Finally, Rigali has longstanding ties to Bishop
Bransfield, the current treasurer at Dolan’s US bishops’ group and President of
the Papal Foundation. The Foundation’s wealthy US donors each contribute
at least $1 million for the pope’s causes and get a private audience with
the pope as just occurred on April 21 and is shown in the video referred to
below. The donors, who appear to be very sincere in their efforts, seem a
bit subdued in the video, possibly as a result of the recent Philly trial sworn
testimony concerning Bransfield’s alleged sexual improprieties with minors,
which Bransfeld has denied. Bransfield has yet to explain fully why he
loaned his NJ beach house to a known sexual predator priest. Future
Bransfield revelations could prove embarrassing for Rigali and the pope as well.
It is unclear whether the pope discussed the allegations with Bransfield
at their recent Vatican meeting. The pope certainly should have.
<
/DIV>
It is unclear what actions, if any, the elite
donors will take with respect to Bransfield or whether any of the donors sought
a fuller explanation from Bransfield last week in Rome.
These US large donors appear to be sincere
Catholics, many with children and even grandchildren. While the US elite
donor groups do not appear to have really pressed the bishops to clean up their
predator priest problem, there is no evidence they supported or condoned it
either. Of course, the donations often provide the bishops with fungible
funds that presumably often enable US bishops to continue with their extravagant
and ineffective “take no prisoners” legal strategy that has wasted much of the
more than $3 billion spent so far by US bishops on resisting at all costs
abuse victims claims.
It is fair to note that it would appear that
many of these donors would likely benefit significantly if the pope’s efforts to
help replace Obama are successful, since it would likely result in a further
extension of the Bush tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the top 1% of US
taxpayers, which appears to include many of these donors.
It is evident that the open-ended nature of the
Philly criminal trial and its anticipated aftermath, especially the ambiguous
role of Cardinal Rigali, present a ticking time-bomb for the pope, as he
marshals all the pope’s US hierarchical forces to help replace President Barak
Obama in November.
Of course, the pope’s unexpected new assault on
American nuns appears to have diverted some US media attention from the Philly
trial. It is not clear yet what is really behind the pope’s efforts to try
to gain control of the US nuns. Some of the nuns appear to control
considerable assets that could help to prop up some desperate US bishops as they
continue almost indiscriminately to spend on lawyers and others trying to avoid
having to turn over their secret priest abuse files and/or having to testify, as
the Stockton CA bishop apparently just did with an large $3.75 million payment
to a single priest sexual abuse plaintiff. The Stockton payment helped
Cardinal Mahony avoid having to testify under oath.
The nuns’ assets, if controlled instead by some
bishops, could likely help alleviate some bishops’ decidedly negative cash flow
resulting from abuse payouts like this. Neither American Catholics nor
American courts will let the pope and US bishops cherry pick the nuns’
assets, if that were to be the papal plan. Cardinal Dolan has already with
his Milwaukee cemetary funds’ transfer showed the nuns how to protect
assets, ruthlessly if necessary. As was just well said by
a prominent woman theologian Mary Hunt, with ample support: “We are all nuns
today” when it comes to the pope’s new crackdown. Few are fooled by the
papal attempt to bully the nuns, as Garry
Wills notes recently in New York Review of
Books.
Some in the current circumstances have
even described the “nun attack” as an “earthquake.” Metaphors like
earthquakes and other “Acts of God” are misplaced and misleading here. It
is pretty simple. The pope’s back is to the wall. This tough and
determined pope is pulling out all stops to save his US election year strategy,
and leaning on the nuns is just the latest stop. Attacking nuns also
diverts US media attention from the horrendous revelations almost daily from the
Philly criminal trial of the former top aide to the pope’s longtime colleague in
Rome, Cardinal Rigali.
The pope’s US election year goals and strategy
at this point seem clear, and include the following:
(1) Help elect a pliable Republican to replace
Obama. A friendly Mormon will do just fine;
(2) Make sure that the new US President (A)
will go easy on Federally prosecuting US bishops for covering up for priest
sexual predators, and (B) will shun new Federal legislation, such as mandatory
prompt national reporting of abuse claims to the police, that targets child
abusers and those who facilitate abusers;
(3) Get the new US President to lean
diplomatically on the new female prosecutor at the International Criminal Court
(ICC) to forgo filing criminal charges for an alleged worldwide cover-up of
priest child abusers against the pope, and Cardinals Bertone, Levada and
Sodano;
(4) Get a majority of Opus Dei-leaning Justices
appointed to the US Supreme Court, as aging justices retire during the next four
year presidential term; and
(5) Get this newly “stacked” US Supreme Court
to permit states again to criminalize contraception (and abortion) and to expand
nationwide the “religious liberty” shield to all US bishops from civil law
liability for failure to manage predator priests that was recently extended by
the US Supreme Court only to Missouri and to the St. Louis
Archdiocese.
The price for the pope and US bishops in
electing a Republican this year will be acceptance by the US bishops of an
extension of the Bush taxs cuts favoring the top 1%, slashes in social programs
for seniors and the needy and defeat of Obama’s health insurance program that
covers millions of presently uninsured, including many with pre-existing
conditions.
If the pope cannot deliver enough Catholic
votes in key states to elect Romney, the coalition forged first under Reagan of
the US bishops, fundamentalist evangelicals and right-wing ideologues, is likely
finished. And the pope and bishops will likely then have to face increased
prosecution by Obama’s Justice Department and others for covering-up for priest
sexual predators.
The pope’s US 2012 election strategy was
planned long ago, but ran into some unanticipated obstacles. These
include:
(1) Georgetown Joan of Arc, Sandra Fluke, who
defeated uber-cultural warrior, Rush Limbaugh, in the anti-contraception
crusade;
(2) Some US nuns who publicly supported Obama’s
health insurance proposals in opposition to the US bishops (and the
pope);
(3) SNAP, which filed a powerful criminal
complaint with the ICC against the pope,
(4) Bishop Finn, who was indicted for failing
to report an alleged priest child pornographer;
(5) Cardinals Krol, Bevilacqua and Rigali, who
are almost daily being draggged through the priest child abuse mud in Philly,
and
(6) Bishop Bransfield, treasurer of the US
bishops’ group and President of the elite donor group, the Papal Foundation, who
was accused last week of three different sexual misdeeds with minors, while he
and the donors were in Rome to meet with the pope.
Against the foregoing, the pope’s help seems so
far to be hurting Republicans more than helping, especially among American women
voters.
The pope has already had US pastors read
political speeches from their pulpits. A bishop has recently shamelessly
linked Obama to Hitler and Stalin, with silent acquiesence of other bishops to
these unprecedented slurs. Some nuns have nodded in support of Obama’s
health care policies and, as a result the pope has lowered the boom on American
nuns generally. The pope has also called for civil disobedience
demonstrations by American Catholics in June and July, presumably hoping to get
media coverage of Catholics being arrested for “defending the faith” ( the
pope’s faith, that is).
The pope appears desparate. As an experienced
lawyer, I think he has a losing legal strategy. As a citizen, I think he
has a losing political strategy. As a Catholic, I think the pope’s attack
on nuns was a major mistake. It may also be, in my view, a blessing in
disguise that could be the beginning of the end for the male papal monarchy.
The bishops are outmatched by the nuns and I expect the nuns will soon
make that very evident.
For an example of the pope’s temper and
style, please see this
video showing him (as Cardinal Ratzinger and head of the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith) slapping an ABC-TV reporter in public on camera
for daring to ask how the almost 50 year old Vatican investigation of Maciel was
going. (The segment with this incident begins at the 1:54 mark in the
video.) If reporters are so treated in public, imagine how bishops (and
nuns) are treated in private.
For information on the call for American
Catholic civil disobedience protests in June and July, please
see this article at The Hill. For a video of last
Saturday’s glum Papal Foundation meeting of “$1 million a head” US donors with
the pope at the Vatican, with Bishop Bransfield front and center, please see this
video uploaded to You Tube by Catholic Tube. For information on
the ongoing Philly criminal trial of Cardinal Rigali’s former top aide and its
negative impact on the papal US election strategy, please
see my previous commentary at the Bilgrimage blog site.
The pope may have a temper, but he apparently
learned well his tactical methods and propaganda techniques at his “junior
seminary” as a teenager, when he was involuntarily pressed into service wth an
anti-aircraft unit of the German Army at the harrowing end of World War II. He
has ruled the Vatican with iron discipline.
As a theologian he has been criticized, for
example, by renowned Jesuit scriptural scholar, Daniel Harrington, in an April
4, 2011 America Magazine article and most recently by his
early colleague, Hans Küng, in his new January
2012 Jesus book (in German), for some fairly basic scholarly
shortcomings. This includes the pope’s (1) excessive reliance on outdated
scriptural exegesis, (2) selective reliance on certain Church Fathers, and
(3) an overly deductive and speculative approach to Christology.
In the pope’s recent rejection again on Holy
Thursday of women priests, the pope cited as support Holy Scripture, the
Catechism and writings of “Blessed” John Paul II. The scriptural argument has
been contradicted by his own Papal Biblical Commission of leading Catholic
scholars he selected. The pope mainly controlled the writing of the
Catechism and greatly influenced the writings of John Paul II, who became
“Blessed” in a rigged process Joseph Ratzinger also controlled. This
pope acts not only as the judge and the jury of “dogma”; he also creates
his own supporting evidence. He may be successful in intimidating many Catholic
scholars, but does he really think most Catholics are that gullible?
Another example of “evidence rigging” by this
pope is the recent attack on Obama apparentlly for “facilitating sinful
contraception,” which the overwhelming majority of Catholics accept in good
conscience. A short history, showing how the anti-contraception
1968 Humanae Vitae encyclical was about preserving papal
power, and not really about promoting God’s reign, is
provided in this National Catholic
Reporter article.
Robert Blair Kaiser is the author of the
definitive history book on (a) the promulgation in 1968 of the
encyclical, Humanae Vitae, (b) the formation and manipulation of
the 1960′s Papal Birth Control Commission that recommended permitting
contraception, and (c) the power politics behind the rejection of the
Commission’s recommendation. He has just written a new and timely
forword and has made the entire book available as a free e-book. All
Catholics are in his debt.
Kaiser, nearly 80 years old, and formerly an
award-winning religion journalist
at Time, Newsweek and the New York
Times, has frequently explained clearly and truthfully from the time in the
early ’60′s of his unparalleled reports from Rome on Vatican II, up to his most
recent books and articles, how the Vatican and the Catholic hierarchy work.
His classic book on current contraception “dogma,” The Politics
of Sex and Religion, is now available
online.
One cannot read this book without coming away
with a conviction that women have been punished needlessly for so long just to
keep the male hierarchy in power and over-fed. To now use this discredited
and harmful “contraception dogma” to replace a US president is nothing short of
disgraceful.
What is to be done? At least two action
items are essential. American Catholics must demand in this election
season that the President and Congress commit to adopt promptly necessary laws
to curtail, if not eliminate, child sexual abuse. For sure this must
include a national legal requirement, with significant penalties, that all US
custodians of children, including priests and bishops, report prompty to the
police all reports of abuse. Ireland’s Justice Minister just proposed this
legislation nationally, after considerable study and research, as Carl
O’Brien reports in the Irish Times.
The second action item is to demand that our
political leaders apply fully and promptly existing and new laws vigorously to
the Catholic hierarchy on a state, Federal and international level.
Are you listening President Obama, US Attorney
General Eric Holder, Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Harry Reid and Leader
Nancy Pelosi? What about you Mitt Romney, Senator McConnell and Speaker
Boehner?
Enough “Happy Talk” about children. It is time
to take action.
It is with deep disappointment to me as a
cradle Catholic that the Church hierarchy have reached the current dismal state.
I care about my Church, but I also care deeply about defenseless children
and innocent abuse victims that still hunger and thirst for justice, while
politicians, prosecutors and judges cozy up to powerful bishops for electoral
support and campaign contributions, however indirectly given and made.
Two years ago, I sent the pope a suggestion to
avoid ending up where we have now ended up. Not entirely surprisingly, I
never heard anything from the pope or his staff. That proposal could still
work, if he or his successor just listened to the Spirit for a change, rather
than to their lawyers and financial advisors.
