CW : EDITORIAL

Over the last few days, we have dealt with some enquiries to this blogspot in relation to the passing of Patrick Buckley, and if nothing else, it has given us cause to reflect on some of the conversations / emails / messages we have received here in CW.

Much of this has been on what he published, and then it became a conversation about how let down people were when they attempted to get attention drawn to what was being published about them.

It then became a matter of identifying where the failure lay in addressing how it was that Patrick Buckley could publish, slander, libel, defame etc and get away with it unchecked for so long, and it can be said that the following organisations / entities have a lot of questions to answer....

....and those who were, and are, in effect, victims of the evil rantings of Patrick Buckley need answers from you all as to why you failed them when they so badly needed your help...

- MEDIA -

Throughout the time since his passing, very little mention was made of him except in relation to his actual passing and nothing else - until the recent 'love-in' interview with his partner/husband Eduardo Yanga.

He was always a headline maker for the media, even as part of it when he was with the now defunct 'News Of The World' rag, and he knew how to sensationalise a situation just to grab the headlines.

This was most evident when he created his 'Thinking Catholicism' blogspot, and after that, then his own self-named blogspot, neither now in existence due to his doing us all the greatest favour by dying.

However, during the time of those blogspots, he published nothing but untruths and slander, defammatory comments were published under the articles,  and if there was no story, he created one, and in doing so destroyed so many reputations and lives.

And throughout all of this, the media, clergy and indeed others, remained silent and allowed him to continue with his vile and deviant postings - except us.

When we did start to publish in relation to him, and ask questions of him and his behaviour - on so many levels -  he tried to get us shut down by making further untrue allegations against us, but yet we persisted and won our right to free speech and publish again.

Down through those years, not just for us here in CW, but for all of those who have been hurt, slandered etc by his perverse postings, there was no journalist / media engaging with us to help get to the truth of what was being published.

Now, upon his passing, some are scrambling to get the information we have - information given to us in trust and confidence by those affected.

Due to the failure of some media to help when it was most needed, those hurt by Patrick Buckley no longer trust many 'journos' or their respective papers, and that was never more evident than when we had a situation in relation to a 'journo' seeking information from us earlier this week.

Let us say directly to this 'journo' - your supposition to us that the allegations may just be malicious is nothing less than a total display of contempt for, and ignorance of, the truth.

We have worked with people who have provided us with hard and fast evidence in relation to everything claimed against Patrick Buckley on this site, and indeed we also liaise with their respective legal representatives with certain information which may be pertinent to their potential case.

So, why did none of you 'journos' think that checking out what he was publishing merited investigation? 

You have the resources that we do not have, but yet we could get the trust and confidence of people, alongside so much evidence, to verify all we claimed and published here.

Why did you fail to do your jobs?

- AN GARDA SÍOCHÁNA -

There were / are issues of failure on the part of An Garda Síochána, or at least many members approached in seeking help to sort out what was going on - and the responses from those members who failed to help stands as nothing less than a disgrace to the force in this regard.

The usual response of it being a civil matter no longer cuts the mustard, especially since Coco's Law came into effect in January 2021 (link here for those members who failed to be of any useful help so as to acquaint themselves with THEIR lawful obligations to those impacted) and maybe the Garda Commissioner and the Minister for Justice would care to ask GSOC to take an interest in getting an investigation into the failure of those officers to do their jobs.

Those members who did not fail to act stand as a credit to An Garda Síochána, and deserve to be acknowledged for their dedication and support to those who approached them, and we would be only happy to do so at the appropriate juncture.

- PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland) -

In relation to the PSNI, nothing but praise can be heard into how they were dealing with Patrick Buckley, and we can but be in awe of their committment and determination to resolve each issue raised in relation to aforementioned Patrick Buckley. 

- BISHOPS -

The bishops, of all rankings, also failed to do anything - except throw students under their own episcopal bus just so as to save their own episcopal rears - and in the process took the word of Patrick Buckley as gospel and lost many a good priest by doing so.

There is many a mile to go in this particular story with a bishop or two in our direct sights, and we refer to Operation Ainmhian and Operation Laonia in particular in this regard.

- SOCIAL MEDIA -

We cannot forget Word Press and indeed Google for their continued failure to heed warnings about Patrick Buckley and moreso his blogspots.

Even when he was trying to get us shut down because we dared to publish the truth about him, Google decided to believe him first, shut us down, and then give us the chance to respond.

We had no problem with that, but it became very clear, very quickly, to Google who was telling the actual truth and they had no choice but to re-instate us, much to the chagrin of Patrick Buckley.

Word Press - what a disgrace.

You allowed him to publish what he did, despite the protestations of so many that he tried to destroy, and not until it became almost too late did you step back and realise the legal consquences coming your way.

Bit too little, way too late.

- THE ORATORY SOCIETY -

And finally, those in The Oratory Society have a lot to account for in allowing him to publish as he wished...and despite any attempt to say that he, as a blogger, was seperate from him being the head of The Oratory Society would not wash in any court of law.

Which is why the blogspots, and all associated social media accounts were removed so quickly after his death, so as to ensure The Oratory Society would not end up liable for it all.

If, as has been claimed, that The Oratory Society and Patrick Buckley were not interlinked in any way, why did the blogs etc disappear?

On his LinkedIn account, it is very clear that under his name he advises that he is a Catholic bishop, The Oratory, Larne - same said person who proudly boasted of his being the owner of the blogspot...same said person in both situations - same liability.

You knew what he was publishing and you allowed him to do so, and barely dead, ye removed everything knowing how wrong it was and how legally liable The Oratory Society would be.

Is that not correct Eduardo? Paul?

* In general, with the very rare exceptions as highlighted above, there were systemic failures on the part of so so many which allowed Patrick Buckley to continue as he did for so long, wreaking havoc, spreading poisonous lies and untruths.

And all sat back letting him do so.

Well, perhaps now the time has come for all to reap what they have sown in this regard.

Any maybe, just maybe, make sure that it does not happen again.

Mise,

AODHÁN DE FAOITE

Eagarthóir / Editor

‘It’s the very principle of it’: Limerick mayoral candidate John Moran sparks controversy using photo of bishop in campaign advert

A high-profile candidate in the race to become the first directly elected mayor of Limerick has become embroiled in a row with the local bishop.

Former Department of Finance secretary general John Moran sparked concern among the local Catholic church organisation after a picture of Bishop Brendan Leahy appeared in his election material.

Mr Moran paid for a full-page advertisement in local newspaper the Limerick Post featuring a photograph of himself and the Bishop of Limerick along with the caption: “Some blessings ahead of the next four weeks.”

However, it has now emerged the former chair of the Land Development Agency (LDA) did not seek the approval of Bishop Leahy to include his image in the sponsored advertisement which featured a series of photographs of Mr Moran with local people.

The photograph has led to some consternation within the Limerick Catholic church with confidants of the bishop insisting it was inappropriate for his image to be used in election material for any candidate.

“It’s the very principle of it – you can’t have the bishop being seen to be associated with one candidate which could give the impression to his followers that this is who they should be voting for in the Limerick mayor election,” a church source said.

It is understood the bishop has been contacted by his local congregation about appearing in the election advertisement with Mr Moran.

A representative for the bishop has also contacted the Limerick Post asking that his image not be included in any further political advertisements.

The photograph was taken by Mr Moran’s team after a mass in Limerick and the bishop is among a number of local people who have appeared in the advertisements which mimic the newspaper’s “In the picture” section.

A spokesperson for Bishop Leahy said: “Bishop Leahy had a number of photos taken by and with members of the public following a commemorative mass to mark the 200th anniversary of the founding of Athlunkard Street in Limerick on April 28.

“However, he did not give approval for any photo to be used in promotional election material by any candidate from this or any other event during the election campaign.”

In response, Mr Moran said: “This is news to me – I haven’t been contacted by anyone from the bishop’s office to express any dissatisfaction with the advertisement.”

Mr Moran’s team said they are using sponsored content in local newspapers because he does not believe the local or national media are giving proper coverage of the historic mayoral election.

The former civil servant is in the running for the coveted elected position but will have to see off contenders from Sinn Féin’s Maurice Quinlivan, Fine Gael’s Daniel Butler and Fianna Fáil’s Dee Ryan.

The race is expected to be decided on transfers with none of the perceived leading candidates thought to have a quota.

The Limerick mayor role comes with an annual salary of more than €150,000 and the candidate selected for the position will be responsible for a €1bn budget.

The winner will serve a five-year term.

Healy-Rae dismisses far-right call for ‘excommunication’ over mosque visit

Deputy Michael Healy-Rae has refused to be drawn on calls by a local election candidate in Kerry running for a far-right party that he should be ‘excommunicated’ from the Catholic Church for having visited a mosque in Killarney in the past.

National Party candidate Jacob Sweeney posted a message on his X account that he emailed Bishop of Kerry Ray Browne ordering that Deputy Healy-Rae be excommunicated as he caused ‘serious offence to God’ and was ‘blasphemous’ in visiting the mosque.

Deputy Healy-Rae said the video is from ‘a while back’ and features people from the Bangladesh community, some of whom have been living in Kerry for over 30 years.

The video shows Michael Healy-Rae speaking as a guest at the mosque where he said members of the Muslim community were the ‘fabric’ of Killarney and Kerry.

“We were glad to support you and do our work in helping you [build a mosque],” he said.

“But it was down to yourselves. It is a beautiful building and a building for the future,” Michael Healy-Rae added.

He spoke of the contribution made to Kerry by Muslims and that if they had not made a decision to come to Kerry and raise their families, “we would have been denied the right of having those children in this county,” he said.

“We are delighted that the mosque [Killarney] is going so well. It is a credit to each and everyone of you and your families who worked so hard and saved up money. It couldn’t be here only for work and money. You did that yourselves. You didn’t have to get any grant or help. What you needed was the goodwill,” Deputy Healy-Rae stated.

But Jacob Sweeney said he is against what he termed the ‘Islamification of Ireland’ and hoped Bishop Browne would be ‘righteous’ in his decision and excommunicate Deputy Healy-Rae.

The Islamic Cultural Centre in Killarney was granted planning permission to extent its premises at New Street Car Park on Beech Road in May 2023.

Permission was granted to construct an extension to the existing cultural centre by adding a prayer room, and three-bedroom apartment.

Deputy Danny Healy-Rae and Cllr Maura Healy-Rae were both listed as having submitted representations to the council on behalf of the Islamic Cultural Centre’s application.

Polish abuse victims demand suspension of bishops’ conference president

Survivors of clergy sex abuse have written to the Polish bishops’ conference demandingan an investigation of its president. They have accused Archbishop Tadeusz Wojda of Gdansk of negligence in handling a sexual abuse case.

“In many Polish dioceses...the welfare of institutions turns out to be more important than human suffering,” they said.

Their letter, with 46 signatories, is the largest joint initiative to date from Polish abuse survivors. One of the letter’s three authors told OSV News: “Until today, we spoke as individuals. This is the first time our voice is heard as a group in Poland. We wanted the bishops to know – we are together.”

They asked the bishops to meet them “later in 2024” during a plenary meeting, and also requested that every diocesan scheme to help victims should include a woman in its administration, besides their demand that Archbishop Wojda be suspended pending an investigation of his handling of abuse cases in Gdansk.

The Catholic journal Wiez reported that survivors reporting abuse in Gdansk had been “improperly” treated by diocesan officials. 

“Lack of compassion and manipulating testimonies on the part of the priest who was hearing them are only two things to start with in this long litany of what seems to be really grave errors,” said Zbigniew Nosowski, the journal’s editor-in-chief.

Details of the archbishop’s alleged negligence surfaced in February 2022 in the Catholic weekly Tygodnik Powszechny.

This March, a victim sent a letter to the apostolic nuncio in Warsaw accusing Wojda of negligence. It mentioned a priest accused of abuse by two victims in 2021 who was appointed deputy chaplain of a psychiatric hospital two years later. One of the victims was between 13 and 18 years old at the time of the alleged abuse.

According to Wiez, the priest’s role in the hospital gave him “the opportunity for unfettered contact with people in deep mental crisis, including minors”.

Fr Leszek Gesiak, the spokesman for the bishops’ conference said the “issues contained in the letter” sent by the 46 victims would be “taken up” at a meeting soon.

Record number of French military baptized at Lourdes

A record number of French armed forces personnel were baptized Saturday during the annual International Military Pilgrimage to Lourdes.

Nearly 180 catechumens from the four branches of the French military — the Army, Navy, Air and Space Force, and National Gendarmerie — were baptized May 25 in the cavernous Basilica of St. Pius X, the largest church in the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes.

It marked a 50% increase on the year before, when 120 people were baptized.

A further 400 people were confirmed during the May 24-26 pilgrimage that drew 15,000 military personnel from around 40 countries.

Many of the catechumens were baptized by the Vatican’s “foreign minister” Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, who presided over the pilgrimage, which is led each year by the French Armed Forces Bishop Antoine de Romanet. 

The Diocese of the French Armed Forces is just one of the beneficiaries of a sharp rise in adult baptisms reported across the country once known as “the eldest daughter of the Church.”

The number of adult baptisms in France has increased by 30%, from 5,463 in 2023 to 7,135 in 2024, the French bishops’ conference reported in March.

The figures are the highest since the bishops’ conference began tabulating the data more than 20 years ago.

Hundreds of people are baptized or received into the Church through the armed forces diocese every year, a mark of the Catholic ethos that permeates the country’s military despite France’s rigorously enforced secularism.

One observer has suggested that the French armed forces have “an over-representation of Catholic officers” and “the individual commitment to being an officer seems to correspond fairly frequently to belonging to a Catholic cultural and family environment, with a political commitment to the traditional right.”

Jean-Louis Georgelin, a practicing Catholic, served as France’s Chief of the Defence Staff from 2006 and 2010. He oversaw the restoration of Notre-Dame Cathedral following the devastating fire in 2019, but died while hiking in August 2023.

The Diocese of the French Armed Forces was founded in 1952, as the country was recovering from the Second World War. Its cathedral is Saint-Louis des Invalides, part of the Les Invalides complex in Paris.

According to the diocese’s website, military chaplaincy in France dates back as far as the 8th century, but was formalized by a law passed in 1880, which affirmed freedom of worship in the armed forces. The state is obliged under French law to guarantee that the country’s military personnel can exercise their right to freedom of worship. 

Catholic chaplains belonging to the armed forces diocese are permitted to wear uniforms, visit bases, and sail on naval vessels. More than 200 chaplains — priests, deacons, and lay men and women — serve a total of around 270,000 French active personnel. They provide pastoral care at defense bases, schools, and hospitals, as well as in theaters of operation.

The Bishop of the Armed Forces is appointed by the pope with the consent of the French government. The bishop is represented by a regional chaplain in each French military region, including overseas territories in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans.

The international military pilgrimage was launched in 1958 — 100 years after the 14-year-old peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous reported seeing apparitions of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes — with an emphasis on post-war reconciliation between France and neighboring Germany.

Pilgrims at the three-day event, known by its French acronym PMI, include Swiss Guards from the Vatican and a U.S. contingent including Archbishop Timothy Broglio, the head of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, and president of the U.S. bishops’ conference.

Each year, U.S. active-duty personnel and veterans attend the pilgrimage through the Warriors to Lourdes program, co-sponsored by the Archdiocese for the Military Services and the Knights of Columbus.

The 2024 Warriors to Lourdes Pilgrimage took place May 21-27, in conjunction with the 64th annual International Military Pilgrimage.

Pope Francis sent a message to military pilgrims at Lourdes, signed by the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, urging participants to be “sentinels of peace.”

“Dear soldiers, the pope invites you to stand up and walk with courage and perseverance,” the May 25 message said. 

“Be military men and women who stand tall and proud to honor your uniform, your motto, and your homeland, but who are also aware that you are part of a single human family, a family that is divided and wounded, but which Christ came to redeem and save through the power of love, not the violence of arms.”

Notre-Dame reopening: Tensions between Macron and archbishop

Six months before the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral on 7 December, tensions are growing between the Archbishop of Paris and French President Emmanuel Macron. 

According to a report in the newspaper "La Depeche" on Monday, the reason for this is the conditions of the ceremony, on which no agreement has yet been reached. 

As the state has owned the cathedral since the 1905 law on the separation of church and state, the president wants to symbolically hand over the keys to the cathedral to the clergy, which Paris Archbishop Laurent Ulrich opposes. 

This is not necessary, as there has never been a breach of contract.

Another point of contention between the two parties is the president's speech, according to the newspaper. Macron wants to give this speech inside the cathedral, which Ulrich also protests against. 

The latter would prefer to have the head of state speak on the forecourt of the cathedral. 

However, both sides agree on the choice of communications agency to present the major reopening project to the public.

A major fire broke out on the roof of Notre-Dame on 15 April 2019 during renovation work. 

At the time, the head of state promised to rebuild the destroyed parts of the cathedral within five years. 

The cathedral was severely damaged by the fire. 

President Macron's goal of reopening the cathedral on the fifth anniversary of the fire could not quite be met, but is scheduled to take place on 7 December.

Viral hit: nuns dance to "Barbara's rhubarb bar"

Two sisters from the Crescentia Convent in Kaufbeuren have been inspired by the current hit "Barbaras Rhabarberbar" and recorded their own dance video for Instagram. 

According to a report in the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper, the video, which only lasts a few seconds, features Sister Clara Marie Beuth (27) and Sister Annika Wörle (47). 

The rap with the well-known tongue twister, produced by Bodo Wartke and Marti Fischer, is currently enjoying great popularity online.

The superior of the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of the Crescentia Monastery, Johanna Maria Höldrich, also has her say in the newspaper article. She emphasises that the article was not intended as an advertising clip for the convent or even as a sophisticated image campaign. 

The two sisters had simply picked up on something that was topical. There is a song that says it is rhubarb season and rhubarb pie is eaten in the convent.

The convent has reportedly been on Instagram since November 2022. Something special was needed to mark the thousandth follower. 

The sisters recorded the dance performance on 5 May. 

A few days ago, they posted the video online - it now has over 22,000 likes. The predominantly positive comments range from "God is funny too" to "super cute". 

According to the newspaper article, 25 sisters live in the Franciscan convent in Kaufbeuren, the youngest of whom is 27 and the oldest 90 years old.

Report: Are the schismatic Poor Clares selling their monastery treasures?

In the archdiocese of Burgos, fears are apparently spreading that the renegade Poor Clares of Belorado could soon start selling art treasures from their monasteries.  

As the Spanish portal "Religion Digital" reported on Tuesday, citing sources from the archdiocese, the community is being represented by a law firm that specialises in the sale of religious art and liturgical material. 

This has caused great concern in church circles.

The monastery in Belorado alone contains several valuable baroque altarpieces from the 17th century. 

In addition, the inventory of liturgical equipment is unmanageable. 

The community is dependent on sales proceeds due to legal disputes arising from property transactions.

Schismatic Poor Clares: Vatican appoints papal commissioner

The Vatican has now intervened in the case of the schismatic Poor Clares of Belorado. 

As Spanish media reported on Wednesday, the Archbishop of Burgos, Mario Iceta was appointed papal representative for the Convention on Monday. 

Iceta is to act on behalf of the Holy See in the three monasteries concerned and thus prevent the possible sale of properties.

The Pontifical Delegate is to be given control of three monasteries owned by the community: Belorado (province of Burgos), where the schismatic Poor Clares live, Orduna and Derio, whose monastery the Poor Clares want to sell. 

In order to fulfil the Holy See's mandate, Iceta has appointed an administrative commission, which was presented at a press conference with the Apostolic Nuncio in Spain, Bernardito Auza, on Wednesday afternoon. 

The members of the commission are Iceta herself, the president of the association of religious orders, the legal advisor of the archdiocese of Burgos responsible for canon law issues and the archdiocese's legal affairs officer responsible for coordinating civil law aspects. 

The new commission is supported by the Episcopal Delegate for Consecrated Life and the chaplains of the convent.

Commissioner must speak to every sister

Iceta's appointment coincides with the end of the term of office of Abbess Sister Isabel de La Trinidad. She was informed of the end of her term of office and the appointment of the commissioner on Wednesday afternoon. 

Nuncio Auza emphasised that one of Iceta's tasks was to speak to each individual sister. 

After a certain period of time, each of them must personally express whether or not they wish to continue to belong to the Catholic Church. In the event of non-compliance with the provisions of the instruction on contemplative life and the dissolution of convents, the entire assets of the convent would fall under the jurisdiction of the religious order.

The case of the apostate Poor Clares has been causing a stir in Spain for several weeks. 

The Poor Clares, who have another branch in the Basque town of Orduna, made headlines with a public statement in which the abbess renounced the church on behalf of all 16 nuns. 

At the same time, she announced that the sisters would submit to an equally apostate clergyman named Pablo de Rojas, who is known as the head of the ultra-conservative association "Pia Unio Sancti Pauli Apostoli" based in Bilbao. 

He does not recognise all popes after Pius XII (1939-1958) and was officially excommunicated in 2019 because he was irregularly ordained a bishop. 

The Order of Poor Clares in Spain and Portugal announced last week that it would be separating to separate from the community in Belorado. 

One of the 16 sisters has already left Belorado because she did not agree with the abbess's decision.

Disguised as a priest: Man threatens real priest

A man disguised as a priest has spread fear and terror in the French city of Marseille. 

As the French newspaper "Le Figaro" reported on Tuesday, a 65-year-old man entered an Orthodox church last weekend and demanded that the real priest "leave the place" so that he could "take his place". 

The man was initially restrained, but then became more violent and threatened the caretaker to "return armed with knives " on Sunday during the service to "repossess" the church.

The police were able to arrest the accused and take him to the police station. 

There it emerged that the man was known for his mental disorders. 

At the newspaper's request, the public prosecutor's office in Marseille announced that the man was receiving psychiatric treatment at the request of a representative of the state.

Nicaragua: The Holy See Plays at Appeasement

In order to loosen the vise in which the Church in Nicaragua finds itself prisoner due to the opposition of part of the clergy to the ruling powers, papal diplomacy has chosen to move forward with caution, and is counting on the leverage of future episcopal appointments, given that more than half of the episcopal seats are up for grabs in the country, notes The Pillar. 

On March 17, 2023, the interim nuncio left the country and closed the nunciature “at the request of the Nicaraguan government” according to Vatican News. 

The newspaper La Croix explains: “Sandinista President Daniel Ortega did not appreciate the statements of Francis who, in an interview with the Argentine news site Infobae, on March 10, 2023, described Nicaragua as a ‘gross dictatorship,’” believing that the head of state suffers from an “imbalance.’”

The Secretariat of State quickly took control of the explosive situation in order to ease tensions which can only harm the situation of the Church in Nicaragua, whose freedoms have particularly suffered in recent years, partly due to the involvement of members of the clergy in the opposition to the power in place – who considers the clergy's position in favor of the demonstrators in April 2018 had gone too far.

A Hushed Mechanics

The oldest diplomacy in the world intends to avoid a deterioration of the situation. But silence and time are two trump cards that the Holy See still has in its game. Silence first of all: for a year, the Vatican has been silent. “The order was given by the Secretariat of State not to say anything on the subject,” explained La Croix last March.

On January 14, after a year and a half of detention, Rolando Alvarez, Bishop of Matagalpa and opposition figure to Daniel Ortega’s regime, was released and expelled to the Vatican, followed by another bishop, fifteen priests and two seminarians, all discreetly scattered throughout Italy with instructions to refrain from any public declaration on the situation in their country, summarizes La Croix. A silence which seems to have reduced the tension between the Church and Daniel Ortega.

In this thorny issue, time is also the ally of Vatican diplomacy. “Of the nine dioceses” of this country of nearly seven million inhabitants, “at least five” require episcopal appointments in the future, notes The Pillar. 

Thus, the dioceses of Managua and Jinotega are both headed by metropolitans who have reached the age limit of seventy-five years provided for by Church law: respectively, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes and Msgr. Carlos Herrera, president of the Nicaraguan Bishops' Conference. Three other dioceses (Matagalpa, Esteli, Siuna) saw their bishops exiled for political reasons.

In Esteli, the Secretariat of State has appointed Fr. Fruttos Valle Salmeron to the post of apostolic administrator – while awaiting the name of the future residential bishop. According to The Pillar, the latter “was criticized for apparently removing several priests critical of the Ortega regime from the diocesan curia” and important parishes. 

From now on it is Daniel Ortega who is in the position of petitioner if he wants to obtain bishops from Rome who are more conciliatory towards him, knowing that in Nicaragua, there is no concordat regulating the question of episcopal appointments: the sovereign pontiff is in theory free to make his choices and the power in place must make some concession with him.

The opportunity for the Holy See to restore the balance of power and to find a middle way allowing both to loosen the vise in which the local Church has been caught, without provoking a regime which currently seems little weakened by the opposition from certain ecclesiastics.

Is Pope’s PR safety net misrepresenting his use of slang? (Contribution)

One curious feature of the modern papacy is the informal, but very real, PR safety net which grows up almost spontaneously around every pontiff. 

It’s forged in part by the Vatican’s own official communications channels, but even more so by outside commentators and media platforms heavily invested in selling a given pope’s story to the world.

Throughout his papacy, John Paul II enjoyed a wide network of friendly commentators and analysts, forever prepared to interpret the pope in the best possible light. Benedict XVI had his own support system, though smaller and quieter by comparison.

The fact that Francis has such a coterie – not the same people, obviously, but doing much the same thing – has been made abundantly clear in the last 24 hours or so, vis-à-vis news reports that he used a crude slang term in referring to homosexuals in a May 20 session with Italian bishops.

Ironically, it’s possible that in this case, the pope’s mediatic Praetorian Guard actually may be misrepresenting the pontiff in order to save him, but more on that in a moment.

To set the scene, on May 20 Pope Francis was in the Vatican’s synod hall in order to address the spring plenary assembly of the Italian Episcopal Conference (known by the acronym CEI). There were roughly 230 bishops in the room, along with other clergy and supporting staff, meaning this wasn’t just a casual chat among a handful of friends.

Technically, Francis’s remarks to CEI are considered private, meaning the Vatican doesn’t release an official transcript. Yet with that many people in the room – some of whom, by the way, have awfully cozy relationships with reporters – it’s generally foreordained that whatever the pope says will get out. Certainly, the media-savvy Francis would have understood that whatever he said in that space was unlikely to stay there.

One of the topics that arose was the question of the admission of homosexual men to Catholic seminaries. Soon afterwards, rumors began to circulate that Francis had used an off-color term in the context of the discussion, saying there’s already too much frociaggine in seminaries, which translates roughly to “faggotry.”

The root term in Italian is frocio, the most widely used pejorative term in Italian for a gay man, the etymology of which has been lost in time. (One theory traces it back to the 1527 sack of Rome, when feroci, or “ferocious”, invading troops supposedly raped men and women indistinctly, but nobody really knows.) The suffix -aggine denotes a quality or characteristic; for instance, Italians take the word stupido (which means what you think) and turn it into stupidaggini to convey acts of stupidity, i.e., “nonsense.”

The rumor that Francis used the word was first made public by the Italian blog Dagospia, which is more or less the country’s equivalent of the Drudge Report, and then picked up by mainstream media, first in Italy and then around the world.

In presenting the news, a striking share of media outlets have done so in ways seemingly intended to take the pope off the hook, noting high up in their coverage that Italian is not his mother tongue and suggesting he may not have understood that the term in question is offensive.

One prominent Italian newspaper, for example, pointed out that growing up in Argentina, the future pope spoke the Piedmont dialect rather than today’s standard Italian, and quoted unnamed bishops present at the time who said “it was obvious Francis was not aware of how much in our language the word is weighty and offensive.”

Many media outlets also suggested the pope must not have known what he was saying, given his reputation as the pope of “Who am I to judge?” Francis has built a reputation for being LGBTQ+-friendly, so the coverage holds, meaning that he must have used the term almost accidentally, without intending to shock or offend.

What should be made of these interpretations?

To begin, it’s true there may be a generational discount to be applied. Francis, after all, is 87, and at times may use outdated expressions in ways that if someone younger were to say it, the effect would be different. My grandad had a heart of gold, but could sometimes use racial vocabulary that would make anybody cringe.

For another, throughout his career Francis has been known occasionally to indulge in off-color expressions of all sorts. Some find that aspect of his personality crude or off-putting, others see his capacity to employ the argot of the street as part of his pastoral charm … carrying the “smell of his sheep,” as it were. In any event, it’s a trait that doesn’t necessarily always reflect the pope’s developed thinking, but rather something more akin to shooting from the hip.

And, yet.

Yet, here’s the thing. I didn’t grow up in an ethnically Italian home like Francis, I haven’t spoken Italian all my life, and the primary language in which I work every day isn’t Italian either. When Francis speaks Italian, he sounds like a native; when I do, I come off as Father Guido Sarducci in reverse, meaning an immigrant in Italy with a comically thick American accent (and, sadly, I’m not doing a bit, it’s just how I sound.)

Yet, even I know that the word frocio and its variants are strong medicine, and definitely not something you say in mixed company.

I recall distinctly in my first Italian class here in Rome a quarter-century ago, we had a gay teacher, and, at one point, a teenager in the class called him frocio – the response was immediate and unmistakable, with at least a half-dozen people shouting at the poor kid to put a sock in it.

The bottom line is that it strains credulity, to put it mildly, that Pope Francis simply didn’t understand the language he was using. Moreover, it’s striking that many of the same people now urging us to believe in the pope’s naïveté more typically are the ones extolling his savvy, deeply in-touch command of the moment.

Given all that, there’s another interpretation of his statement to the Italian bishops, which is that he meant what he said: In his view, there’s an overly strong element of what is sometimes called a worrying “gay lifestyle” in at least some seminary environments, which suggests caution in terms of admitting gay candidates.

At the moment, CEI is considering a new set of admissions guidelines, a draft of which distinguishes between orientation and behavior in the evaluation of gay candidates. Perhaps Francis deliberately wanted to trigger a yellow light, an invitation to slow down and be careful about inadvertently encouraging unhealthy elements in seminary life.

Is that necessarily what he had in mind?

Right now it’s impossible to be sure, but it seems at least as credible as the “pope didn’t know what he was saying” theory. In the absence of a clarification from the Vatican Press Office – and on that front, I wouldn’t hold my breath – perhaps we’ll have to await the next pope interview to get a definitive answer.

Of course, at the rate those things roll around, it could come this afternoon, so stay tuned.

Who will hold the keys of St Peter next? The ups and downs of expertise (Opinion)

While American journalist David von Drehle has enjoyed a highly distinguished career, including stints with both the Washington Post and Time, I doubt that he’ll look back at a piece he filed on me on March 14, 2013, the day after the election of Pope Francis, as one of his professional highlights.

Published by Time and headlined “John L Allen Jr: The Man Who Picked the Pope”, the story styled me as a savant who, swimming against the tide, had correctly forecast the selection of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina as the successor to Pope Benedict XVI.

“While the rest of the journalistic pack was focused on the Italian Cardinal [Angelo] Scola, the Brazilian Cardinal [Odilo] Scherer and the Canadian Cardinal [Marc] Ouellet, the Vatican expert for the National Catholic Reporter recalled the man who finished second in the balloting the last time a pope was chosen,” von Drehle wrote, referring to the newspaper I worked for at the time.

“The fact that Allen, virtually alone, gave props in advance to the eventual pope was a vindication of his own hard-won expertise in covering one of the world’s most opaque bureaucracies,” he added.

“Compared with the glibness of the Vatican media crush, Allen’s scoop resounded across the Internet.”

Von Drehle concluded: “For one brief moment, we were reminded that genuine knowledge matters, while tweets fade.”

In retrospect, I suspect he’d love to have those lines back, for two very good reasons. First, I was hardly alone in flagging Bergoglio as a serious prospect, since everyone knew the cardinals had kicked the tyres on him eight years before.

Secondly, Bergoglio actually was just one of 24 profiles of possible popes I’d written in the run-up to the election, a crop that included Scola, Scherer, Ouellet and all the other also-rans for whose inclusion von Drehle mocked other pundits.

Frankly, if I’d had the time, I would have done a “what about him?” piece on every single one of the 115 cardinals who processed into the Sistine Chapel on March 12, 2013 – and I still would have felt just a slight tinge of uncertainty, given the long-shot possibility that a non-cardinal could be elected.

In other words, Nostradamus I definitely was not.

In fact, my record vis-à-vis conclave forecasts is even worse than the 2013 example makes it seem. Prior to the 2005 election, I had published a biography of then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the final chapter of which contained four reasons why he would never be pope – a point of which Benedict XVI wryly reminded me, more than once, after his election.

To be fair, von Drehle’s agenda in that 2013 piece wasn’t so much to praise me as the National Catholic Reporter, since both his family and NCR are based in Kansas City, so there was a little home cooking going on.

Nonetheless, the essay, and its overly laudatory conclusions about my own perspicacity, stands as a cautionary tale about the hazards of papal forecasting, a cottage industry currently experiencing one of its periodic boom cycles with perceptions of mounting health challenges around Pope Francis.

As the drumbeat of speculation gathers force, there are two common misconceptions that should be dismissed from the beginning.

The first is that there is some inner circle of seers, like the oracle at Delphi, who can deliver advance knowledge of what’s going to happen.

Want proof that no matter how lofty someone’s credentials may seem, they’re not actually infallible? Consider that on March 8, 2013, Corriere della Sera, Italy’s newspaper of record, surveyed eight of the country’s leading Vatican experts, asking each for three picks as to who would be the next pope. Forever and a day, there’s been an assumption that Italians must have some privileged insider understanding of such matters, since the papacy is physically located in Italy and no culture on earth devotes greater resources to understanding its dynamics.

What did these celebrated Italian sages forecast, including the current and former Vatican experts for Corriere: a celebrated Vatican writer for ANSA, Italy’s version of the Associated Press; perhaps the country’s foremost political journalist; and the most famous and widely quoted living Italian historian of the Second Vatican Council? Five had Scherer, five had Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, four had Scola, and the rest of the picks were scattered among a variety of basically implausible figures. Not a single one had Bergoglio among their top three possibilities. In other words, be cautious about alleged expertise.

On the other hand, there’s an equal-and-opposite myth, which holds that the outcome of a papal election is so unknowable as to make any exercise in prediction a fool’s errand. This fallacy is expressed in the classic bit of alleged conclave wisdom: “Those who talk don’t know, and those who know don’t talk.”

As with so many classic one-liners, it has a superficial whiff of wisdom but upon closer examination tur ns out to be bunkum.

If we take the nine conclaves of the last century, beginning with the election of Benedict XV in 1914 and bringing things forward to Pope Francis in 2013, it turns out that a cardinal considered a prohibitive favourite beforehand actually won three times: Pius XII in 1939, Paul VI in 1963 and Benedict XVI in 2005.

In four instances, a cardinal considered a “B-list” candidate, meaning someone entirely plausible if not exactly the betting favourite, prevailed: Benedict XV, Pius XI, John Paul I and Francis himself.

Only twice did an absolute surprise which almost no one saw coming occur, with the elections of John XXIII in 1958 and John Paul II, the first non-Italian in more than 500 years, in 1978.

In other words, had you bet the favourite over the last century according to the experts, you would have won handily three times, and had you spread your money over some midform possibilities too, you would have come out significantly ahead overall.

The moral here is that just because surprises are possible doesn’t mean they’re inevitable. More often than not, people who are paying close attention, who have good sources and are able to correct for their own biases, can come up with a set of reasonable possibilities, and the odds are fairly good – over the 100 years, it’s been seven out of nine – that the next pope will be somewhere in their mix.

In other words, the fact that alleged experts aren’t always correct doesn’t mean there’s no value to what they say. As with prognostications in any walk of life – who’s going to win the Premier League next year, say, or who’s going to prevail in the American elections, or which brand of car is likely to top the sales charts – the rule of thumb probably is to take expertise with a grain of salt, but don’t disregard it either.

Right now, to be honest, Pope Francis does not seem a pontiff hastening towards his end. The Vatican has announced plans for a major outing to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore in September, and in October he plans to preside over the concluding Synod of Bishops on Synodality in the Vatican .

Next year, by all accounts, he fully expects to lead celebrations of the great jubilee of 2025.

Despite all that, when you have the oldest reigning pope in the last 120 years, and one with a concentric set of health challenges, speculation about what may come next is inevitable. The best advice, facing what is destined to be a gathering wave of prediction, is to pay attention – but, at the same time, to hedge your bets.

In the meantime, I’ll be polishing my profiles of everyone who could even vaguely be considered a plausible candidate – just to be sure that, once again, while I may not necessarily be right, it’s at least unlikely that I’ll be completely wrong.

Pope’s Belgium and Luxembourg trip to reinforce his pontificate’s priorities and reward close ally

When Pope Francis visits Belgium and Luxembourg later this year, the trip will not only constitute a favour to a key ally, but it will also mark an opportunity for Pope Francis to reinforce several priorities of his pontificate.

On 20 May the Vatican officially announced the Pope’s Sept. 26-29 visit to Belgium and Luxembourg, saying in a statement that he would make a stopover in Luxembourg on 26 Sept. while on his way to Belgium, where he will stay from Sept. 26-29, visiting the cities of Brussels, Leuven and Louvain-la-Neuve.

Brussels is where the headquarters of the European Union is located, meaning Francis will presumably address the EU during his visit to the city, and he is expected to make visits to the Catholic Universities of Louvain and Louvain-la-Neuve.

Hints of a papal trip to Belgium this year were first made by Pope Francis in a December 2023 interview with veteran Vatican watcher and Mexican journalist Valentina Alazraki.

At the time, the Belgian bishops said the visit would mark the 600th anniversary of the founding of the Universities of Leuven and Louvain (the anniversary does not formally occur until 2025, during a Jubilee year that is expected to be heavy with papal commitments, as well as with pilgrimage).

In an official statement welcoming the announcement of the Pope’s visit, Archbishop Luc Terlinden of Brussels, who is a former student at both universities, referred to the papal trip as a surprise, and a joy for the local church.

“One must bear in mind that the Pope does not frequently visit European countries, especially Western European countries. For that reason, we weren’t really expecting the visit to take place,” he said, while voicing his belief that Francis has “wanted to come to Belgium for a long time.”

The trip, he said, marks “a very special occasion, since the Pope will also meet the intellectual and scientific communities of our country and, by extension, various actors in Belgian society as a whole”.

The universities date back to 1425, when founded originally as one institution by Pope Martin V. However, they split in the 1960s, resulting in the establishment of two separate universities: the Dutch-speaking KU Leuven and the French-speaking Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL).

Pope Francis, who has repeatedly been outspoken with his vision for a renewed, united and fortified Europe that draws on its Christian roots and is welcoming to newcomers, will undoubtedly use his stop in Brussels to deliver another strong message on his vision for Europe following EU parliamentary elections this summer.

However, apart from whatever political message he sends in Brussels, his visit to Belgium will also likely be a reinforcement of his commitment to implementing the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, as there is a historic connection between the Catholic University of Louvain and the council.

Even before the council began in 1962, the Catholic University of Louvain was seen as a forerunner of the kind of theological thought and action that the council itself eventually adopted.

The Council documents placed great emphasis on an increased and empowered role for the laity, stressing that by virtue of their baptism, laypeople and clergy had an equal call to participation in the life of the church and in taking initiative, albeit in different ways. At the time, the Catholic University of Louvain had already begun educating laypeople as theologians even before the council began.

In 1970, the university established the Centre for the Study of the Second Vatican Council, which still operates today with the aim of collecting materials documenting the history of the Council and advancing and support ongoing research of it.

The last pope to visit Belgium was Saint John Paul II in 1995, when he beatified Father Damien of Molokai, a Belgian missionary with the order of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, who spent his life serving a leper colony in Hawaii before finally succumbing to the disease himself in 1889.

A decade prior, John Paul II in 1985 had conducted a more extensive tour of Belgium, making stops in Leuven, Namur, Beauraing, Antwerp, Banneux, Liège and Mechelen.

In addition to Francis potentially addressing Vatican II and the state of Europe, he will also likely reference Belgium’s clerical abuse crisis, as his visit will come amid a parliamentary inquiry into sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, which began last year, and which has called for a special commissioner for sexual abuse and violence towards minors and vulnerable persons.

With his visit happening under the shadow of the abuse inquiry and whatever results might come out, the Pope will have to navigate the fallout as he attempts to make his message land.

Pope Francis’s brief stopover in Luxembourg is seen as mostly being a favour to Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, a fellow Jesuit who has served as Archbishop of Luxembourg since 2011 and is a member of the pope’s Council of Cardinals.

Hollerich previously served as president of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE) and is currently relator general of the pope’s ongoing Synod of Bishops on Synodality, a multi-year global consultative process set to close with a second Rome-based gathering this October.

Seen as a close papal ally who shares much of Pope Francis’s pastoral agenda and strategy, Hollerich also has a personal tie to the Pope through a shared affinity for Asia.

Pope Francis shortly after his election to the papacy said in an interview that as a young Jesuit, he had wanted to travel to Japan as a missionary, given the history of Jesuit missions in the country and the period of persecution they endured, which served as the premise for Martin Scorsese’s 2016 film Silence.

Hollerich visited Japan for the first time in 1985, spending four years there immersing himself in the local culture and learning the Japanese language, which he still speaks fluently to this day.

He completed his theological studies at Sophia University in Tokyo and obtained a licentiate degree at the at Saint Georgen University of Philosophy and Theology in Frankfurt from 1989-1990, before returning to Japan, where he remained until his appointment to Luxembourg in 2011.

Prior to his stint as president of COMECE from 2018-2023, Hollerich was seen as an advocate of migrants and as empowering lay leadership in his diocese. He was tapped as a participant in Pope Francis’s 2015 Synod of Bishops on the Family, and in the Pope’s 2018 synod on youth.

He was created a cardinal by Pope Francis in 2019 and has continued to distinguish himself as a key friend and ally of Pope Francis. Given his role in the current Synod on Synodality and as a member of the pope’s Council of Cardinals, he is responsible for advising Francis on important matters of Church governance and reform and is responsible for implementing those reforms in the global Church.

Pope John Paul II travelled to Luxembourg for a day trip in 1985, meaning it has been nearly 40 years since the country has had a papal visit. Pope Francis’s stop, then, is seen in part as an overdue return visit of the Catholic Church’s shepherd, but also as a favour to one of his closest friends and allies.