The Vatican: The Show Must Go On

“The main mission of the Holy See is to help bring the message of the Gospel to the ends of the earth,” a Vatican official recently claimed. But they dedicate far more time and resources to presenting a false façade of moral integrity to the world.

The Vatican Trial Part I: Institutional Sleaze

A Vatican trial began on July 27. Ten defendants were charged with a various financial crimes including fraud and embezzlement. The accusations show an organization where corruption usually goes unnoticed in a city/state whose leaders consider themselves to be so superior in religious training and practice that they are the sole legitimate interpreters of what is sin for the rest of us.

Most of the defendants were involved in purchasing a commercial building in London.

The Vatican Trial Part II: Long on Process, Short on Justice

The Vatican trial that began on July 27 with the naming of 10 defendants for various financial crimes is going to take a very long time due to the “complexity” involved with having so many defendants, cruxnow.com noted. Most were involved in the Vatican’s purchase of a London commercial building.

The trial will be lengthy also because of the numerous objections brought by the defense attorneys. Some “were raised against the constitution of the court itself and the Vatican’s sovereign legal system,” pillarcatholic.com stated.

An Opus Dei Supreme Court

On July 1, the Supreme Court decided two major cases. In both, the 6-3 majority – of whom 5 of the 6 are Catholic – dealt a grievous blow against democracy by increasing the power of the Republican minority and the plutocracy. This is a reminder that Opus Dei has a malevolent influence over the judicial branch of our government.

UN Rebukes Pope Francis on Child Sex Abuse – Again

A letter sent to the Vatican in April was published on the website of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on June 21. UN human rights experts expressed “utmost concern” about “the apparent pervasiveness of child sexual abuse cases” in the Catholic Church.

This was the third time during his pontificate that UN representatives made clear to Pope Francis the ways he has refused to protect our children and told him what measures needed to be taken.

Wholesale, Systematic, Organized Rape of Our Children and Media Praise for Pope Francis

“Everybody would know for sure that the Catholic Church has been part of the wholesale, systematic, and organized rape of our children if Archbishop Gregory Aymond testified, if he was deposed,” Richard Windmann told reporter Helen Lewis.

Aymond, head of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, wasn’t deposed nor did he have to testify because he had filed for bankruptcy two weeks before the case was to begin in court. “This a disappointing but not surprising move, as Archbishop Aymond now follows in the footsteps of dozens of Catholic officials who have chosen to declare bankruptcy rather than allow survivors of clergy sexual abuse to bring their claims forward in open court,” said Windmann one of the founders of Survivors of Childhood Sex Abuse.

Future Pope

The Vatican has a PR problem. In an international poll, Pope Francis is less admired than even Donald Trump. While Trump is ranked as the 15^th most admired man in the world in the 2020 survey, Pope Francis is ranked at 18. The Dalai Lama ranked number 8. “More than 45,000 people in 42 countries and territories were interviewed to compile the list,” YouGov published in September.

Due to the adulation of Pope Francis by the U.S. for-profit mainstream media, it’s not surprising that the pontiff ranks much higher in this country, almost tied with the Dalai Lama at numbers 8 and 9 respectively.

American Catholicism: Headed Towards a Dead End

Although “nearly one-third of American adults (31.7%) say they were raised Catholic, only about one in five (20.8%) identified as Catholic” in a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center. “The share of adults who identify as Christians fell from 78% to just under 71%” between 2007 and 2014. But “within Christianity the greatest net losses, by far, have been experienced by Catholics,” according to the “America’s Changing Religious Landscape” study.

The survey also showed that – since 34% of Catholics were Latino and 8% Black, Asian or other – the number of white Catholics had fallen to less than 12% of the population.

The Moral Bankruptcy of U.S. Bishops

By their sometimes enthusiastic, sometimes tacit, support of Trump’s carnage, this episcopate has shown themselves to be devoid of morals and decency. For over three decades, American bishops have been an adjunct of the GOP. Abortion is their code word for “vote Republican.” But given the magnitude of the clerical sex abuse, they have shown their contempt for children. (See appendix if further explanation is needed.)

The Disappearing Religious Right

“White grievances” supplant “moral values” as a major impetus to get out the vote for the Republican Party.

Data gathered after the 2020 Presidential Election show that “moral values” as a motivation to get out the vote has greatly decreased. Only 3% of voters said abortion was the most important issue facing the country according to the AP VoteCast Survey. Same-sex marriage wasn’t even a consideration.

In 2010, 43% of voters considered abortion to be a “very important issue” and 32% of voters thought same-sex marriage also to be a “very important issue” according to a Pew Research Center  survey.

The largest group of 2020 voters, 41%, said the coronavirus pandemic was the most important issue and they voted 73% for Biden per the AP VoteCast Survey. Predating the pandemic and “based on analyses of survey data of the whole U.S. population examining both [2016] voting behavior and attitudes toward blacks and immigrants … Trump’s core supporters are working-class white men, the group most racially resentful and most opposed to further immigration.” This is true especially “when we look at lower-paid working-class jobs [that] typically require high school degrees or less and tend to pay low wages.” This analysis was presented in July 2019 by Donald Tomaskovic-Devey and Eric Hoyt, directors at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst’s Center for Employment Equity.