This certainly is not a churchman with a chest!
OK, so now we do have the Vatican's English translation of the pope's January 22 inflight news conference, from which I said I would look up
exactly what he said about 'the Barros war'. It piqued my curiosity that Bergoglio-loyalist Luis Badilla - despite calling just hours earlier
in no uncertain terms that the only way to begin clearing up the Barros mess was for the bishop to resign and for the pope to accept
his resignation immediately - would then end up unquestioningly Bergoglio's words and describing what the pope had said in these terms:
"for the first time, [the pope] explains and clarifies with details that are to the point, precise and authoritative – decisive moments for the priests associated in the past with Fr. Karadima (who has been tried and sentenced both in Chile and the Vatican for sexual abuses and other crimes)"(about which) "some episodes have been made so complicated, chaotic and obscure that today Pope Francis had to justify them, and to do so he had to narrate some things which, had they been published or explained adequately by the Vatican and the Church in Chile in a timely manner, then things would not have proceeded to where we are now."
The best way to judge Badilla's assessment of how Bergoglio handled the question at the inflight newscon is to examine the pope's own words:
Juan Pablo Iglesias (La Tercera): At first, your message was very strong about [clerical sexual] abuse, but the last day [in Chile] you made a statement [saying some victims] are committing slander. Why do you believe Barros more than the victims?
JMB: I understand the question perfectly. On [Bishop] Barros, I only made one declaration. I spoke in Chile, and this was in Iquique, at the end. I spoke two times about the abuse, with a lot of strength, in front of the government, which was to speak in front of the country, and in the cathedral with the priests.
What I said to the priests is what I feel most deeply about this case. You know that Benedict XVI began by taking a zero tolerance [approach], and I have continued with zero tolerance. After almost 5 years of being Pope, I have not signed any “permission of pardon.”
In the cases of dismissal from the clerical state, it’s a definitive sentence in first instance. The person condemned has the right to appeal to the tribunal of the second instance. The tribunal knows that if there is clear proof of abuse, they cannot appeal the sentence. What can be appealed are the procedures: lack of procedures, irregularities, then there you have to make a review of the process. If the second instance confirms the first, there’s only one exit left for the person and that is appealing to the Pope, as a grace.
In five years, I have received — I don’t know the number — 20 or 25 requests for “grace” that have come in. I didn’t sign any. Only in one case, which wasn’t grace but the argument of a juridical sentence, in the first year of the pontificate.
I found myself with two sentences, one very serious from the diocese, and one from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which was the strongest. The one from the diocese was very serious and very conditioned… with these conditions, one needs to wait a time to see that… that is, the case wasn’t closed. [Editor's note: The comments appear to refer to the case of Italian priest Mauro Inzoli aka Don Mercedes.]
As must be done with good jurisprudence, always in favor of the accused. I opted for the most lenient sentence, with the conditions.
After two years, it was decided that the conditions weren’t completed and so I let the other work. It was the only case in which I hesitated because there were two sentences and there was a juridical principle in dubia pro reo [in effect, doubt works in favor of the accused, the principle behind the injunction that a jury must convict a person when he is shown to be guilty 'beyond reasonable doubt'] and so for this I opted for that. That is my position. [Bergoglio has grossly misrepresented the Inzoli case here. The man was defrocked under Benedict XVI, but apparently, Bergoglio now says that Inzoli was entitled to appeal his sentence on the grounds of procedural irregularities, i.e., technicalities, what he calls a case of the second instance. But when a CDF tribunal finds someone accused of sex offenses to be guilty because it has clear proof of abuse, by Bergoglio's own definition, it would have been unappealable. Is he saying now that he took it on himself to determine that Inzoli could appeal his case and therefore he - as the person appealed to - restored Inzoli's priestly faculties? Only to revoke it again two years later when an Italian court finds Inzoli guilty of sex offenses (the same or different from the offenses that the CDF tribunal fond him guilty. In this one case alone, Bergoglio chose to use his discretionary power twice to overrule what the CDF and his predecessor had done ( namely penalize Inzoli for his crimes by defrocking him) - first, by even considering that he could act on what appears to be clearly a 'first instance' unappealable verdict, and second, by reversing that verdict on an apparent pretext of 'irregularities' in the first verdict.]
In the case of Bishop Barros, I had it studied, I had it investigated, I had it worked on a lot. [Sandro Magister has a good presentation of Bergoglio's tangle of contradictions (I call them simply lies) about the Barros case, in the light of a letter he wrote to the bishops fo Chile in January 2015 in which he indicated he would ask Barros to resign (this was months before he finally decided to name him Bishop of Osorno) - I will post it after this.
For my part, I can only add that precisely, part of the problem for the opponents of Barros's nomination as bishop was that the pope never ordered a formal investigation of Barros, so we only have Bergoglio's word that "I had it studied, I had it investigated, I worked on it a lot"].
And truly there is no evidence. I use the word evidence. Then I will speak about proof. There is no evidence of culpability, it seems that it will not be found. There is a coherence in another sense. I am waiting for evidence to change position, but I apply the judicial principle basic in any tribunal: nemo malus nisi provetur — no one is guilty until it is proven.
I used the word “proof” and I believe that gave me a hard time. I said it in Spanish, as I remember, I was entering ,and a journalist from Iquique asked me: ‘In Chile we have a big problem with Bishop Barros, what do you think?’ I think that the words I said were these. First I thought about whether to respond or not, and I said yes [I would], because he had been bishop of Iquique, and a parishioner is asking me. I said, the day that I have proof I will speak. I think I said, ‘I don’t have proof,’ but it is recorded, you can find it.
The answer was: the day that I have proof, I will speak. The word ‘proof’ is what caused [concern]. No one is bad si no probetur (if there is no proof). I would speak about evidence and, of course, I know that there are a lot of people who have been abused and that they cannot show proof, they do not have it. They cannot [show it] or sometimes they have it, but they are ashamed and hide it, and suffer in silence. The drama of those who have been abused is tremendous. Terrible.
Two [months] ago I tended to a woman who was abused 40 years ago — married with three children. This woman hadn’t received Communion from that time, because in the hand of the priest she saw the hand of the abuser. She couldn’t go near. And she was a believer. She was Catholic. Sorry to continue in Spanish, but I want to be precise with the Chileans. The word “proof” wasn’t the best [word to use] in order to be near to a sorrowful heart. I would say evidence.
The case of Barros was studied, it was re-studied, and there is no evidence. That is what I wanted to say. I have no evidence to condemn. And if I were to condemn without evidence or without moral certainty, I would commit the crime of a bad judge.
I have another thing to say… I’ll explain it in Italian. One of you came up to me and said: Have you seen the letter that came out? They showed me a letter that I had written years ago when the problem with Barros began. I need to explain that letter, because it is also a letter in favor of prudence, how the problem with Barros was managed.
That letter does not tell of a momentary fact; that letter is the narration of more or less 10-12 months. When the scandal with Karadima was discovered, we all know this scandal, we began to see many priests who were formed by Karadima who were either abused or who were abusers. In Chile there are four bishops who Karadima invited to the seminary. Someone from the episcopal conference made a suggestion that it would be better perhaps if these four bishops renounced their positions, resigned, took a sabbatical year while the storm passed, to avoid accusations, because they are good bishops. [Omitted from his account is that while he implicitly agreed with the suggestion [having asked his nuncio in Chile to inform the bishops concerned], he then explains in his letter to the Chilean bishops that while Barros dutifully submitted a letter of resignation, the pope decided not to accept it because Barros quoted the nuncio in his letter as having said he was going to ask the same thing of the two other bishops associated with Karadima. I will post below Bergoglio's lame and ueber-technical explanation for why he turned down Barros's resignation and the intended one-year sabbatical was changed to merely a monthlong retreat in Spain. It is a pathetic excuse. As Magister said, why did he so readily excuse someone he was prepared to send on a sabbatical just months earlier?]
And Barros, Barros already had been bishop there for 20 years and was about to finish his military bishopric. He was an auxiliary, then bishop of Iquique and then military bishop for almost 10 years, and 20 years a bishop. But let us ask if the accusations against him, perhaps explaining them…and he diligently resigned. And he came to Rome and I told him: ‘No, we don’t play this way, because this is to admit culpability in advance, and then, as in any case, if there are culpable parties, it will be investigated.’ And I rejected it. This is about the 10 months contained in that letter. Then, when he was appointed and all this protest took place, he gave me his resignation for the second time. I said, ‘No, you go.’ I spoke with him for a long time, others spoke at length with him… you go. You know what happened there the day he took possession, the protests. They continued to investigate Barros, [Who is 'they'? It can't be the Vatican, because the pope already said he had the Barros case 'studied, restudied, investigated, worked on a lot" - even though none of this was made known at the time!] but there is no evidence and this is what I wanted to say: I cannot condemn him because I don’t have the evidence and this is what I wanted to say. I cannot condemn him because I do not have the evidence. But I am also convinced that he is innocent. [i.e., he has been acting as the one-man court-judge-jury on Barros.]
*
The ff comes from the letter Bergoglio wrote the bishops of Chile in January 2015 to respond to them about the protests against the nomination of Barros as a bishop:
However, there then arose, at the end of the year (2014), 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. [Obviously, no nuncio would have done that without having been instructed by the Vatican. He is only a go-between.] 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. [Why and how exactly???] 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.
Magister continues with his account:
As can be seen, in this letter of his, Francis 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 with the promotion to the diocese of Osorno of the bishop whom just a short time before he had intended to remove.
This is, in any case, what happened next.
- On March 6, 2015, Francis received in audience the archbishop of Concepción, Fernando Natalio Chomalí Garib, apostolic administrator of Osorno in the interim 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.” [This was the only statement made by the Vatican at the time about any inquiries into the Barros case. Even then, I was saying, "Given all the passion and anger raised by his nomination of Barros, why does the pope not order a formal investigation to clear the issue once and for all, and suspend the nomination of Barros until an investigation clears him formally and definitively of any offense?" One cannot say it often enough that in the matter of clerical sex abuse with or without cover-up, or the appearance of such, everyone involved must be 'above suspicion'.] Which does not explain why instead until the very end of 2014 the Holy See had opted for the resignation of Barros. [Or why nothing more has been said about the two other bishops who were also Karadima proteges and are presumably under a cloud of suspicion.]
Magister's commentary on the pope's January 22 exercise in self-indulgence which was in itself an attempt to justify his extreme self-indulgence:
Why this pope married two 'strangers'
and refuses to listen to inconvenient witnesses
Jnauary 23, 2018
As predictably as a functioning cuckoo clock marks the hour, Pope Francis’s words spoken at high altitude, this time during his flight back from Peru to Rome on the night between January 21-22, have produced the umpteenth great confusion:
> Video of the press conference with Pope Francis
There were two explosive subjects of the press conference, both having to do with Chile: the fate of the bishop of Osorno, Juan de la Cruz Barros Madrid, and the lightning wedding celebrated by the pope between a hostess and a steward, during the flight from Santiago to Iquique.
In this second case, Francis said that
he had judged at once that “all the conditions were clear” for the validity of the sacrament, and therefore it could be celebrated right away. To come to this certainty he explained that the words of the two spouses were enough for him.
Concerning the bishop of Osorno, the opposite took place. The pope said that he “studied and restudied” the case for a long time, but there was no “evidence” for his guilt. And because of this he is keeping the bishop at the head of the diocese, in spite of the accusations that continue to be brought against him, accusations that for the pope are in reality “calumnies.”
In Chile, responding curtly to a question from a journalist, Francis had spoken not of missing “evidence,” but of “proofs.” And for the use of this latter word - in reality little or not at all different from the former - he apologized on the airplane.
He held firm, however, to the correctness of the word “calumny” as he applied it to those who say they are victims of sexual abuse that the pope maintains never happened.
He also said, however, that he had never listened to the “victims” because they neither “came to” nor “were presented to” him. When in reality they asked over and over again, publicly, for the pope to listen to them so that he could verify on the basis of their testimony precisely that “evidence” which he continues to say is missing. [Why aren't more Catholics outraged that 'our pope' lies so easily and habitually when it suits his purposes??? How can you have a lying pope and believe in anything else he says???]
During the flight back from Rome, Francis also furnished a new exegesis of the letter he wrote to the Chilean bishops on January 31, 2015, made public by the Associated Press just before this journey to Chile.
From how the letter was written, in fact, it seemed to be clear that Pope Francis himself thought it was right, until the end of 2014, to remove this bishop, only to change his view and promote him, on January 10,2015, to the See of Osorno.
But now it seems that this was not the case. From what Francis said on the airplane
it would seem he always maintained that this bishop was “good and capable,” even when “a few people of the episcopal conference” of Chile wanted him to resign. And in fact, not once but twice the pope said that he had turned down his resignation, both before and after the appointment to Osorno, because to accept it would have meant “admitting his guilt,” when instead, he stated categorically: “I am convinced that he is innocent.”
In this tangle of contradictions, it remains unexplained why the victims of the Barros's spiritual guide and mentor, Fr. Antonio Karadima, should have been given the greatest credence at the CDF's deliberations over Karadima's offenses, while
some of these same victims are instead not given credence and not even listened to when they accuse the bishop.
Returning to the lightning wedding 'performed' by Francis on the flight between Santiago and Iquique, it must be noted that the event had been anticipated by the spouses themselves a month before, in an interview with the Chilean newspaper “El Mercurio” of December 19:
> Con emoción y nerviosismo: Tripulación del avión que trasladará al Papa en Chile cuenta cómo recibieron la noticia
On the airplane, however, everything seemed to happen by surprise, to judge by the video of the “breaking news” given immediately afterward by the spouses themselves to the journalists on the flight with them:
> The pope: “I’ll marry you, come on, let’s do it!”
And even Francis - according to what he said during the flight to Rome - appeared to have been taken by surprise by the idea of marrying the hostess and the steward, but decided to proceed on the spot, giving immediate credence to the two.
Again, best to give the word to Bergoglio himself:
Aura Miguel (Radio Renascenca): The wedding on the airplane. From now on, what would you say to the parish priests, to the bishops will be asked by couples if they can marry them I don’t know where, on the beach, on boats, airplanes?
Pope Francis: You’re imagining a cruise with a wedding. Eh, this would be… One of you told me that I’m crazy for doing these things. The thing was simple. The man was on the first flight. She wasn’t there. I spoke with him… then, I realized that he had become awkward. I spoke of life, of how I thought of life, then the life of the family. A nice chat.
Then, the day after both of them were there, and after we took a photograph, they told me this: ‘We were going to get married in a church, we were married civilly, but the day before’ – you could tell it was a small city – ‘the church was toppled by an earthquake and there was no wedding.’ This was 10 years ago, maybe eight, the earthquake was in 2010, eight years ago. And then [they thought]: “tomorrow we’ll do it,” and “the day after tomorrow.” That’s the way life goes and then the daughter [came] and another daughter.
I interrogated them a bit. And the answers were clear, for their whole life…. “You know these things. Do you have a good memory of the catechism?” “We have taken the pre-matrimonial classes.” They were prepared and I judged that they were prepared. They asked me. Sacraments are for people. All of the conditions were clear and why not do today … and not delay it for tomorrow… and maybe after ‘tomorrow’ it would have been eight or 10 years more.
This is the answer. I judged that they were prepared, that they knew what they were doing, that each of them was prepared before the Lord with the sacrament of penance. [Did they say that?] When they had arrived at that point, it was all over. They told me that, they said it to some of you… “We’re going to the Pope to ask if he’ll marry us.” That’s how the thing went. [He's participating in their fiction - er... lie!] But tell the parish priests that the Pope interrogated them well. And then they had done the pre-marriage course, and they were aware. [Well, brownie points for at least thinking of 'interrogating' them, but given the brevity of the flight and the fact that the two plane attendants could not just excuse themselves from their duties for longer than, say, 5 minutes, the interrogation cannot have been much more than pro forma! Regardless, it still was a banalization of the sacrament of matrimony. Did the pope even think of putting on a stole when he 'performed' the marriage? I've checked the pictures - he did not. One would suppose there are things that become ingrained as second nature in a priest, much as an ER trauma doctor immediately proceeds to carry out a required set of protocols the moment he faces a trauma victim.]
Jorge Bergoglio's inherent indiscipline is evident also in his loose use of language. Of course, loose and even licentious language is expected from anyone who spits out invectives the way this pope does, but should that verbal indiscipline extend even to the use of 'technical' terms to make a point when the speaker himself is not clear about the terms he flings about?
The Pope’s misuse of 'calumny' distracts
from deeper, more troubling questions
The problem with his defense of Bishop Barros is not just that the pope has
a poor grasp of technical legal terminology or that he misuses certain words,
but that he thinks he knows better and refuses to listen to the people who do
[Not a surprise, surely, since he constantly seems to be telling us
that he really knows better than Christ what His Church ought to be]
by Christopher R. Altieri
January 23, 2018
Thursday last week, Pope Francis accused Chilean victims of clerical sexual abuse and their supporters in the Church of “calumny”. It isn’t that the Pope doesn’t believe their accusations of abuse. After the Vatican found their accusations credible, and sentenced their abuser, Fr. Fernando Karadima, to a life of prayer and penance – this was in 2011, under Benedict XVI – Pope Francis decided in 2015 to put one of the criminal cleric’s protégés, Bishop Juan Barros, on the See of Osorno, over the objections of the victims, at least one of whom, Mr. Juan Carlos Cruz, says Bishop Barros knew of his mentor’s crimes and even witnessed them.
Things took an ugly turn, when, later in the same year of Barros’s nomination to the See of Osorno, Francis insulted the people protesting Barros’s appointment. “The Osorno community is suffering because it’s dumb,” the Pope told a group of pilgrims on the sidelines of a General Audience in May of 2015. The story made the rounds in the worldwide press at the time, and then disappeared.
When a Chilean journalist, who was part of a press gaggle at the gate of the venue in Iquique, where the Holy Father was to celebrate Mass on Thursday last week, asked Pope Francis about Bishop Barros, the Pope replied, “The day they bring me proof against Bishop Barros, I’ll speak.” Then he doubled down.
“There is not one shred of proof against [Barros],” he said. “It’s all calumny, is that clear?”
On the plane home from Perù – the second and final leg of his South American voyage – Pope Francis revised and extended his remarks, saying,
“[If] anyone says with obstinacy, without evidence, that [so-and-so] did [such-and-such], it is calumny.” He then said that Barros’ accusers have brought him no evidence, and concluded, “One that accuses without evidence, with obstinacy, this is calumny.”
The first thing to note is the Pope’s problematic use of the term
“calumny”, which is not the leveling of accusations in the absence of evidence, but the leveling of accusations for the purpose of damaging another person’s reputation, and/or the repetition of such accusations for the same malicious purpose, without respect to the truth of the accusations. A person who claims to have seen someone commit a crime, however, is not accusing without evidence. The evidence he brings is essentially co-extensive with his own credibility as a witness.
In the case of Bishop Juan Barros, his principal accuser is a witness, whose testimony a Vatican court found credible enough to use against Barros’s mentor, Fr. Fernando Karadima.
This would not be the first time Pope Francis’s lexical idiosyncrasies were cause for confusion. I still have not met anyone trained in the sacred sciences who can tell me what Francis means when he speaks of “casuistry” – or “abstract casuistry” – though it is clear
he does not mean what is generally meant by the term, i.e. the resolution of moral problems by investigation into the specifics of the case and careful application of the general principles of moral science to the specific case, from within the specifics of the case, themselves.
In this case, the trouble is that no one is asking the right questions.
Why is Pope Francis taking a series of maxims lifted from criminal law, and applying them to a personnel decision? Also during the course of the in-flight presser, in explaining his analysis of the Barros case, Pope Francis said, “I am waiting for evidence to change position [on Barros], but I apply the judicial principle basic in any tribunal:
nemo malus nisi provetur – no one is guilty until it is proven [so].”
At the risk of belaboring the obvious: the “presumption of innocence” applies to criminal procedure; the only protection it can afford Bishop Barros is found on the other side of a criminal indictment.
The other maxim, in dubio pro reo, which Pope Francis invoked in defense of his decision to reduce the sentence against the convicted pedophile, Fr. Mauro Inzoli – over and against the recommendation of the Vatican’s own tribunal –
applies principally to the determination of guilt, which in the case of Inzoli was never in doubt, and in any case would have been well known to the legal professionals and trained jurists who handled the case and gave the sentence.
The problem here is not that the Pope has a poor grasp of technical legal terminology. The problem is not even that he keeps using those words, even though they do not mean what he thinks they mean. The former is merely a fact; he is not a lawyer, after all. The latter is symptomatic of an unfortunate quirk of character, which might be overcome or overlooked.
The real problem is that he thinks he knows better, and refuses to listen to the people who do. While that quality of character will be frustrating in a parish priest, consternating in a religious superior, and genuinely difficult to manage in a local Ordinary, it will always – always – prove disastrous in anyone who attains to a position of high leadership.
There is another, prior question, though, which no one is asking: Why is Barros a bishop in the first place? During the presser, Pope Francis gave a summary of the matter, saying, “When the scandal with Karadima was discovered – we all know this scandal – we began to see many priests who were formed by Karadima, who were either abused or who were abusers.”
That is what abusers do. They insinuate themselves and their favorites – some of whom are also their victims – into the formation process and then into the leadership structures of the Church, and use their advantages of place and position to protect and promote one another.
“In Chile,” Pope Francis went on to say, “there are four bishops, whom Karadima invited to the seminary.” Barros is one of the four. He was consecrated in June of 1995, when Pope St. John Paul II was in Rome and Archbishop Piero Biggio was Nuncio in Chile. Barros served first as an auxiliary in Valparaiso, then moved to the See of Iquique, then to the Diocese for Military Services. When the See of Osorno became vacant, Francis tapped Barros, even though he was known to have advanced under the aegis of a notorious pedophile, and faced allegations of aiding and abetting his mentor’s abuse, allegations that came from at least one victim, whose testimony a Vatican court had deemed credible.
The bishops of Chile had written to Pope Francis, expressing their concern over Barros’s appointment. Francis responded with a lengthy letter, explaining that he had asked Barros to resign as bishop to the forces and take a year’s sabbatical, only after which he might have been considered for another post. The AP reports that Francis’s Nuncio in Chile, Archbishop Ivo Scapolo, conveyed the request, and explained to Barros that similar arrangements were being made for two of the other bishops who came up under Karadima. Scapolo reportedly asked Barros to keep the plan quiet, but Barros named the two others in the letter he wrote announcing his resignation from the military see.
So, Francis decided that the way to handle this tainted and insubordinate prelate was to give him care of the souls of Osorno.
“When [Barros] was appointed [to Osorno],” Pope Francis said, again during the in-flight presser, “and all this protest took place, he gave me his resignation for the second time. I said, ‘No, you go.’ I spoke with him for a long time, others spoke at length with him. ‘You go [back to your See]’,” Pope Francis told reporters he told Barros. The Holy Father went on to say, “They continued to investigate Barros, but there is no evidence – and this is what I wanted to say,” in the remarks outside the venue in Iquique. “I cannot condemn him because I don’t have the evidence,” Pope Francis repeated, “and this is what I wanted to say. I cannot condemn him because I do not have the evidence. But I am also convinced that he is innocent.”
In short, Pope Francis feels he has to leave Barros in place, because he does not have enough evidence to convict him in open court, and because he is personally convinced of Barros’s innocence.
Speaking in Santiago de Chile in 2011, after the Vatican court came back with the guilty verdict against Karadima, Fr. Antonio Delfau, SJ, of the Chilean province – currently serving as Assistant to the General Treasurer of the Society – is quoted in a
New York Times report on the story as saying,
“[The conviction] is going to mark a before and after in the way the Chilean Catholic Church proceeds in cases like these, or at least it should.” Delfau went on to say, “From now on, every case of sexual abuse must be treated with meticulous care and not be based on the gut feeling of a given Church official.” [But Bergoglio obviously thinks his gut feeling - in his omniscience borne of direct communication with the Holy Spirit, if we are to go by his words shortly after he became pope - is enough to qualify him, as I said earlier, as one-man court-judge-and-jury as to Barros's guilt or innocence.]
How to explain Bergoglio's pathological compulsion to speak, and speak at length on anything whatsoever? The more he talks, the more he entangles himself in contradictions. Whoever his confessor(s) may be, perhaps they ought to be courageous enough to give him a weekly penance of mortifying himself by giving less interviews, making less off-the-cuff statements, thus avoiding ever-new occasions of sin (lying, especially).
The pope's non-apologetic apology
by Steve Skojec
January 23, 2018
As I reported last week, the pope, while in Chile, the accused victims of clerical sexual abuse perpetrated by Fr. Fernando Karadima of “calumny” for alleging that his protege, papal appointee to the Diocese of Osorno, Bishop Juan Barros, of having either known of or even observed the abuse being performed. “There is not one shred of proof against him.” Francis said.. “It’s all calumny. Is that clear?”
The most vocal accuser, Juan Carlos Cruz, offered a stinging rebuttal, saying, “As if one could have taken a selfie or a photo while Karadima abused me and others, and Juan Barros standing next to him watching everything.”
Barros maintains his innocence, but Karadima, despite his crimes falling outside the legal statute of limitations, was ordered by the Vatican, following an investigation, to retirement and “a life of prayer and penance” and a “lifelong prohibition from the public exercise of any ministerial act, particularly confession and the spiritual guidance of any category of persons”. A judge in Chile also said that while she could not legally move the case forward, proof of Karadima’s crimes “wasn’t lacking.”
So, in a situation where both the state and ecclesiastical courts have found evidence of guilt, the pope effectively called one of the victims a liar because he cannot bring “proof” that his hand-picked bishop stood by and watched while the young man was abused.
There has been more pickup in the secular media than the last time Francis lashed out at the victims in Chile, calling them “dumb” or “stupid” (depending on the translation), but
why isn’t every media outlet everywhere running this story? If Pope Benedict had said this, they would have been digging up the most hideous pictures of him they could find and splashing them across front pages everywhere.
Meanwhile, the pope hasn’t learned his lesson. He was chastised in the most pusillanimous way by Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston over the weekend. O’Malley — who chairs
[chaired - the Commission 's three-year term has expired and it has not been reconstituted] the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors (PCPM) — said in a statement that “It is understandable that Pope Francis’s statements yesterday in Santiago, Chile were a source of great pain for survivors of sexual abuse by clergy or any other perpetrator”.
A good start, right? But O’Malley didn’t stop there:
What I do know, however, is that Pope Francis fully recognizes the egregious failures of the Church and it’s clergy who abused children and the devastating impact those crimes have had on survivors and their loved ones.
Accompanying the Holy Father at numerous meetings with survivors I have witnessed his pain of knowing the depth and breadth of the wounds inflicted on those who were abused and that the process of recovery can take a lifetime. The Pope’s statements that there is no place in the life of the Church for those who would abuse children and that we must adhere to zero tolerance for these crimes are genuine and they are his commitment.
Having sufficiently ameliorated his criticism, “Cardinal Sean” was allowed to remain a useful minion of the papacy, and the pope decided to use his comments as a teachable moment. A moment in which he could say he was sorry – and then double down on what he did wrong in the first place.
During today’s plane presser, the pope explained how he had had the case of Bishop Barros “studied” and “investigated.” He went on:
I had it worked on a lot. And truly there is no evidence. I use the word evidence. Then I will speak about proof. There is no evidence of culpability, it seems that it will not be found.
He said he would follow the maxim of “no one is guilty until it is proven.” But he also admitted that
When the scandal with Karadima was discovered, we all know this scandal, we began to see many priests who were formed by Karadima who were either abused or who were abusers.
He then discussed how Barros had tried to resign more than once, but Francis had turned him down, saying it would look like an admission of guilt. He then continued:
I will pass to a third point, that of the letter I explained clearly: what those who have been abused feel. With this I have to ask forgiveness because the word “proof” wounded, it wounded many people who were abused, but I must go to look for the certificate, I have to do that — a word on translation, in the legal jargon, I wounded them. I ask them for forgiveness because I wounded them without realizing it, but it was an unintended wound. And this horrified me a lot, because I had received them. (But) in Chile I received two [abuse victims] as you know, I met others that I kept hidden. In every trip, there is always some possibility. The ones in Philadelphia were published, three (meetings) were published, then the other cases no… And I know how much they suffer, to feel that the Pope says in their face ‘bring me a letter, a proof.’ It’s a slap. And I agree that my expression was not apt, because I didn’t think, and I understand how the Apostle Peter, in one of his letters, says that the fire has been raised.
This is what I can say with sincerity. Barros will remain there if I don’t find a way to condemn him. I cannot condemn him if I don’t have — I don’t say proof — but evidence. And there are many ways to get evidence. Is that clear?
[In other words, "I may be wrong but you will never find 'evidence' that I am wrong! Hell, no! "I cannot ever be wrong because everything I say and do as pope is dictated by the Holy Spirit". Satan perhaps, disguising himself as a white dove? Is that clear?]
Note that he is not apologizing for accusing them of “calumny” (or “slander”, depending on the translation) but for insisting on “proof” instead of “evidence.” And note that he is only apologizing for the offense, not for the belief he still holds that caused it.
So we have a known victim of sexual abuse by a Chilean cleric — a cleric whose abuse, the pope admits, produced subsequent abusers, as is often the case — and that victim also accuses one of that abuser’s proteges of standing and watching while the crime takes place. And the pope accuses the man of making it all up to slander a man.
It is certainly a possibility that the pope is right. In the absence of evidence, accusations like these have been used to destroy reputations before.
But if it is true, what proof can possibly be brought forward? What evidence? What does the man have to gain by saying it? And what benefit did the pope derive from appointing such a controversial figure in the first place over the protest of his would-be diocese — protests that have made him unable to effectively lead his flock? Why would the pope continue to leave him in place after all of this?
Marie Collins, the abuse survivor who quit the PCPM in 2017 over obstacles to its mandate that included limitation of resources and curial interference, said at the time of her resignation that she believed “the pope does at heart understand the horror of abuse and the need for those who would hurt minors to be stopped.”
She tweeted some quite different messages this morning:
The Pope is reported as unconcerned by the month long delay in member appointments to PCPM, the proposed names are being vetted by the Roman Curia. These facts says all that is needed to be said about the priority being given to this Commission and this issue in the Vatican #PCPM...
I have been asked by media to comment on the words of the Pope today on the Commission for Protection of Minors and Barros “evidence”. Why comment? It’s a pointless waste of effort. Sorry for such a negative non-comment. It’s just the way I feel right now.
Even though this story isn’t showing up as broadly or in as damning terms as one might expect were Francis an orthodox Catholic, for some, his papacy has more than lost its luster.
Notice the editorializing language in the Reuters piece I cited above. It shows how serious a stumble this has been for a man who has been a non-stop media rock star:
“the pope replied in a snippy tone”... “in an extremely rare act of self-criticism”... “an unusually contrite pope”. These are not complimentary phrases.
In another piece entitled, “Pope Francis, Company Man“, Kevin Cullen of the Boston Globe takes an even bigger swing at the pontiff:
Let the record show that the promise of Pope Francis died in Santiago, Chile, on Jan. 18, in the year of our Lord 2018.
When Pope Francis slandered victims of sexual abuse, ironically by accusing those very victims of slandering a Chilean bishop who was complicit in that abuse, he confirmed what some critics have said all along, what I have always resisted embracing: Pope Francis is a company man, no better than his predecessors when it comes to siding with the institutional Roman Catholic Church against any who would criticize it or those, even children, who have been victimized by it. [This offensive anti-Catholic broadbrush tarring is why I did not quote more of Cullen's Globe column earlier.]
I offer my hearty congratulations to His Holiness, His Eminence, or whatever self-regarding, officious title that his legion of coat holders, admirers, apologists, and enablers insist we, the great unwashed, call him. Because he has revealed himself like no one else could.
By saying he needs to see proof that Bishop Juan Barros was complicit in covering up the abuse perpetrated by the Rev. Fernando Karadima, Francis has shown himself to be the Vatican’s newest Doubting Thomas. And it’s not a good look.
“He has revealed himself like no one else could.” Indeed he has. And now the narrative is beginning to fall apart. [From your pen to God's ears. But I can't be that sanguine. He is pope now, and no one else is, alas, so his is the power and the authority and the wherewithal to continue to do as he pleases.]
I have been wondering why none of the recent reports about the Karadima-Barros case has mentioned that the principal witness against Karadima had accused Barros not just of witnessing some of the abuses Karadima committed but that Barros himself engaged in questionable acts with Karadima. Now, one blogger has brought it up:
Victim accusing Barros of complicity with Karadima
is a 51-year-old Fortune 500 executive
CATHOLIC MONITOR
Monday, January 22, 2018
Did Pope Francis slander sex abuse victims of predator Fr. Fernando Karadima, for whom Francis-appointed Bishop Juan Barros covered up despite witnessing their abuse?
On July 12, 2016, Catholic activist lawyer Elizabeth Yore wrote in THE REMNANT:
"Juan Carlos Cruz, now a 51-years-old Fortune 500 executive has repeatedly maintained the culpability of Bishop Barros: "This bishop witnessed my own abuse and that of many other boys over a period of 35 years. Barros was there, and he saw it all."
His statement was corroborated by another Karadima victim, Dr. James Hamilton, now 49: " I saw how Barros watched it all." Cruz also disclosed: "I saw Karadima and Juan Barros kissing and touching each other"...
Over 1300 Catholics in Osorno, along with 30 diocesan priests, and 120 members of the Chilean Parliament sent a letter to Pope Francis urging him to rescind the appointment of Bishop Barros."
Yore's 2016 article is a comprehensive account of the Karadima-Barros mess:
https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/item/2628-vatican-watch-so-much-for-pope-s-child-protection-commission