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It would be all too easy for a skimmer as well as for the more earnest reader to miss a few lines that are genuinely headline-making in a 600-page book intended to portray a heroic reforming gay-friendly pope undermined by a substantial 'gay' subculture in the Vatican that seeks to oppose reforms they fear will undercut their power and influence in the Vatican [a hypothesis that is at the very least questionable]. But those telltale lines are in the book - as Marco Tosatti shares it with us.
Do we finally have an answer
to whether Vigano told the pope
all about McCarrick back in 2013?
Author of gay expose book facilitated by
the pope's men say they told him Vigano did
Translated from
February 17, 2019
Sodoma, the book by Frederic Martel we have been dealing with in recent days, actually has a genuine news headline in its 600 pages. According to the author, in the English version of the text, Pope Bergoglio was really informed by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò about McCarrick's predatory past targetting seminarians and young priests, but the pope apparently did not consider the fact so important.
Consequently, not only did he relieve him of the restrictions that Benedict XVI had imposed on him (restrictions confirmed by Cardinal Marc Ouellet in a letter to Vigano), but he also used him as an adviser for Church appointments in the United States [and to the cardinalate] (the appointment of of Kevin Farrell as Camerlengo and of Blase Cupich to the organizing committee of the summit on child abuse [papal moves made after McCarrick's double life was finally made public]further confirm the pope's faith and trust in the proteges McCarrick recommended for promotion - if anyone needed any such confirmation [and thanks to Bergoglio, McCarrick lives on in his proteges], and as his personal diplomatic envoy in the United States (to Obama, specifically) and to China, Armenia, Iran and Cuba.
This is a case of extraordinary 'friendly fire', because if there is someone of whom Martel speaks well in his long work, and often enthusiastically, it is really Pope Bergoglio. Martel, as we know, was helped and hosted by prelates in the Vatican, to carry out his task. In a television interview, he mentioned at least four high prelates close to the Pope who favored and encouraged him [starting with the pope’s most famous ‘who am I to judge’ beneficiary, Mons. Battista Ricca, who Martel claims opened all Vatican doors to him and enabled him to live within the Vatican one week a month during the five years it took him to research the book].
He said he met several times with Fr. Antonio Spadaro, the editor of La Civiltà Cattolica, Antonio Spadaro [certainly one of the reigning eminences grises behind Bergoglio]. His book contains an interview with Spadaro as well as with Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, who orchestrated all three Bergoglio synods towards ‘achieving’ their predetermined outcomes. Baldisseri is, of course, a high-profile Bergoglio famiglio [Italian word for 'trusted servant', obviously derived from the word for family, so someone you consider 'family'].
So we have to believe Martel, who encloses the central part of his 'revelation' in quotes, in this pertinent passage from his book.. After referring to
...cardinals and bishops of the Roman Curia and the American episcopate who... took part in this huge cover-up... an endless list of names of prelates, among the most important in the Vatican, who were thus “outed”, whether right or wrong. When the Pope dismissed the allegations, his entourage indicated to me that Francis "was initially informed by Viganò that Cardinal McCarrick had had homosexual relations with adult seminarians, which was not enough in his eyes to condemn him").
If Martel writes the truth – and there is no reason to believe otherwise since he is certainly not a conservative homophobe nor a moralizing and hypocritical Pharisee – some considerations are called for:
The first: Even though [Uncle Ted's] seminarian victims were not under age, it is no longer a question of sex between ‘consenting adults’ but a form of violence if a person in a high position, who can decide the fate of his subordinates, demands and gets sexual relations with a subordinate. Now, we know from the reigning pope’s own words, much quoted recently, that he considers ‘sins below the belt’ minor offenses. [It is a measure of the ‘passe partout’ Bergoglio has from the media hat his outrageous and utterly relativistic measure of sin did not raise more protest – at a time when there s so much hype over a summit he convened to discuss ‘protection of minors’ precisely from ‘sins below the belt’ which he now claims to be minor offenses.]
And so McCarrick’s reported offenses did not seem ‘important’ to him – not so important that he continued to favor and use the abuser until their bond became too embarrassing, and he had to sacrifice him to public opinion.
Second: it has been months and months that Catholics have been waiting to hear the Vatican answer to the question: Did Viganò lie, or not? It seems that according to Martel, citing what was told him by members of the pope’s entourage, he did ‘tell all’ to Bergoglio about McCarrick but was simply ignored.
So why does the pope not simply admit it? Why not say, as a man and a Christian, “It’s true I was warned, but I thought the matter was not so serious. I was wrong in my judgment, forgive me”? [After all, he already made a similar admission about the Barros case.]
Yet the pope allowed his propagandists, assisted by the obliging media [secular and Catholic], to turn instead against Viganò, attacking him ad hominen, while ascribing the responsibility for McCarrick’s ecclesial ascent and glory to Bergoglio’s predecessors, and denying that Benedict XVI had imposed any restrictions on McCarrick - restrictions lifted and cancelled by their pope. (Let us not forget, incidentally, that while Vigano was still Nuncio to the USA, he wrote to Cardinal Secretary of State Parolin to ask whether the sanctions aganst McCarrick could be considered ‘abolished’, but he never got an answer.) [Oh,the duplicitous stratagems of the Bergoglio Vatican!]
A final consideration is, of course, the cynicism implied by the Pontiff’s reaction to the information about McCarrick. [Not that anyone believes it was the first time he was hearing about it when Vigano took the opportunity to ‘inform’ him. As they warn all trial lawyers, never ask a question if you have no idea what the answer will be... Something else just occurred to me: Vigano recalls that shortly after his June 2013 meeting with the pope, he crossed paths with McCarrick somewhere, who greeted him with the smug announcement that ,”Guess what, the pope is sending me to China as his personal envoy!” Might one conjecture that during Uncle Ted’s meeting with the pope when he got this particular order, the pope would have told him about his conversation with Vigano – which is why McC so smugly made his gratuitous announcement. ]
I do try to pool all posts about this pope and his pontificate in one box for the day if possible. Here are two from William Kilpatrick this weekend, published in two different outlets. Kilpatrick is a familiar byline online, and is the author of Christianity, Islam and Atheism: The Struggle for the Soul of the West, and a new book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Jihad. He was also a professor for years at Boston College, which has since become a major outpost of Jesuit liberalism in the USA.
His first essay this weekend is speculative...But why not? He does not imagine any far-out scenarios, though with Jorge Bergoglio, perhaps one cannot rule out the most bizarre possibilities. Like he could announce he was turning Muslim.. Naaahhh, the papacy is the only office in the world made to order for absolute narcissists who want the fastest way to be Lord of the World... May not be a Catholic notion, but hey!, can you think of a better steppingstone?
If Francis should resign,then what?
By William Kilpatrick
February 16, 2019
Editor's Note: The pope’s appointment of controversial Cardinal Kevin Farrell as the new camerlengo – the man responsible for administering the Vatican in the event of the pope’s death or resignation – raises questions about the future of the Church once Francis is no longer pope. The following article discusses some of the possibilities.
After providing evidence for the existence of widespread corruption in the hierarchy – corruption that, he claims, Pope Francis knew about and enabled – Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò called on Pope Francis to resign: “He must acknowledge his mistake and. . .must be the first to set a good example for cardinals and bishops who covered up McCarrick’s abuses and resign along with all of them.”
Without getting into the thorny question of whether or not popes should resign, it’s worth considering some of the scenarios if Francis did choose to resign. At this point, it seems unlikely that he will, but if more revelations accumulate he might change his mind.
If Pope Francis did resign, much would depend on the manner of his resignation. The reasons he gives for resigning will help determine the direction that the Church takes after he steps down. If the pontiff fails to “acknowledge his mistake,” and simply claims age and failing health as an excuse, then there will be no resolution and no indication that the next pope should take the Church in a different direction.
Francis could also choose to continue to present himself as a victim of the “Great Accuser.” Like Christ before Pilate, he will make no answer to his accusers. But in order to lift the cloud of doubt raised by “reckless” accusations, he will consent to step aside for the good of the Church. In short, Francis might decide to present himself as a martyr for the Church, thus likely ensuring that the man elected to succeed him will be someone who will carry on the “martyr’s” mission.
Or suppose, on the other hand, that the pope does admit his errors, and has a complete conversion of heart of the type that Viganò is calling for. He then steps down on the grounds that he is unworthy to lead the Church.
Problem solved? Not quite. This is an improvement over the other two scenarios, but it still leaves unresolved the question of what kind of person would succeed Francis as pope.
This is why Viganò calls not only for the pope’s resignation, but also for the resignation of “all of them” – that is, all the “cardinals and bishops who covered up Mc Carrick’s abuses.” It’s not clear whether he is referring only to American bishops and cardinals or whether he also includes “a network of bishops promoting homosexuality who, exploiting their favor with Pope Francis, manipulated episcopal appointments so as to protect themselves from justice and to strengthen the homosexual network in the hierarchy.” [Viganò’s third testimony]. That “network of bishops” would include a number of Latin American and European bishops and cardinals several of whom are named in his first testimony.
*
The reason that the resignation of the pope alone is not sufficient to bring about reform is that, as things stand now, the election of the next pope will be largely in the hands of cardinals created by Francis. Of the cardinal electors, 59 have been appointed by Francis, 47 by Pope Benedict XVI and 19 by Pope John Paul II. And those appointed by Benedict and John Paul are quite probably near the cut-off age for voting.
Moreover, if Fr. James Martin is to be believed, Pope Francis has purposely “appointed gay-friendly bishops and archbishops and cardinals.” Like Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Pope Francis seems to choose his “team” with an eye toward ideological conformity.
The presence of so many Francis appointees in the College of Cardinals puts a crimp in another scenario.
- Some Catholics who have given up on the hope that Francis will seriously tackle the abuse crisis, think that all that is necessary is to wait him out.
- They reason that he is getting along in years, and is unlikely to reign much longer.
But this too ignores the fact that Francis has already stacked the College of Cardinals with prelates who are made in his own image, and who are therefore likely to elect someone like him.
Of course, that’s not inevitable. Pope Francis is not the most liberal Catholic prelate in the world, but he leans further to the left than most. Many, if not most, of the cardinals Francis has appointed are in all probability more moderate than he is. And while they might be reluctant to speak their minds in public about whatever dissatisfactions they may have, they will be less afraid to express themselves in a secret ballot.
Still, one shouldn’t bet too heavily that enough cardinals will do the right thing at the next conclave without a good deal of prompting.
One particularly powerful prompt is the threat of removal from office. Although resignations are not in the power of the laity to demand, the laity should make it clear that, in some cases, resignations are what they expect.
Forced resignations are not the only solution to the abuse crisis, but they are a key part of the solution.
- Justice must be seen to be done.
- And removal from office provides a visible sign that something is being done.
- Justice demands that scandalous behavior should be met with serious public consequences.
- Requiring offenders to step down would clearly show that the Church understands the gravity of the crimes and is taking concrete action.
Two dozen key resignations accompanied by penance would do more to clear the air than 200 hours of conferences or 2,000 pages of documents.
Without removal from office or even – as some have suggested – excommunication, talk of reform and adoption of new protocols will strike many as nothing but window dressing.
- If badly compromised cardinals and bishops remain on the scene, it will be taken as a signal that no real reform is intended.
Forced resignations are the most efficient and permanent way of removing some very bad actors from powerful positions. An added and obvious benefit is that it also removes their ability to vote in the next conclave.
In Kilpatrick's second essay this weekend, the topic is his strong suit...
More sugarcoating of Islam
from Pope Francis
by William Kilpatrick
February 15,2019
It’s often been said of Pope Francis’s bridge-building initiatives with Islam that the traffic over the bridge goes only in one direction — away from Rome and toward Mecca.
This also seems to be the case with the pope’s “historic” trip to the United Arab Emirates last week. Although the resulting document requires concessions on the part of both sides, it’s unlikely that the Muslim parties will stick to their end of the bargain.
On the other hand, it’s quite likely that Catholics will be strongly encouraged to yield a point or two of doctrine. In keeping with what is now standard practice, the new “teachings” contained in the document will be rushed into Catholic schools and seminaries before the ink is dry.
Don’t misunderstand. The “Document on human fraternity for world peace and living together” does make some demands on Muslims. For example, after establishing that freedom of belief is of divine origin, the document goes on to say: “therefore, the fact that people are forced to adhere to a certain religion, or culture must be rejected…”
This is an indirect attack on the Islamic apostasy law — a law that says, in Muhammad’s words, “whoever changes his Islamic religion, then kill him” (Bukhari 9.8.4.57). If this law were indeed dropped from the Islamic law books, it would go far to change the face of Islam.
If people felt free to leave Islam without dangerous consequences, Islam might quickly change from the “fastest-growing religion” to the incredible shrinking religion. As the renowned cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi once said, “If they had gotten rid of the apostasy punishment, Islam wouldn’t exist today.” [If death were not decreed for apostasy, Who would want to stay in a religion with a legal stranglehold on every aspect of your life?]
But it’s highly doubtful that Islamic leaders will take any steps in the direction of abolishing the apostasy law. As recently as 2016, Amhad Al-Tayyeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, and the co-signer of the document, said:
Those learned in Islamic law and the imams of the four schools of jurisprudence consider apostasy a crime and agree that the apostate must either renounce his apostasy or else be killed.
As Al-Tayyeb pointed out, this is the position of the four main schools of Islamic jurisprudence—the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafii, and Hanbali. It’s also the position of Kuwaiti cleric Othman Al-Khamis who, on his weekly video only three weeks before the Abu Dhabi meeting, said:
Apostates are committing a crime, just like adulterers… Such a person is punished because apostasy is tantamount to scorning Islam, and he is therefore punished as if he cursed the prophet Muhammad or Allah. This is why an apostate is killed.
If Al-Tayyeb is serious about rejecting the apostasy law, he could start by denouncing Othman Al-Khamis and the thousands of other Islamic clerics who uphold the right and duty to kill apostates. But don’t bet on it.
Al-Tayyeb, who is a staunch defender of sharia law, most likely looks on the “International Interfaith Meeting on Human Fraternity” as an opportunity for good PR, not as an occasion for changing Islamic law.
Al-Tayyeb realizes that such meetings help to legitimize Islam, making it look as though it is a moderate religion — a religion whose representatives are happy to sign on to sentiments such as “God … has created all human beings equal in rights, duties and dignity, and … has called them to live together, as brothers and sisters…”
This is not what it says in the sharia law books. In fact they say quite the opposite. But words such as “equal” and “dignity” will sit well with the world press and with the many Catholic clerics and academics who will porE over the document as though it were a newly discovered fifth Gospel.
And, in a sense, it is. This is because there are some pronouncements about God’s will in it that are nowhere to be found in the original four. But Francis and friends are rather good at convincing people that recent innovations are, in fact, longstanding Church teaching. Thus, in a great many schools, colleges, and seminaries it is already taught as gospel truth that - Islam is an “Abrahamic religion,”
- Catholics and Muslims worship the same God,
- Muslims revere Jesus, and
- Catholics and Muslims share the same moral values.
Although all these assertions are highly problematic, the “problematics” are rarely addressed. So the novel parts of the Abu Dhabi document may soon become the new orthodoxy.
Although Fr. Raymond de Souza calls it a “minor controversy” there is a line in the joint document that several theologians are worried about. It states: "The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in his wisdom…"
“Colour, sex, race, and language”? Well, yes. But did God will a “diversity of religions”? According to several theologians, this contradicts many passages in the gospels. One Dominican theologian said that the statement “in its obvious sense is false, and in fact heretical.”
- Would an all-wise God give different marching orders to different people?
- Would he reveal to one group that he is a Trinity, and then reveal to another group that he is not? Would he reveal to one set of believers that Jesus in the Son of God and then, 600 years later, reveal to another set that anyone who says Jesus is the Son of God is accursed?
- Would he, in short, deliberately create two religions that were destined to come into conflict?
- To paraphrase Blake, “Did He who made the lamb religion, make the lamb-slayer religion?”
And then there’s the minor matter of the First Commandment: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other God’s before me” (Ex. 20: 2-3). Not much diversity of religion there. Nor in the New Testament.
Indeed, Christ and the apostles seem to put the emphasis on exclusivity rather than diversity.
“And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4: 12).
“I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me.” (John 14: 6)
“I am the door of the sheep… If anyone enters by me he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.” (John 10: 7-9)
“And I have other sheep who are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd.” (John 10: 16)
“And this is eternal life, that they know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” (John 17: 3)
You will notice that there’s not much said about Muhammad in these passages! In fact, nothing at all. Of course, the Koran has very little to say about Jesus, except that he’s not divine, wasn’t crucified, and didn’t rise again. But he will be present at the Day of Judgment to condemn to hell all those Christians who fail to convert to Islam (4:159).
It doesn’t seem like much of a foundation on which to build bridges between Christianity and Islam. Nevertheless, Pope Francis seems determined to try. And in the process, he seems quite willing to employ novel theological formulations (e.g., “the diversity of religions … are willed by God) and questionable assertions of facts. The pope mentioned several of these dubious “facts” upon his return to Rome from the UAE:
The Christian and Islamic worlds appreciate and protect common values: life, family, religious sense, honor for the elderly, the education of the young, and others as well.
Well, yes, broadly speaking. But when you drill down to the details, it turns out that
- Islam values Muslim lives much more than the lives of Christians and Jews,
- does not share the Christian view that marriage should be monogamous,
- makes provision for honor killings (see Reliance of the Traveller o1.2) and,
- in general, values many things that Christians consider to be sinful and even criminal.
As Islam expands further into the Western world, it makes sense for Christians and other Western citizens to acquire a more accurate understanding of Islam. Sadly, most of the Church’s efforts in this area have been geared to obfuscating the dangerous differences while emphasizing the surface similarities between Christianity and Islam.
And the pope has become the obfuscator-in-chief. One of his consistent claims is that terrorism has nothing to do with any religion. He seems to believe that religion by definition excludes violence and intolerance. (Has he never heard of the Aztecs? The worshippers of Moloch? The religion of Baal?) And he assures us that whenever religious people do bad things, they are violating their own religious tenets.
He returns to this theme in the “Document on Human Fraternity,” which, judging from the language and the contents, seems to have been written almost entirely in Rome.
- The document asserts that war, hate, hostility, extremism, and violence do not stem from religion, but rather are “the consequences of a deviation from religious teachings.”
- Eight paragraphs later we read that “Terrorism is deplorable … but this is not due to religion. It is due, rather, to an accumulation of incorrect interpretations of religious texts…”
Really? What then would be the correct interpretations of the following texts?
Then, when the sacred months are over, kill the idolaters wherever you find them… (Koran 9: 5)
This is the recompense of those who fight against Allah and His messenger … they shall be killed, or crucified, or their hands and feet shall be struck off on opposite sides. (Koran 5: 33)
I shall cast terror into the hearts of the unbelievers; so strike the necks, and strike every finger of them. (Koran 8: 12)
Would Pope Francis or any of his advisors care to explain what are the correct, peaceful interpretations of these, and dozens upon dozens of similar texts in the Koran? Should “cast terror into the hearts of the unbelievers” be interpreted to mean “love your neighbor as yourself”?
Until they can offer some evidence that they know what they’re talking about, they should stop issuing high-sounding statements about the compatibility of Islamic beliefs and Christian beliefs.
Thanks to decades of sugarcoated, gesture-of-friendship pronouncements, Catholics are already badly informed about Islam. As the world becomes an increasingly dangerous place for Christians, they need to see beyond this gauzy presentation of the world’s most aggressive religion.
Yet Francis seems bent on layering on even more coatings of sugar. Or would mortar be a better word?
- For all his talk of tearing down walls, he is, in effect, building a protective wall around Islam.
- The wall is designed to prevent Christians from looking too closely at the actual teachings of Islam.
- One brick in the wall tells us that God wills a diversity of religions;
- another suggests that Christianity and Islam share the same basic values;
- still another teaches that no religion advocates violence or intolerance.
But this syncretism is either wishful thinking or deliberate deception. As any student of history can attest, many religions have endorsed violence and intolerance, and Islam is no exception. But Francis and his advisors seem uninterested in providing Christians with an objective knowledge of Islam.
- In the service of what they hope will be a future reconciliation of the two faiths, they prefer that Christians be exposed only to pleasant and upbeat narratives about Islam.
Unfortunately, there is nothing in Islamic doctrine that calls for mutual reconciliation.
- What Islam seek from other religions is not reconciliation, but submission.
- Catholics who have been nursed on fantasy narratives about Islam are in for a rude awakening.
Back to SODOMA and its author Frederic Martel who apparently besmirches liberally by innuendo without substantiatiom, alleging among other things that the two Dubia Cardinals who passed away (Caffarra and Meisner) were “homosexually inclined,” that Cardinal Burke is “unstraight” and likens him to a 'drag queen', that Pope Benedict XVI “liked to flirt”, and that “the majority of the popes of the last century were at least homosexually inclined.”
Note that none of his innuendoes are unequivocal or definite but out-and-out conjectural. If you were writing a genuine expose, you would discard the conjectural and come up only with something you can substantiate.
Christopher White of The Tablet writes: "Although he doesn’t offer evidential support, besides certain rumors and his affinity for liturgical dress, Martel claims that Pope Benedict 'liked to flirt'.” Excuse me - who did this most 'unflirtful' person flirt with? And might those rumors include the great myth in the Italian gay world of a relationship between Benedict and 'Gorgeous Georg', not surprisingly an object of passion for many gays?
And this is the book that Bergoglio's closest associates in the Vatican did their best to enable and facilitate... BTW, if one might have thought that Mons Ricca had left his homosexual past far behind him and turned a new leaf, why on earth would he have had anything to do with Martel's project? Yet Martel says it was he who opened doors in the Vatican for him and enabled him to lodge right within the Vatican during the years it took him to research and write his book. A more prudent man, especially if he was also spiritual prelate of the IOR and a known papal pet, would have said, "Uh-uh, I'm not getting myself into this at all, wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole, am I crazy?" Or maybe he was ordered to give Martel his fullest cooperation...
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 20/02/2019 00:57] |