal resignations, Ghirlanda took up the theme again.
“Having two people with the title of ‘pope,’ even if one added ’emeritus,’ it cannot be said that this might not generate confusion in public opinion,” he said.
To make clear that the pope who resigns is no longer pope, he said, he should perhaps be called “former Roman pontiff” or “former supreme pontiff.”
Pope Francis in July 2022 told reporters that if he were to retire from the papacy he would do things differently from his predecessor.
“The first experience went very well,” Pope Francis said, because Benedict XVI “is a holy and discreet man.”
In the future, however, “it would be better to define things or explain them better,” the pontiff added.
“I am the bishop of Rome. In that case I would be the bishop emeritus of Rome,” he said, and then suggested he would live in St. John Lateran Palace rather than at the Vatican.
Christopher, this leaves us exactly where planned. The objective to the Sankt Gallen Mafia End Game is destitution of Catholicism.
It was announced and published by Pope Leo XIII. The objectives of the infiltrates were never in any doubt. Every Pope save about 3 denounced this known plot from 1717 to 1958.
Three possibilities are open:
1) Church self-cleans via violent voluntary disclosure. The Publication of the Gagnon Report on the freemasonic infiltration, including Baggio naming all the bishops from the 1950s onwards. Then an obligation for all prelates to disclose their freemasonic appartenances, and be accordingly reduced to the lay state. If 80% of some bishops conferences leave thus, where is the problem?
A correlation between abuse protectoriat and Masonic Appartenance will clearly exhonerate the remaining Catholics within the institution and allow the institution to recover.
Unfortunately, Self-disclosure of infiltration is not part of the End Game. The Church has had since the 1980s USA Archdiocese explosed… 40 years tells us that the Masonic Eclipse is so bad, there are not enough Catholics in the hierarchy to act. When it is McCarrick and his descendancy which run the PR ‘abuse summits’… we have a clear indication of a blockage in the waste-pipe.
So what alternatives to self disclosure are there?
2) International Tribunal at the Hague along the post-war lines;
3) Divine Intervention.
It is curious that the Roman Curia appear determined to hold out for options 2 and 3… which IS pethaps part of The Sankt Gallen Programme ? A journalist needs to awk the only man in Rome who publicly claims to be following the programme for a report on the extent of laicizing annually, the number of internal reports spontaneously handed over to civil aurhorities in the countried concerned. Normal questions you would expect asking in view of the gravity of the Rainbow Smokescreens blowing from the German C6 orchestrated Church Pire?
Until each of us prostates our souls in penitenance before the Lord, the Church will remain in the pig swill of the world and its institutions. But we must remember that in the end the gates of Hell will not prevail against It (the (Church)
Where does it leave us? Why not focus simply on the incontrovertible facts? Three popes must be adjudged to have been either incompetent or hypocritical. It is not just Ricard. We now know with certainty that there are scores of cardinals, archbishops, and bishops whose criminal sexual predation is beyond question or doubt. And those are no doubt the top of the iceberg.
Perhaps it’s high time that diocesan and Vatican tribunals open up ALL proceedings against clerics on matters of sexual abuse of minors and those pertaining to an abuse of one’s office in the Church. Names of victims can be redacted but the proceedings must be carried out publicly. The corruption of secrecy in the Church must end. Secrecy insures that crimes against persons will continue.
We look to our leadership to set a godly example. Some set no example and we ask what is their business in the church? A good number ask, where is Papa and what is he really upholding?
Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
2 Corinthians 5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
1 Corinthians 10:13 No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
1 John 3:5 You know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.
James 4:17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
Colossians 3:5-6 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming.
Ephesians 2:5 Even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
Galatians 5:19-21 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Let us pray for those in authority that they follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.
The corruption runs very, very deep in the hierarchy of our Most Holy Church. I feel it will get much worse before it gets better because we have so long to go before this generation passes us by. The stated objective of the last Council was to evangelize the world, but alas, our missionaries instead adopted the faith of the world. It wasn’t so much the “smoke of Satan” as it was a revelation that his minions had been there all along. Now they’re in charge. Maybe not the Throne, but as critical functionaries in the apparatus. It will be a long time before they leave.
I believe this is all due to the pastoral and doctrinal liberalness regarding morals and salvation that was injected into Catholic life by Vatican II.
The lines have all been blurred. What Pope John XXIII called the “medicine of mercy” has become a license to do as one pleases.
The Church needs to go back to its traditional hardline ways, with black and while moral lines, and the serious fear of the fires of hell or at least excommunication.
As Adam DeVille has noted here, the Catholic Church governance model is rich ground for corruption and fraud, because there is a total monopoly control on executive, legislative and judicial authority, and there are no checks and balances.
The Pope Paul VI reorganization of the early 1970s now has a 50 year track record of moral and financial corruption. It needs to be thrown in the wood pile and burned to cinders.
Then begin by restoring the primacy of the Sacred Congregation for the Faith, and put all legislative authority in its hands, in communion and co-authority with the Bishop of Rome.
Likewise a Congregation for the Canon Law, and put all judicial authority in its hands, in communion and co-authority with the Bishop of Rome.
As to Executive authority, work it out as a communion of Bishops in communion with the Bishop of Rome.
It’s a glimpse on the inner rot that’s really there and how deep it runs. The big show early on in Francis’s pontificate of a cleaner, simpler pastorate turns out to have been smoke and mirrors. Not long ago in a headline hardly carried anywhere, a homeless man died of exposure to the overnight cold in St. Peter’s Square. Pope Francis “prayed for him”. But I think that event was a sign too, that the inner truth is not what the outside is trying to project. I couldn’t help but remember the story of Dives and Lazarus.
Christopher, this leaves us exactly where planned. The objective to the Sankt Gallen Mafia End Game is destitution of Catholicism.
It was announced and published by Pope Leo XIII. The objectives of the infiltrates were never in any doubt. Every Pope save about 3 denounced this known plot from 1717 to 1958.
Three possibilities are open:
1) Church self-cleans via violent voluntary disclosure. The Publication of the Gagnon Report on the freemasonic infiltration, including Baggio naming all the bishops from the 1950s onwards. Then an obligation for all prelates to disclose their freemasonic appartenances, and be accordingly reduced to the lay state. If 80% of some bishops conferences leave thus, where is the problem?
A correlation between abuse protectoriat and Masonic Appartenance will clearly exhonerate the remaining Catholics within the institution and allow the institution to recover.
Unfortunately, Self-disclosure of infiltration is not part of the End Game. The Church has had since the 1980s USA Archdiocese explosed… 40 years tells us that the Masonic Eclipse is so bad, there are not enough Catholics in the hierarchy to act. When it is McCarrick and his descendancy which run the PR ‘abuse summits’… we have a clear indication of a blockage in the waste-pipe.
So what alternatives to self disclosure are there?
2) International Tribunal at the Hague along the post-war lines;
3) Divine Intervention.
It is curious that the Roman Curia appear determined to hold out for options 2 and 3… which IS pethaps part of The Sankt Gallen Programme ? A journalist needs to awk the only man in Rome who publicly claims to be following the programme for a report on the extent of laicizing annually, the number of internal reports spontaneously handed over to civil aurhorities in the countried concerned. Normal questions you would expect asking in view of the gravity of the Rainbow Smokescreens blowing from the German C6 orchestrated Church Pire?
Until each of us prostates our souls in penitenance before the Lord, the Church will remain in the pig swill of the world and its institutions. But we must remember that in the end the gates of Hell will not prevail against It (the (Church)
I notice that Mr. Altieri is the author of Reading the News Without Losing Your Faith.
Internal affairs not doing their job.
Cdl Ricard opposed women’s ordination. JP2 and B16 vetting done.
“My authority ends at that door.”
PPBXVI whilst Active.
Mr. Flowerday:
To help move the dialogue along, are you suggesting :
A. you believe that those who oppose women’s ordination are likely to be sex abusers, or…
B. that you personally support women’s ordination?
Where does it leave us? Why not focus simply on the incontrovertible facts? Three popes must be adjudged to have been either incompetent or hypocritical. It is not just Ricard. We now know with certainty that there are scores of cardinals, archbishops, and bishops whose criminal sexual predation is beyond question or doubt. And those are no doubt the top of the iceberg.
Lord have mercy. There will be a winnowing
Perhaps it’s high time that diocesan and Vatican tribunals open up ALL proceedings against clerics on matters of sexual abuse of minors and those pertaining to an abuse of one’s office in the Church. Names of victims can be redacted but the proceedings must be carried out publicly. The corruption of secrecy in the Church must end. Secrecy insures that crimes against persons will continue.
We look to our leadership to set a godly example. Some set no example and we ask what is their business in the church? A good number ask, where is Papa and what is he really upholding?
Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
2 Corinthians 5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
1 Corinthians 10:13 No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
1 John 3:5 You know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.
James 4:17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
Colossians 3:5-6 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming.
Ephesians 2:5 Even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
Galatians 5:19-21 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Let us pray for those in authority that they follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.
The corruption runs very, very deep in the hierarchy of our Most Holy Church. I feel it will get much worse before it gets better because we have so long to go before this generation passes us by. The stated objective of the last Council was to evangelize the world, but alas, our missionaries instead adopted the faith of the world. It wasn’t so much the “smoke of Satan” as it was a revelation that his minions had been there all along. Now they’re in charge. Maybe not the Throne, but as critical functionaries in the apparatus. It will be a long time before they leave.
I blame Vatican II.
I believe this is all due to the pastoral and doctrinal liberalness regarding morals and salvation that was injected into Catholic life by Vatican II.
The lines have all been blurred. What Pope John XXIII called the “medicine of mercy” has become a license to do as one pleases.
The Church needs to go back to its traditional hardline ways, with black and while moral lines, and the serious fear of the fires of hell or at least excommunication.
As Adam DeVille has noted here, the Catholic Church governance model is rich ground for corruption and fraud, because there is a total monopoly control on executive, legislative and judicial authority, and there are no checks and balances.
The Pope Paul VI reorganization of the early 1970s now has a 50 year track record of moral and financial corruption. It needs to be thrown in the wood pile and burned to cinders.
Then begin by restoring the primacy of the Sacred Congregation for the Faith, and put all legislative authority in its hands, in communion and co-authority with the Bishop of Rome.
Likewise a Congregation for the Canon Law, and put all judicial authority in its hands, in communion and co-authority with the Bishop of Rome.
As to Executive authority, work it out as a communion of Bishops in communion with the Bishop of Rome.
“So then, you will know them by their fruits” Matt 7:20
Why are the words ‘delicta graviora’ generally translated as ‘the most serious’ crimes? Wouldn’t these be ‘delicta gravissima’?
I began reverting in 2004. The avalanche of scandal, heresy, and cowardice is wearing on me.
You’re not alone. It’s a good time to pipe up and be heard.
It’s a glimpse on the inner rot that’s really there and how deep it runs. The big show early on in Francis’s pontificate of a cleaner, simpler pastorate turns out to have been smoke and mirrors. Not long ago in a headline hardly carried anywhere, a homeless man died of exposure to the overnight cold in St. Peter’s Square. Pope Francis “prayed for him”. But I think that event was a sign too, that the inner truth is not what the outside is trying to project. I couldn’t help but remember the story of Dives and Lazarus.