Plan B Forum

Seen to be circling the wagons and calling sexual abuse victims liars in a knee jerk reaction is not the message the pope should be sending:

Pope Francis shocks Chile by accusing sex abuse victims of slander

Pope Francis shocks Chile by accusing sex abuse victims of slander"

Probably only those victims who are non-practicing catholics. They would be asking for it.

Jokes aside, this visit to Chile was being seen as a way of reconciling Chilean Catholics to the Church in the aftermath of horrendous and well documented abuse. After initially taking a very contrite tone, the pope went completely off message in deciding to defend a bishop widely seen as complicit in the entire affair, and accused by some victims of being present while they were being abused. It was the sort of tone deaf response one would have expected during the previous two papacies, but not from this one.

That certainly puts a new lens on Francis.

In the article I thought this was interesting as well:

Francis had defended the appointment before, calling the Osorno controversy “stupid” and the result of a campaign mounted by leftists

Leftists? I guess we can call him Pope Trump or Pope Fox News.

Yup--another potentially good papacy down the drain. Maybe the Mafia threatened him with the fate of John Paul I if he didn't play ball?

Recently he traveled to Myanmar and refused to address the genocide of the Rohingya or even mention them. He appears weaker mentally than he did 2+ years ago. Is anyone testing his food?


yrs,
rubato

Perhaps his holiness should be given the:

The Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test

Trump supposedly aced the sucker.

Did anyone watch The Young Pope on HBO? Pretty good series, and made me think how very lonely and painful the job would be for someone pure of heart. I know Francis’s prior life as a bishop involved some not so great actions, but he really did start out pretty great after becoming Pope. I would not be surprised if recent changes were due to external pressures and/or fear.

The Vatican is saturated with corruption. The Vatican bank, after decades of corruptions scandals involving money laundering for the mafia, has done nothing to reform itself and has been barred from doing business with most European and US banks because of its current banking practices. The Vatican helped Nazi mass murders escape prosecution. The Vatican has continued to obstruct investigation and prosecution of Priest sex scandals telling off Ireland when they asked for help. If they were any other religion or a public company they would be thrown out of every decent society in the world.

the institutions in the Vatican are better and more powerful in promoting and hiding corruption than Francis is at rooting it out. He is one, they are legion.


yrs,
rubato