I'm sure we will be reading a flood of commentary on the pope's latest tirade against his Curia in the coming days. Not the best topic to dissect
during the Christmas season, but I don't think our headstrong pope ever thinks about the consequences of what he wants to say and when he
says it. In this case, the 'when' is important, if only, to use a word Bergoglio used yesterday, out of 'delicacy'.
He has had all year round in the past 5 years to write a personal letter to each member of the Curia (2500 by 365 days = 7 letters a day more
or less), if he wanted to, to let them know he is greatly burdened by their miscellaneous inadequacies and yes, sins, if not crimes. For most,
this would be a generic letter - though signed by the pope, it becomes a keepsake - but for those he considers most recalcitrant and perhaps
incorrigible, he could have their superior draft a specific letter for him to sign. But no, he must wait for the 'exchange of Christmas greetings with the Curia' to get maximum PR mileage out of it...
A pope's historically unprecedented threats
to his Curia, the Maradiaga scandal, and
increasing surveillance of Vatican personnel
Translated from
December 21, 2017
The usual series of reproofs from the reigning pontiff to the Roman Curia came this year at a particularly unfortunate time. We don't know if the temporal coincidence was intended or the result of new unhappy facts brought to light about one of Bergoglio's closest associates.
Because even as the pope was speaking about his 'ongoing reforms' saying: "Speaking of reform, I am reminded of a significant saying by Mons. Frédéric-François-Xavier De Mérode
[Who he? Had to look up this latest example of academic namedropping by a trying-hard-to-sound-erudite Bergoglio. Merode (1820-1874) was a Belgian prelate who became an official in Pius IX's Vatican.] "To carry out reforms in Rome is like cleaning the Sphinx with a toothbrush", Emiliano Fittipaldi was disclosing, in a
L'Espresso article, that one of the men closest to Bergoglio, Cardinal Oscar Maradiaga of Honduras, champion of the 'poor church for the poor', appears to be immersed in a number of questionable financial affairs involving millions of euros.
Maradiaga, of course, is one of Bergoglio's primary advisers, his strenuous defender, and coordinator of the pope's advisory Council of Nine (C9) which has been working with him on curial reform, and has so far given birth only to a mouse (in the consolidation of several pontifical councils into larger 'carriages', and a reform of Vatican media which one cannot call clear at this point).
But in the pope's address to the Curia, he vented on others
[Tosatti implies that the pope could not have been referring to Maradiaga in what he said, but on the other hand, Fr. Z had second thoughts about the following after reading the expose on Maradiaga.]:
"Allow me to spend a few words on another danger, which is that of those betrayers of confidence or those who profit from the maternal generosity of the Church, even those who had been carefully selected to give greater vigor to the body of reform, but – not understanding their high responsibility – allow themselves to be corrupted by ambition or vainglory, and when they are consequently distanced from us in a delicate manner , declare themselves erroneously to be martyrs of the system, of an 'uninformed pope', of the 'Old Guard', instead of saying 'Mea culpa'. [Now, the first part of the statement may be an indirect reference to Maradiaga - 'carefully selected...', '...corrupted by ambition or vainglory'; but it is neutralized by the second part that sounds like an unveiled reference to Cardinal Mueller and not to anyone else, even I do not recall Mueller claiming to be a 'martyr' in any way.]
Besides these persons, there are others who are still working in the Curia, to whom one has given all the time for them to get back on the right track, in the hope that they might find in the patience of the Church an opportunity to convert themselves rather than profiting from it. All this, however, without forgetting the greater majority of faithful persons who work in the Curia with praiseworthy commitment, fidelity, competence, dedication, and even holiness". [Of course, he had to say that last statement, too, although I don't recall that he made any such qualification in the omnibus denunciation he made of the Curia and its spiritual maladies in December 2014.]
The pope used the adverb 'in a delicate manner' to describe the dismissals without cause; the pressures, subtle and obvious, exercised on persons in order to force them to resign; and the resignations extorted by using the obedience 'lever', and so on, prevaricating. Delicately, indeed!
And all this while Vatican control over emails, telephone landlines, and, I am told, even on some categories of personal cell phones, is reaching surveillance levels that would be envied by North Korea. To say that the pope's words yesterday were threatening ("to those to whom all the time has been given to get back on the right track")
[Ah, but the right track is what? The Bergoglian line, of course. Certainly, not orthodoxy!] is an understatement. It would have been a threat if the secretary general of the Communist Party had said it back in the 1970s.
But it is also an evident signal that the level of unease in the Curia is rising – at least among those who are not Curial officials named by Bergoglio himself and obviously homogenized to his regime. So now he must make explicit threats, certainly never heard from a Vicar of Christ, at least not in contemporary times, in order to respond. Merry Christmas to everyone.
Pezzo Grosso on the pope's threats -
Too bad Freud is no longer with us!
Translated from
December 22, 2017
The occasion was too opportune. After the threatening address by the reigning Pontiff to the Roman Curia yesterday, Pezzo Grosso found his interest piqued and wrote us forthwith. As we noted yesterday, I cannot remember a pope who throws out vague threats to
those who refuse to allow themselves to be re-educated", nor one who has taken to classic tools of invective to justify his own inefficiency or of those he has chosen to carry out tasks for him.
Papa Bergoglio spoke of traitors
[Has any contemporary pope ever been so paranoid and expressed it so publicly???] He might as well have cited a Fifth Column, 'enemies of the people', counter-revolutionaries, reform saboteurs, not to speak of backstabbers and the 'Judaeo-Masonic conspiracy'.
Perhaps it is not entirely his fault: as in any self-respecting autocratic and rather obsessive regime, the pope is surrounded by a hive of sycophants and coryphants all busily engaged in justifying their existence and their funding, and in pointing out 'enemies', true or false, that the sovereign's ire may fall on them, evoking in the eyes and mind of an inquiet monarch the smoke and mirrors of conspiracies. … But let's hear what PG has to say:
Dear Tosatti,
Reading 'the pope's threats to the Curia', I was, first of all, not surprised. It reminded me of the frustrated husband who, after his nth failure in work and after his chief's reproofs, comes home and beats his wife and children for no apparent reason.
But I also found new material that indicates the urgent need for the pope to have new sessions with his psychoanalyst. Because in fact, every accusation he makes against the Curia are those that have been made against him. I think it was you, Tosatti, who first wrote about the dressing down that he recently gave to a very important cardinal (one who belongs to his court, even) who reproached him for not doing what he was elected to do – am I right?
Who knows that this syndrome is called that has led the pope to call his own people 'betrayers of confidence', 'profiteers from the Church's maternal generosity", who have allowed themselves "to be corrupted by ambition and vainglory". But this takes the cake: "those who declare themselves to be martyrs to a hostile Curia that does not understand them"…
PG certainly makes his point that the Curial address yesterday betrays, more than anything so far, the serious psychological and mental affliction besetting Jorge Bergoglio (forgive the armchair diagnosis). Pure paranoia it was, and you don't have to be a psychoanalyst to recognize it. On top of his narcissistic personality disorder – which perhaps also encompasses paranoia. Not to mention his anal obsessive-compulsive pontifications at his morning homilettes. Or his habitual lying – which need not be a psychological disorder at all but simply a bad bad habit surely unbecoming of pope. Not that much of Bergoglio's conduct has been properly becoming of a Pope.
SORRY, SORRY, SORRY...
Apparently Cardinal Maradiaga has responded to the accusations against him but I only saw the story now...
Cardinal Maradiaga responds
to allegations of corruption
By Andrea Gagliarducci
CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY
Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Dec 22, 2017 (CNA)- Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodriguez Maradiaga has rejected accusations of financial mismanagement, and offered an explanation for allegations that he has received an excessive salary for a largely ceremonial role at the Catholic University of Honduras.
In an email interview with CNA, Cardinal Maradiaga explained that “a little more than one year ago, we had to fire a manager of the university because he was stealing,” and “shortly after, an anonymous defamatory paper was spread, filled with a series of calumnies of the kind published this week.”
Cardinal Maradiaga was referring to a report by Italian outlet
L’Espresso. According to the report, Cardinal Maradiaga received $600,000 from the University of Tegucigalpa in 2015, as a sort of “salary” for being the chancellor of the University. The cardinal was also accused of losing nearly $1.2 million of Church funds through investments in some London financial companies.
The accusations were not new, since the website ConfidencialHn had reported on them in Aug. 2016. Cardinal Maradiaga said that the archdiocese has begun a legal action to defend itself, but this has “had no effect in clarifying the truth.”
Cardinal Maradiaga explained that the Catholic University of Honduras is “owned by the archdiocese.” The cardinal stressed that, during his term as archbishop, and chancellor of the university, the college has grown to 11 campuses spread across Honduras.
The cardinal added that “the university is aimed at assisting the pastoral works of the Archdiocese,” and to support that work, he said the archdiocese, not the cardinal personally, received monthly payments that were “more or less” the amount of money described in reports – approximately $41,400 monthly.
This money, he added, was delivered to “pay the seminarians’ tuition, to fund the building and renovations of churches and to provide economic assistance to priests in rural parishes or to priests who have no livelihood.”
Cardinal Maradiaga stressed that “funds are not transferred in my name, but in the name of the archdiocese,” and this can be witnessed by priests. He underscored that “with these funds, we also help a lot of poor people that seek help everyday.”
Fr. Carlos Rubio of the Archdiocese of Tegucigalpa told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, that the Catholic University of Honduras financially supports “all the bishops [of Honduras], not just the cardinal, to help the dioceses. Remember that the university is Catholic and under the auspices of the Church.”
“All the bishops receive support for their dioceses, not for personal use,” Rubio said. The money “is support from the Catholic university for the mission of the diocese.”
Cardinal Maradiaga confirmed that there was an apostolic visit to Bishop Juan José Pineda, auxiliary Bishop of Tegucigalpa, but he stressed that the bishop himself “asked the Holy Father for an apostolic visit, in order to clear his name.”
Pineda has long been the subject of accusations of financial mismanagement, and rumors that he financially supports a male companion using archdiocesan funds. Some have alleged that he had an apartment built on the campus of the Catholic University of Honduras, in order to house this companion.
A Catholic missionary working in Honduras told ACI Prensa that Pineda’s situation is a source of scandal in the Honduran Church. The bishop “lives with an ‘aide,’ without any explanation by anyone,” the missionary said.
“Bishop Pinedo has bought him a downtown apartment and a car. The car, we fear, comes from the coffers of the university or the diocese. We have reported this unseemly relationship to the Vatican. The pope knows everything,” the missionary added.
Cardinal Maradiaga said that the Archdiocese does not yet know the results of the apostolic visit, but he also asked “how these results eventually got” to
L’Espresso. He said that the report “says half truths, that are in the end the worse lies.”
The cardinal denied that the Finance Council of the Archdiocese have ever authorized “any investment” similar to those reported by
L’Espresso.
Cardinal Maradiaga concluded: “Why have accusations that were published and dismissed one year ago been published now, only 8 days before I present my resignation to Pope Francis, since I will have reached the age limit of 75?”
In Maradiaga’s view, attacking him is a way to try to jeopardize Pope Francis’s reforms. And he said: “I will keep serving [those reforms] as long as the Holy Father wishes so.”
I hold no brief for Maradiaga except his right to fairness. His explanations sound plausible, and I wonder why the L'Espresso reporter did not even try to get his side before publishing his expose. But then I realized that the reporter is Emiliano Fittipaldi author of the 2015 expose book, Avarizia (Greed), on miscellaneous questionable financial episodes in the Vatican, including the story of Cardinal Bertone's costly renovations for his post-retirement residence inside the Vatican. I think expose writers, by definition, seek to show only one side - the most evil side, of course - of the things they report on.
In any case, Cardinal Maradiaga was either not asked or chose to gloss over the (to me) more scandalous report that his auxiliary bishop has been co-habitating with a man and spending diocesan funds on him. Diocesan affairs in Tegucigalpa require more serious journalistic investigation. If this is even halfway true and Maradiaga condoned the situation, then it makes Maradiaga guilty of tolerating what seems to be an openly deviant and sinful lifestyle by his deputy.
On the other hand, it seems none of the usual suspect Bergoglio defenders have denied Fittipaldi's allegations that the pope has been seriously concerned over the report submitted to him six months ago by an Argentine bishop he sent to investigate what appears to have been persistent negative reports from Tegucigalpa. Perhaps his main concern is Mons. Pineda, not Cardinal Maradiaga.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 23/12/2017 03:13]