Did you know that the Pope "sneaks out" of the Vatican at night dressed as an ordinary priest so that he can minister to the homeless and destitute on the streets of Rome?
Isn't it marvellous?
Did you know that Pope Francis once worked as a bouncer at a nightclub?
How wonderful – he's just like one of us – a working man.
As the propaganda piles up, Pope Francis basks in the adulation of the uncritical masses.
But
wait.
What's this?
The sex abuse scandal that so tormented his
predecessor seems to be emerging again after being swept under the rug
during Francis's honeymoon period.
The Holy See (the political wing of the Vatican) has at last responded to questions put to it by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child about the global issue of child rape by priests.
Or,
more accurately, it has not responded.
It says that it has nothing to
do with what goes on in the dioceses and parishes of its churches.
Therefore it cannot be held responsible in any way for the unspeakable
things that some of its priests do to defenceless children.
And
just when the Vatican thought it had distracted us from the horrors
that thousands of its priests have perpetrated, it all starts slithering
back again.
The Los Angeles Times
has carried out an investigation into Cardinal Roger Mahoney and his
decades-long cover-up of child rape by priests.
The exposé is based on
"nearly 23,000 pages of internal documents from the Archdiocese of Los
Angeles and various religious orders that were made public this year in
compliance with court orders".
And even then, only in the face of bitter
opposition from the Church.
The paper revealed in an editorial that, following the investigation, it had received an unprecedented number of letters from readers condemning the Church.
Meanwhile, more cases emerge all round the world.
So many in fact, that news of them hardly gets any further than local newspapers any more.
And
sometimes the sheer spitefulness and cynicism employed to evade paying
compensation to victims is breath-taking, especially from an institution
that purports to dictate morality to the rest of us.
In Australia a man
who is terminally ill and who was sodomised repeatedly by a number of
priests has won compensation, but a year later he has not seen a penny of it.
Why is the church delaying?
In Minnesota, a court has ordered
a diocese to hand over the names of 33 priests who are suspected of
abusing and raping children.
It has only taken 30 years to get to this
stage – and the names haven't been handed over yet.
It's not that the Vatican is unaware of the problem – as its chief prosecutor of paedophile priests has made clear.
Father Robert Oliver says, "Rome is 'well aware' of how frustrated many
people are with perceived confusion about how to hold bishops
accountable when they're accused of failing to make a 'zero tolerance'
policy stick and hopes a solution will emerge from debates over curial
reform under Pope Francis".
Haven't we been here
before?
Didn't Benedict promise that reform would come if we were
patient?
Well, we were patient (in some cases, 30 years patient) and
nothing much happened.
Ineffective "zero tolerance" policies were
supposedly introduced, but still the cover-ups continue.
Is
Francis going to be any different?
Last week he had an opportunity to
at least apologise for the disgusting record of his Church.
At a meeting
with Dutch bishops he was supposed to say (according to notes handed
out before the meeting) "I wish to express my compassion and to ensure
my closeness in prayer to every victim of sexual abuse, and to their
families; I ask you to continue to support them along the painful path
of healing, that they have undertaken with courage".
In
the event, he didn't say it and preferred instead to just talk
generally with the bishops who represent a country with its own major
abuse scandal.
A public inquiry recently showed that tens of thousands
of children had been raped by Dutch priests, and now the church is
paying out millions in compensation.
In return, the bishops told the Pope
that the Catholic Church is dying on its feet in the Netherlands.
Hundreds of churches have closed and more than 23,000 Catholics quit the
Dutch Church in 2010, the peak of an exodus in which an average 18,000
have left each year since 2006.
(This year, however, only about 7,500
had left by October.)
And so, as we are regaled with
tales of Francis's marvellous humanity, his love of the poor and
suffering, the tens of thousands – maybe even millions - of victims
around the globe wait and hope that something will change.
Francis seems
too busy being adored at present to be bothered with them.
When
one bishop asked a victim who had taken him to court "What can I do to
make it better?" The victim replied: "Give me back my childhood".
That
is the scale of Francis's problem and if he isn't careful, his glorious
honeymoon is going to end in ignominy, just like his predecessor.