POPE FRANCIS SPINS TO NEW BISHOPS: REJECT ALL FORMS OF ABUSE AND CLERICALISM

 Pope Francis has told newly ordained Bishops they must reject all forms of abuse and work in communion — not as lone operators — to fight the clerical culture that fueled a sex abuse and cover-up scandal rocking his papacy. (The italics are mine for emphasis.)

Francis made his remarks during an audience Saturday with 74 new Bishops from 34 countries. 

The Bishops are at the Vatican learning how to pastor their flocks.

The seminar has come at a moment of crisis for the Pope: the former Nuncio to the United States has alleged Francis covered up for a disgraced ex-Cardinal in the United States, Theodore McCarrick, who was accused of sexually molesting youngsters and seminarians.

The Holy Father has indicated that his response will be one of “silence and prayer”.

He has ignored pleas from Bishops, primarily in the United States to respond directly to the allegation.


What I find intriguing about the statement is its spin.

First, the Pope tells the new Bishops to reject "all forms of abuse".  What a clever way of inserting the present sexual abuse crisis into the equation suggesting that it is merely one manifestation of abuses within the Church in which there are many.

The spin fails, however, because the Pope finds himself immediately involved in the sexual abuse scandals as a result of the allegations of Archbishop Vigano.

And the Pope's second spin is likewise an attempt to establish that the cause of these abuse scandals is clericalism.  It's not.  

The abuse is the result of homosexual assaults upon male minors by Catholic Clergymen.

The root of the problem isn't some distortion in the institutional culture of the Church.

The common factor in over 90% of sexual abuse cases is homosexual predation of young men by Clergy.

Pope Francis will continue to find his Pontificate in a state of crisis and chaos as long as he continues to deflect attention away from these obvious truths.

One can only hope that these new Bishops will see through this thin veneer of spinning and be brave enough to reject it and admit the truth and work together to remedy the perversion which homosexual Clergy have introduced into the Church and the suffering it has caused.