I'm surprised at this BBC article which actually acknowledges 'hostility' to the-most-popular-pope-ever!
Pope Francis likely to face hostility
on his official visit to Chile
By Eva Ontiveros
16 January 2018
When the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said that Pope Francis's trip to Chile would not be an easy one, it was no exaggeration.
In the pontiff's 22nd overseas visit, he will meet an unprecedented degree of hostility on his native continent.
When asked to evaluate Pope Francis on a scale of 0 to 10, Chileans gave him a score of 5.3, the lowest ranking for any Pope.
Trust in the Catholic Church as an institution fared even worse, polling at just 36% - the lowest in Latin America.
With such a low rating, it is not surprising that before boarding his plane from Rome, Pope Francis asked his congregation to pray for him.
Chile is a land of contrasts. It is estimated that more than 60% of the population identifies itself as Christian, and 45% belongs to the Catholic Church. But it is also the second most secular country in Latin America.
Some 38% of Chileans regard themselves as agnostic, atheist or non-religious.
So what are the three main challenges the Pope will face on his Chilean trip?
1:
Corruption and poverty
In the days before Pope Francis was due to land in Chile, the visit came under criticism for the costs involved while so many people were struggling under the poverty threshold.
Catholic churches in the capital, Santiago, were firebombed, causing minor damage but sending a clear message.
Three churches caught fire after they were targeted with homemade devices. A fourth church was spared any damage after an explosive was defused, but a message left on a wall nearby read: "The poor are dying."
Flyers were also left at the properties, warning that the next target would be the Pope.
The Apostolic Nunciature was also occupied briefly with protesters complaining about the expense of the pontiff's trip.
The lack of initiative in fighting against corruption is also seen by many Chileans as a way of slowing down development and keeping poor people from prospering.
2:
Resentment after sexual abuse scandal cover-up
The Catholic Church in Chile has yet to recover from the downward spiral that began with the so-called Karadima abuse case.
For more than a decade, local church leaders ignored complaints against the highly influential Fernando Karadima, a Roman Catholic priest accused of molesting children.
When the victims went public, the Vatican finally investigated the affair and Fr Karadima was found guilty in 2011. [Under Benedict XVI]
Pope Francis has made clear his "zero tolerance" for abuse, but his appointment of one of Fr Karadima's protégés - Juan Barros - as the bishop of Osorno in southern Chile has reopened old wounds.
According to Fr Karadima's victims, Bishop Barros was aware of the abuse but allowed it to happen, although he denies knowing of the crimes.
In an open letter, James Hamilton, one of Fr Karadima's best-known and outspoken victims, said: "I still don't understand how we, the thousands of victims of abuse, were not protected by our priests, who were silent witnesses to what was happening to us."
3:
Indigenous discontent
On Wednesday, Pope Francis will visit Temuco, a city in southern Chile that acts as the de facto capital for the indigenous Mapuche people.
The Mapuche community has opposed colonisation for 300 years - fighting against Spanish colonisers first, then the Chilean nation-state - in what is considered one of Latin America's longest-running conflicts. It is a conflict that erupts in violence periodically.
The Pope is to celebrate a mass for "the progress of peoples" followed by lunch with Mapuche representatives.
There are longstanding issues for this community - among them, ancestral land ownership, and legal recognition for the Mapuche language and culture.
Leaders hope that Pope Francis can help them end decades of discrimination, and bridge differences.
Sandro Magister now offers us a detailed chronology and analysis of Bergoglio's words and actions regarding the Karadima-Barros episodes - yet another illustration of his puzzling equivocation (if not outright duplicity, or more simply, LYING, which it appears is a modus operandi for him] in dealing with priestly sex abuses, notwithstanding all his fiery words of 'zero tolerance' in the matter...
Bergoglio's doublespeak about
his appointment of Chilean bishop Barros
January 16, 2018
A few days before the arrival of Pope Francis in Chile, the Associated Press published a January 2015 letter he sent to the bishops of Chile.
It raises the question: What is the real thinking of Jorge Mario Bergoglio concerning the biggest scandal that has shaken the Church in Chile in recent years, the one centered on a priest named Fernando Karadima?
Karadima, now eighty-seven, was for years a pastor in Santiago, but above all was an extremely popular educator and leader of vast ranks of young people and priests, some of whom went on to become bishops.
In 2010, however, many of his disciples revealed that he had sexually abused them when they were young or minors. The Holy See quickly reached the conclusion that those accusations were well-founded. And on June 21, 2011 it found Karadima guilty and ordered him to retire to a private life of penance and prayer.
Afterward, however, new charges were made against three bishops who had been raised in the school of Karadima, accused of having witnessed or taken part in some of the sexual abuse committed by their teacher.
These three bishops were:
- Juan de la Cruz Barros Madrid, ordained in 1995 as auxiliary of ValparaÍso, later made bishop of Iquique and at the time the military ordinary of Chile;
- Tomislav Koljatic Maroevic, ordained in 1998, bishop of Linares;
- Horacio del Carmen Valenzuela Abarca, ordained in 1995, bishop of Talca;
The Holy See also opened investigations into these three bishops. And it quickly came to the decision to remove them from the exercise of their offices.
This, in fact, is what can be gathered from the letter of Pope Francis made public a few days ago by the Associated Press.
According to what the pope writes in this letter, in 2014 the Vatican nuncio in Chile, Ivo Scapolo, asked Barros, the bishop most in the eye of the hurricane, to resign and take a year of sabbatical. The nuncio also told Barros confidentially - again according to what the pope writes - that the same step would be requested of the other two bishops under accusation.
Barros, however, in the letter of resignation that he sent to the Vatican authorities toward the end of 2014, also put down in writing what the nuncio had said to him confidentially concerning the other two bishops. And
this infraction - the pope writes in the letter - “complicated and blocked” everything. [How exactly does mentioning something said by the nunco - even if confidentially - become 'an infraction that could complicate and block everything' in which everything presumably included not acting on Barros's resignation! This is a Bergoglian 'excuse' as shoddy and embarrassing as that of the heVatican's recent 'explanation' for conferring the Order of St. Gregory the Great on an abortion/LGBT activist nonpareil!]
In fact, the resignation of Barros and of the other two bishops had no follow-up. Not only that. Shortly afterward, Francis even promoted Barros from military ordinary to bishop of a diocese, that of Osorno.
The appointment was made public on January 10, 2015, and in Chile all bedlam broke loose. On January 23, the permanent council of the episcopal conference of Chile wrote a letter to Pope Francis asking him to revoke the appointment. And on January 31 Francis replied to the Chilean bishops with none other than the letter now made public by the Associated Press.
Here it is translated in its entirety from the original Spanish:
Vatican, January 31, 2015
To the distinguished bishops of
the Permanent Committee of the Episcopal Conference of Chile
Dear brothers:
I have received your e-mail of the 23rd of this month. Thank you very much for openly manifesting the disquiet that you have at this time concerning the appointment of Mons. Juan Barros Madrid. I understand what you are saying to me and I am aware that the situation of the Church of Chile is difficult due to all the trials you have had to endure.
I pledge to you, in addition to my fraternal understanding, my closeness as a brother and my prayer.
I remember well the visit that you made in February of last year, and also the various proposals, which seemed to me prudent and constructive.
However, there then arose, at the end of the year, a serious problem. The distinguished nuncio asked Mons. Barros for his resignation and urged him to take a sabbatical period (one year, for example) before taking on another pastoral responsibility as diocesan bishop. And he mentioned to him that the same procedure would be used with the bishops of Talca and Linares, but not to tell them about this. Mons. Barros sent the text of his resignation, adding this remark from the nuncio.
As you can understand, this remark of the distinguished nuncio complicated and blocked any further move in the direction of offering a sabbatical year. I spoke about the matter with Card. Ouellet, and I know that he spoke with the distinguished nuncio.
At this time, following the express indication of the Congregation for Bishops, Mons. Barros is doing a month of Spiritual Exercises in Spain. [So, from having been asked to submit his resignation, Barros ends up with no 'disciplinary action' other than a monthlong retreat in Spain!]I do not know if he will pass through Rome afterward, but I will advise Card. Ouellet of this and of the suggestion that you are making.
I thank you once again for your openness and frankness in expressing your views and feelings: this is the only way to work for the Church, the care of which the Lord has entrusted to the bishops.
I ask you to please pray for me, because I need it.
May Jesus bless you and the Holy Virgin watch over you.
Fraternally,
Franciscus
This letter does not explain why a mere impropriety in writing - and moreover a correctible one - was enough to nullify Barros’s resignation.
Nor much less does the pope cite, or explain, the bewildering about-face that he made by promoting Barros to be a diocesan bishop whom just a short time before he had intended to remove.
This, in any case,is what happened next.
- On March 6, 2015, Francis received in audience the archbishop of Concepción, Fernando Natalio Chomalí Garib, apostolic administrator of Osorno before the installation of the new bishop.
- On March 21, 2015 Barros made his official entrance into the diocese of Osorno, amid a hurricane of protests.
- Ten days later, on March 31, a statement from the deputy director of the Vatican press office declared that “prior to the recent appointment of His Excellency Msgr. Juan de la Cruz Barros Madrid as bishop of Osorno, Chile, the Congregation for Bishops carefully examined the prelate’s candidature and did not find objective reasons to preclude the appointment.” Which does not explain why until the very end of 2014, the Holy See appeared to support the resignation of Barros.
- In April Marie Collins, a victim of abuse in her youth and a prominent member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, publicly criticized the appointment of Barros. And with three other members of the commission she went to Rome to meet with the president of the commission, Cardinal Sean O'Malley, to get him to convince the pope to revoke the appointment.
[Obviously, to no avail.]
- In May, at the end of a general audience in Saint Peter’s Square, Francis met with a former spokesman of the Chilean episcopal conference, Jaime Coiro, along with his family, who told him that in Chile the Church “is praying and suffering” because of all that is happening.
And these are the words that Francis addressed to him, immortalized in a video of one minute and twenty seconds released the following October 2 by the Chilean television network “Ahora Noticias”:
In the original Spanish:
"Es una Iglesia que perdió la libertad dejándose llenar la cabeza por políticos, juzgando a un obispo sin ninguna prueba después de veinte años de servicio. O sea, que piensen con la cabeza, no se dejen llevar por las narices de todos los zurdos que son los que armaron la cosa.
"Además, la única acusación que hubo contra ese obispo fue desacreditada por la corte judicial. O sea, por favor, eh… no pierdan la serenidad. Osorno sufre sí, por tonta, porque no abre su corazón a lo que Dios dice y se deja llevar por las macanas que dice toda esa gente. Yo soy el primero en juzgar y castigar a alguien que tiene acusaciones de ese tipo… Pero en este caso ni una prueba, al contrario… De corazón se lo digo. No se dejen llevar por las narices de estos que buscan lío no más, que buscan calumnias…".
In English:
“It is a Church that has lost its freedom because it has let its head be filled up by the politicians, judging a bishop without any proof after twenty years of service. So think with your heads, and don’t let yourselves be led by the nose by all those leftists who are the ones who drummed up the business.
“Furthermore, the only accusation that there has been against this bishop has been discredited by the judicial court. So please, eh? Don’t lose your serenity. Yes, Osorno is suffering, because it is stupid, because it is not opening its heart to what God is saying and is letting itself get carried away by the stupidities that all those people are saying. I am the first to judge and punish those who have been accused of such things... But in this case there is a lack of proof, or rather, on the contrary... I say it from the heart. Don’t let yourselves be led by the nose by these people who are seeking only to make ‘lío,’ confusion, who seek to calumniate….”
[One must note that this intemperate outburst on the part of Bergoglio - who probably was unaware he was being recorded - appears to illustrate his typical invective against those who oppose him in any way, more intemperate than the language he uses in his daily homilettes and certainly suggestive of the rage he is capable of displaying behind the scenes, as reported in several anecdotes out of Casa Santa Marta. Imagine, a pope giving way to such negativity during a ropeline meeting with an unsuspecting and well-intentioned Chilean Catholic! Yet very few in the media and the blogosphere bothered to call him out on the inappropriateness and the content of his outburst.
- In October, after the releae of these words from Francis that were as exonerating for Barros as they were humiliating for his accusers, the protests exploded with even more force. And even Marie Collins stated in a tweet her deep dismay over this position taken by the pope:
"What a waste that trip to Rome re Barros was, when you see the claims of Karadima's courageous victims categorised in this way."
- A year and a half later, on February 20, 2017, Francis received the bishops of Chile on their “ad limina” visit. He conversed with them, behind closed doors, for about three hours. After the meeting, Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati Andrello stated that the pope also touched “with much sincerity” upon the problem of pedophilia, urging them to “overcome this situation.”
But nothing changed with regard to the bishop of Osorno, who was also present at the meeting, as were the other two disciples of Karadima, the bishops of Linares and Talca.
And that brings us up to the arrival of Pope Francis in Chile, right when the lid has been lifted - with the publication of that January 2015 letter - on the mess of contradictions that marks his management of the affair.
Contradictions between speech and action. And saying one thing today and the next time its opposite.
[So much to-do in the news today that Bergoglio met with some victims of priestly sex abuse in Chile. I bet that did not include any of Karadima's accusers, one of whom - which Magister fails to mention - has said that not only was Barros aware of Karadima's abuses but also was present at some of the events. Surely this must have factored in the investigation that led to the Nuncio in Chils recommending the resignation of Barros and the two other Karadima proteges.]
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 17/01/2018 18:43]