Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Pope Francis scandal persists

During his visit in Chile, Pope Francis insisted accusations that Bishop Juan Barros covered up a sexual abuse scandal were a calumny, since “There is not one shred of proof against him.”

It turns out that Francis (emphasis added)

received a victim’s letter in 2015 that graphically detailed how a priest sexually abused him and how other Chilean clergy ignored it, contradicting the pope’s recent insistence that no victims had come forward to denounce the cover-up, the letter’s author and members of Francis’ own sex- abuse commission have told The Associated Press.

Background from the AP report:

The Barros affair first caused shockwaves in January 2015 when Francis appointed him bishop of Osorno, Chile, over the objections of the leadership of Chile’s bishops’ conference and many local priests and laity. They accepted as credible the testimony against [Rev. Fernando] Karadima, a prominent Chilean cleric who was sanctioned by the Vatican in 2011 for abusing minors. Barros was a Karadima protege, and according to [Juan Carlos] Cruz and other victims, he witnessed the abuse and did nothing.

“Holy Father, I write you this letter because I’m tired of fighting, of crying and suffering,” Cruz wrote in Francis’ native Spanish. “Our story is well known and there’s no need to repeat it, except to tell you of the horror of having lived this abuse and how I wanted to kill myself.”

Cruz and other survivors had for years denounced the cover-up of Karadima’s crimes, but were dismissed as liars by the Chilean church hierarchy and the Vatican’s own ambassador in Santiago, who refused their repeated requests to meet before and after Barros was appointed

Barros allegedly was not simply covering up, but directly involved,

“More difficult and tough was when we were in Karadima’s room and Juan Barros — if he wasn’t kissing Karadima — would watch when Karadima would touch us — the minors — and make us kiss him, saying: ‘Put your mouth near mine and stick out your tongue.’ He would stick his out and kiss us with his tongue,” Cruz told the pope. “Juan Barros was a witness to all this innumerable times, not just with me but with others as well.”

Cruz gave the eight page letter to Cardinal O’Malley, who later assured him that he personally delivered the letter to Francis. On January 21, 2018, Francis insisted,

“No one has come forward, they haven’t provided any evidence for a judgment. This is all a bit vague, it’s something that can’t be accepted. You, in all good will, tell me that there are victims, but I haven’t seen any, because they haven’t come forward.”

Pope Francis sent an envoy to Chile to investigate sexual abuse claims shortly after apologizing for his remarks.

This does not bode well for the Catholic Church’s moral authority, or for the papacy.

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Pope Francis wants illegals to be welcome to the party

I livestreamed Pope Francis’s Mass in Iquique, Chile, last Thursday.

During the homily, Francis advocated for open borders. He started by talking about the wedding at Cana and how Mary told Jesus that the hosts had run out of wine, after which Jesus performed his first miracle, turning water into wine. Francis said,

Like Mary at Cana, let us make an effort to be more attentive in our squares and towns, to notice those whose lives have been “watered down”, who have lost – or have been robbed of – reasons for celebrating. And let us not be afraid to raise our voices and say: “They have no wine”.

From there, Francis catapulted into welcoming migrants (emphasis added),

The cry of the people of God, the cry of the poor, is a kind of prayer; it opens our hearts and teaches us to be attentive. Let us be attentive, then, to all situations of injustice and to new forms of exploitation that risk making so many of our brothers and sisters miss the joy of the party. Let us be attentive to the lack of steady employment, which destroys lives and homes. Let us be attentive to those who profit from the irregular status of many immigrants who don’t know the language or who don’t have their papers “in order”. Let us be attentive to the lack of shelter, land and employment experienced by so many families. And, like Mary, let us say with faith: They have no wine.

Like the servants at the party, let us offer what have, little as it may seem. Like them, let us not be afraid to “lend a hand”. May our solidarity in the commitment for justice be part of the dance or song that we can offer to our Lord. Let us also make the most of the opportunity to learn and make our own the values, the wisdom and the faith that migrants bring with them. Without being closed to those “jars” so full of wisdom and history brought by those who continue to come to these lands. Let us not deprive ourselves of all the good that they have to contribute.

I’m no theologian, but this argument is missing the fact that in civil society, the immigrants have the duty of abiding by the country’s laws and mores. Francis instead advocates for us “to learn and make our own the values, the wisdom and the faith that migrants bring with them.”

A democratic civil society under the rule of law can only exist when all who live in it understand their duties and responsibilities. It is not one big party where divine intervention bails you out when you run out of wine. It is a place where lawful citizens are allowed to keep what they have earned from the fruit of their labor and enterprise, with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Every citizen understands his/her duty to respect the rights (and property) of others and abide by the rule of law. That is its underlying value.

Once any immigrant understands that concept, by all means I’m appreciative of “those “jars” so full of wisdom and history brought by those who continue to come to these lands,” whatever they may be.

Francis did not touch on the question of how to raise the immigrants’ lands of origin to the same standard.

And by the way, Jesus and Mary were invited guests at the wedding at Cana. They did not crash that party.

In other Francis news,

At the end of his three-day visit to Chile, Pope Francis came to the defense of a controversial bishop, saying accusations that he helped cover up abuse are unproven and amount to “calumny.”

Responding to a Chilean journalist who asked about the issue, Pope Francis said “the day they bring me proof against Bishop Barros, I’ll speak. There is not one shred of proof against him. It’s all calumny. Is that clear?”

Cross-posted at WoW! Magazine.

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Chile: Papal visit roundup UPDATED with live feed

Pope Francis is in Chile advocating open borders.

Francis officiated Mass in the Mapuche region after two Catholic churches and three helicopters belonging to forestry companies were set on fire.

He also met with sexual abuse victims.

Here’s a brief roundup:
Pope wraps up Chile stop with visit to migrants, on to Peru (emphasis added)

Upon his arrival in Chile, Francis said the country’s future lies in its ability to listen, including “to the migrants who knock on the doors of this country in search of a better life, but also with the strength and the hope of helping to build a better life for all.”

Even though the numbers are comparatively small, Chile had the fastest annual rate of migrant growth of any country in Latin American between 2010 and 2015, according to U.N. and church statistics.

Most of the newcomers are Haitians, who often face language barriers that limit their job prospects.

Pope finds fault with Chile, indigenous group. He says the nation must implements agreements and radical factions must stop the violence

Pope Francis urges Chile’s Mapuche to shun ‘violence’.

Defend culture but shun violence, pope tells Chile’s indigenous Mapuche

Pope Francis meets sex abuse victims in Chile

The meeting at the Vatican’s mission in Santiago was “strictly private”, his office said, providing no further details.

Earlier during his visit to Chile, the Pope felt “pain and shame” over the sex abuse scandal, asking the victims for forgiveness.

He has been criticised in Chile for a decision to ordain a bishop accused of covering up sexual abuse by a priest.

UPDATE
Livefeed to papal Mass,

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Venezuela: Where’s Francis?

Sam Gregg writes, As Venezuela burns, many Latin Americans ask: “Where is Pope Francis?”

With Venezuela imploding, many wonder why Pope Francis seems slow to condemn a left-wing populist Latin American dictatorship that’s brutalizing the population of an overwhelmingly Catholic country.

Gregg points out,

A second factor worth considering is that Venezuela’s crisis doesn’t fit into Pope Francis’s standard way of explaining contemporary political and economic problems. It’s very hard for the pope to blame Venezuela’s problems on the tyranny of Mammon, financial speculation, free trade agreements, arms-dealers, nefarious “neoliberals,” or any of his usual list of suspects.

Venezuela’s problems are clearly the result of socialist policies being imposed by a left-populist regime upon its own people. The Venezuelan bishops haven’t hesitated to describe this as the “fundamental cause” of Venezuela’s woes. The Chavez-Maduro regime has certainly created, to use Francis’s words, “an economy that kills.” But it’s not a market economy. It’s a socialist economy freely chosen and created by Venezuelan leftist-populists. There are no mysterious forces “out there” which forced Venezuela down this path (though functionaries imported from Communist Cuba have been doing their best to keep Maduro in power since 2014). While Maduro regularly blames “Yankee imperialism,” Venezuela’s disastrous situation is squarely the fault of left-wing populist Venezuelans who, like all socialists, refuse to acknowledge that such policies always lead to long-term economic ruin and can only be maintained in place by governments prepared to use “extra-constitutional” methods.

The Venezuelan Catholic leadership formally meets today and is expected to issue a formal statement defending religious freedoms.

UPDATE
Linked to by Doug Ross. Thank you!

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Pope Francis is against populists, after he was for them

Pope Francis’s socialist slip continues to show,
On the ‘Invasion’ of ‘Libertarianism,’ Pope Francis’ Ignorance Is Showing. Stephanie Slade writes,

My main critique, which I published here at Reason on the eve of his 2015 visit to the United States, was that the pontiff’s ignorance of basic economics has led him to a bad conclusion about which public policies are best able to reduce the crushing yoke of poverty in the world. I went on to encourage him to consider that, as a matter of empirical fact, markets are the single greatest engine for growth and enrichment that humanity has yet stumbled upon.

Francis believes that “the libertarian individual denies the value of the common good,” and that populism is “the fruit of an egotism that hems people in and prevents them from overcoming and ‘looking beyond’ their own narrow vision.”

Odd words from the guy who entertained in the Vatican iconic left-wing populist Cristina Fernández de Kirchner five times during her tenure as populist president of Argentina.

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Says the guy who hosted Cristina 5 x at the Vatican: UPDATED

Pope Francis issues veiled warning about Donald Trump: ‘Populism is evil’. Pontiff also confesses to moments of spiritual doubt in interview with German newspaper Die Zeit

The pope told Die Zeit on Thursday “populism is evil and ends badly as the past century showed.”

Throwback Thursday to June 2015:

It’s up to you, gentle reader, to decide whether the frequent visits have anything to do with Cristina’s newly-found adherence to the Catholic Church, her fondness for shopping in Rome, well-timed junkets, or the desperate need for favorable publicity

UPDATE

A little humor at The Onion:
Pope Francis Spotted Sunbathing Nude In St. Peter’s Square

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Colombia: Santos-Francis-Uribe meeting UPDATED

Last Friday Juan Manuel Santos and Alvaro Uribe met at the Vatican with Pope Francis to discuss the so-called peace agreement with the FARC.

“The Santos and Uribe boys, please go to the principal’s office”

It was part of Santos’s Nobel Peace Prize Victory Tour™, which so far includes pressuring the Spanish government to censor advertising billboards.

The WSJ reports,

Pope Francis Tries to Mend Colombian Rift Over Peace Accord With FARC. Pontiff holds meeting with President Juan Manuel Santos and his political rival, Álvaro Uribe (emphasis added)

The pope first held separate private meetings with each of the two men. Then the three met for an encounter in which Mr. Santos and his rival sat side by side across a desk from the pope. The arrangement was unusual because it seemed to suggest equal standing between Mr. Uribe and Mr. Santos, a head of state.

The Holy See said the pontiff “spoke about the ‘culture of encounter’ and emphasized the importance of sincere dialogue between all members of Colombian society at this historical moment.”

But it was clear that Mr. Uribe maintained his tough stance against the accord, which he says amounts to granting impunity by permitting former FARC commanders to hold 10 seats in congress.

Uribe’s correct; the current deal, redrafted on December 1 and fast tracked by the Supreme Court on December 14, legitimizes the FARC and turns it into a political power.

Francis’s spokesman said he won’t go to Colombia until the peace agreement is “bulletproof.”

Uribe spoke to the media after the meeting,

“I summarized to Pope Francis the basic elements on which there are disagreements and told him I hope they are allowed to be changed”

Among the Twitter reactions:

“After talking to Santos // After talking to Uribe”



Post corrected for HTML error.

UPDATE:
Colombian media reports that Santos wanted to discuss the peace agreement with Pope Francis. Pope Francis thought it would be a great idea, and to have Uribe join them. The Vatican sent a plane to fetch Alvaro Uribe, who flew in, attended the meeting, did not give into pressure, and flew back home right away.

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The tweeted mini-Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean

It was a busy week and weekend, so this week’s Carnival is brief,

ARGENTINA

BRAZIL

COLOMBIA

LATIN AMERICA

PUERTO RICO

VENEZUELA



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