In the annual Christmas address and greetings to Cardinal and other Vatican officials, Pope Francis has called upon priests and clergy who have abused children to turn themselves over to civil authorities and to prepare for their own divine judgement. He continued by expressing his "heartfelt thanks" to journalists, and presumable bloggers, who "sought to unmask these predators and give voice to the victims." Francis chose to quote from St. Matthew, "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea." The picture below was taken by this writer recently at a historical mill just north of Toronto. It is a fitting reminder for these damnable perverts.
Yet, it is Catholic bloggers such as this writer, Michael Voris, Michael Matt, Michael Hichborn, Louie Verrecchio and writers and researchers and lawyers such as Elizabeth Yore and Randy Engel who have been testifying and proclaiming from the ramparts for years, and all of us have been ignored or relegated as "divisive" or "hysterical" or "uncharitable" or having "messiah complexes."
Now, even after he mocked the victims in Chile and then affirmed one in his homosexuality expects the Catholic faithful to believe that he is serious.
Surely, we can support him when he calls upon these perverts, these malefactors and wretched predators to turn themselves over to civil authorities. Surely, we can support him when he calls upon them to prepare for "divine judgement." But what he has said is not enough, it does not go near far enough and it does not deal with the source of the problem.
Pope Francis specifically refers to those priests who abused minors, a horrendous crime against God and man, against the spiritual and physical. Yet, the abuse of minors is only on the radar because it is, of course, "illegal." But while every one of these predators must be punished, must be tried in courts and defrocked from the priesthood, Francis is leaving something out.
While some victims were girls and women, the overwhelming majority of victims were young boys and teenagers. This tells us that it is a problem of sodomites in the priesthood. But the abuse of children is only part of the problem. The ongoing sexually perverse corruption of homosexuality in the priesthood and episcopacy is the source of the problem. It is fair to say that a sodomitical act between two consenting priests or a priest and layman or seminarian is not under civil law, "illegal." But it is under God's law. It is under all the moral law.
Where is the action on the part of Pope Francis to remove from the clerical state any priest, bishop or cardinal who has engaged in sodomitical acts with anyone? Where is the commitment to rid the clergy of all men who or so inclined and the absolute refusal to ever ordain one?
Do not be fooled. This is deflection and spin.
It is nowhere near enough.