Last week, a Vatican Radio headline after the Pope's general audience said
"Pope Francis greets Asia Bibi's family", and I skimmed through the
report to see whether he met with them instead of just greeting them.
But all it said about this 'encounter' was in the first sentence of the report.
"At Wednesday’s General Audience, Pope Francis gave a special
greeting to Asia Bibi’s husband and daughter." - Nothing else.
The rest of the story was a backgrounder on Asia Bibi and an account of
the news conference given by her lawyer in Rome as part of an effort to
obtain more governments to call on the Pakistani government to give her
a 'pardon'.
Then, ROME REPORTS sent out a video clip of the 35-second 'encounter' - in which Asia Bibi's
husband, one of her daughters, and a man who is presumably the lawyer, are behind
the rope line for persons whom the Pope could greet after the audience. The lawyer
appears to have told the Pope who the two were. Here is the video:
This led Antonio Socci to write on his blog:
Watch the video – and count how many seconds Papa Bergpglio gives to the family of Asia Bibi (15 seconds!!!) He hardly stops, much less talk to them…
It is striking to note the Pope’s happy mood with the desolate expression of Asia Bibi’s husband and daughter – who have a wife and mother imprisoned for six years under a death sentence because she is Christian. And the Pope does not even deign to give them a caress...
Holy Father, would it have been such an effort to be with them a little bit more – listen to them and perhaps share their sorrow, listen to what they need from you? (and to stop smiling….)?
At the ‘speed’ of this encounter and the ‘distance’ you took from them, it is very difficult that you would have taken on ‘the odor of the sheep’...
Since the Pope has given audiences even at Casa Santa Marta to 'special guests' like the transsexual Diego from Madrid and 'his' fiancee, how could he not have met with this family in private - and then, fail to even listen to them at the rope line?
Perhaps he was distracted. Perhaps he did not catch the name 'Asia Bibi' when the lawyer spoke up to present the husband and daughter to him. That can be the only explanation for this 'non-event', especially considering that in his catechesis earlier, he said this:
Nowadays, we sense the responsibility to do more in favour of women, recognizing the weight and authority of their voices in society and the Church. We must also ask ourselves to what extent society’s loss of faith in God is related to the crisis of that covenant.
Let me add some quibbles about the video: In the few seconds JMB stood before the three persons, he was mostly looking at the lawyer, other than the seconds it took him to shake the hands of the daughter and the father; and that while he was listening to the lawyer, he kept shifting from foot to foot (maybe he does that habitually, or maybe it was a sign of impatience, just wanting to go on to the next persons in the ropeline).
I brought up this story because today, Riccardo Cascioli reports this in LNBQ:
The 'gay' ambassador
remains in France
by Riccardo Cascioli
Translated from
April 22, 2015
“It’s nothing personal, but the Pope was not happy about his (Stefanini's) support for the French law recognizing gay ‘marriage’ nor the attempt by the Elysee (French presidential palace) to force his hand”.
The satirical French weekly
Le Canard Enchaine out today reports that
this was the sense of the position expressed by Pope Francis in a meeting at the Vatican last Saturday with Laurent Stefanini, a homosexual whom French President Francois Hollande named last January to be his ambassador to the Holy See.
According to Agence France Press, the meeting [at which the Pope, in effect, personally explained to Stefanini why he was rejecting his appointment as ambassador to the Holy See] took place ‘in a very discreet way’.
One can understand the Pope’s desire to explain the negative position he had to take about this nomination which, as even we had noted in an earlier article, was not a lack of respect for Stefanini but a reaction to the clear provocation from the French president.
The meeting at the Vatican, according to AFP, was confirmed by a source in charge of the Stefanini file although he did not reveal its contents. But last night, an Elysee spokesman reiterated Hollande’s firm position on Stefanini, adding that Paris “expects a positive and rapid response”.
Le Canard enchaine – which had first reported on the effective rejection of Stefanini by the Vatican – claims, however, that Hollande is already searching for another name to propose.
As we noted in out last article on this, the public knowledge that Stefanini’s nomination has been stalled since January
[and that the lack of an outright response from the Vatican within six weeks of the nomination has usually meant it was rejecting the appointment] has been an embarrassment to the Holy See.
Accepting the appointment would have grave consequences not just for the diplomatic prestige of the Holy See, but above all for the Magisterium of the Church, because it would have been interpreted as a ‘recognition’ of homosexuality as part of natural law. On the part of the Elysee, there was a clear attempt “to force the hand’ of the Pope, an attempt which apparently displeased Pope Francis.
If all this is confirmed, one may expect harsh reactions from LGBT associations and the more secular factions of the European Parliament who have already made their sentiments felt about the Stefanini nomination. More than ever, it is absolutely essential that the Holy See does not yield to ‘blackmail’.
In the first place, it is absolutely unprecedented for a Pope to meet with someone whose appointment he is rejecting! And I find the 'explanation' from the Pope alleged by Le Canard enchaine to be rather self-serving because it avoids the point. One wonders if, in the actual 15-minute meeting, the Pope also managed to remind Stefanini about the Church's teaching on homosexual practice (though some quarters, including, inexplicably, LifeSite News, have claimed that the unmarried Stefanini may not even be homosexual at all, because nothing has been reported about any partners or liaisons. But the French government itself has not denied that Stefanini is homosexual.]
In any case, for the Pope to give the two reasons he reportedly gave for his rejection, if indeed he has rejected the nomination, is a distinct copout - if he did not take the occasion to underscore Catholic doctrine about homosexual practice. As I said earlier, if it is a fact that Stefanini as an 'observant Catholic' has lived a chaste life despite his sexual preferences, then the Pope should accept his nomination and hold him up as a model for Catholic homosexuals. One can only conclude there is no basis for the LifeSite News hypothesis that Stefanini may not even be a homosexual, let alone one who engages in homosexual practice.
Which brings us to why, if JMB/PF finds time to meet with the transsexual Diego - whom he expressly invited to come meet him at the Vatican - and with Stefanini, he could not find time to sit down with Asia Bibi's husband and daughter! Or, for that matter, with someone like Ettore Gotti Tedeschi who has been requesting in vain to see him for the past two years. Or with the family of Fr. Stefano Manelli, founder of the FFI whom the Vatican has placed under house arrest since July 2013.
So the Pope who is open to all and everyone is not really open to those whom he has reason to dislike or avoid for some reason! Yet another application of the double standard he habitually applies in his Casa Santa Marta homilettes.
P.S. On the Asia Bibi case, I must check whether JMB/PF has done his part officially to petition the Pakistani government to grant Asia Bibi a reprieve. Perhaps that is what her husband and daughter hoped to ask him to do, if they had been given a chance. It does not look as if he even replied to the lawyer who accompanied them...
Is this a case of trying to be politically correct at any cost? (Or sheer pusillanimity like refusing to receive the Dalai Lama at the Vatican last year for fear of offending China?) In this case, is it out of fear that a formal appeal to the Pakistani government might be misinterpreted as 'undue intervention' into a sovereign government's judicial processes? Pakistan, after all, is the second largest Muslim country in the world (178 million Muslims, 96% of the population) after Indonesia (205 million Muslims, 88% of the population).
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 06/04/2016 20:32]