Homophobic Archbishop Demoted as Vatican Civil War Hots Up

Archbishop Giacomo Morandi,
former Secretary for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Source: Catholic Herald

Pope demotes Vatican official who championed statement against blessings of same-sex couples - Catholic Herald.

In a move which has focussed attention on the struggle within the Catholic Church as it tries desperately to modernise and come more into line with recent developments in cultural morality, the Pope has demoted the former Secretary for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), Archbishop Giacomo Morandi, an old-school homophobe, widely believed to be the author of a document instructing Catholic churches not to bless same sex marriages on the grounds that "God cannot bless sin", despite Pope Francis' attempt to liberalise the Church and welcome same sex couples into it, if not to specifically conduct same sex marriages, to try to give the traditionally homophobic church a more LGBTQ-friendly face.

The Church's intolerant homophobia is often cited as a reason for leaving the church as the Catholic Church, in common with other Christian churches, continues to haemorrhage members throughout the developed world. The call to allow the blessing of same-sex marriages had come from several German bishops in response to their declining congregations.

In the document, Morandi had claimed the Pope had been informed of its contents and had given his consent to it, yet Francis was reportedly taken by surprise by it. Francis is either finding it difficult to keep up or trying to ride two horses, or Morandi was lying. Morandi is also believed to have opposed another reform initiated by Pope Francis, intended to restrict further the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass.

Archbishop Morandi has been appointed bishop of a small Italian diocese of Reggio Emilia-Guastalla, although he will be allowed to retain his Archbishop title "ad personam", so not so much a punishment as a reduction in his work-load.

However, the Vatican has moved to deny that the effective demotion has anything to do with the reactionary document, so trying to minimise the impression of an internal civil war in the Vatican between the old guard and the reformers led by Pope Francis, by portraying it as nothing more significant than a simple reorganization. According to this report in the Catholic Herald:

Some of this was fuelled by a meeting between Archbishop Morandi and Pope Francis on December 18, the day when further restrictions against the Latin Mass were announced in a highly-controversial responsa to a dubia about Traditionis custodes, the Holy Father’s motu proprio limiting the Extraordinary Form of the Mass.

But Vatican sources told The Pillar website that his departure is not directly connected to the responsa, which introduced further restrictions – prompting questions about its legality – and that such speculation was “nonsensical”.

They say his move is most likely simply the first steps of a reshuffle which will allow the Pope to ultimately appoint Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta to the CDF and prepare him to take over as head of the dicastery when Jesuit Cardinal Luis Ladaria, the prefect who turns 78 in April, steps down from office.

One source said Morandi’s appointment was a way of “making room” at the CDF for the promotion of Archbishop Scicluna, an experienced canon lawyer and ally of the Pope, who at present serves as adjunct-secretary of the department.

It is generally agreed however that Archbishop Morandi was instrumental in the publication of the responsum ad dubium to a question about the legitimacy of liturgical blessings for same-sex couples.

However, although allowed to retain his title, being appointed to head up a minor diocese in southern Italy from his position as a senior member of the Curia and someone who would normally be expected to be appointed as a cardinal and promoted to head of the CDF, can't honestly be presented as anything other than a ritual humiliation and a warning to other die-hards not to oppose Pope Francis.

Christian Hypocrisy News - 'Blasphemous' Painting of George Floyd and a Black Madonna as a Pietà Stolen

Mama by Kelly Latimore

Stolen from the Mary Mirror of Justice Chapel,
Catholic University of America Law School, Washington DC.

'George Floyd' pieta stolen after artist receives death threats

After evoking outrage in white conservative Christian circles, a copy of a painting by St. Louis artist Kelly Latimore, depicting the body of George Floyd being cradled by a black Madonna in an artistic device known as a Pietà, has been stolen from the Mary Mirror of Justice Chapel in the Law School of the Catholic University of America, Washington DC.

Kelly, a devout Catholic, has also received death threats and the Catholic University has received several threatening and racist letters of protest over the display of the painting.

Catholic Child Abuse News - Correction: Not 10,000 Victims of French Catholic Priests! It was 216,000 - 330,000!

Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, Archbisop of Reims. Head of the Conference of French Bishops.
Told there were 216,000 French victims of 3000 paedophile Catholic priest since 1950.

Estimated 216,000 children abused by French Catholic priests, report finds | France | The Guardian

A couple of days ago I reported on the leaked report of the French independent commission of enquiry into child abuse by Catholic priest in France since 1950. The reports spoke of 10,000 victims of 3000 priests and other Catholic clerics.

The 10,000 figure was wrong and grossly underestimated the true number. In the report delivered to the Archbishop of Reims, Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, in his position as head of the French Conference of Bishops, which commissioned the report, the true number of abuse victims was estimated to be about 216,000 and possibly as high as 330,000!

Catholic Child Abuse News - Enquiry Confirms - 3000 Paedophiles in the French Catholic Priesthood and 10,000 Victims!

Jean-Marc Sauvé, head of the independent commission

Photograph: Quentin TOP/SIPA/Rex/Shutterstockx

'3000 paedophiles' held positions in French Catholic Church since 1950s — leaked report | Euronews

Another major scandal is about to rock the Catholic Church with the report due out tomorrow into child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church in France.

The report, leaked ahead of publication, will confirm that about 3000 priests and other Catholic clerics, sexually abused some 10,000 children between 1950 and 2018 when the independent commission of enquiry was established. The report runs to about 2,500 pages.

Catholic Abuse News - Ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick in Court.

Former Cardinal McCarrick
Facing criminal charges for child sexual abuses in 1974

Defrocked prelate Theodore McCarrick arraigned for child sex abuse charges

Former Cardinal McCarrick, the most senior Catholic cleric in the USA and the most senior to be defrocked for child abuse to date, finally appeared in court in Dedham, Massachusetts, last Friday, charged with sexually abusing a 16-year-old boy in 1974. McCarrick, now aged 91 is charged with repeatedly sexually abusing the child of a family friend, including during the sacrament of confession at a wedding in Wellesley College. The alleged victim also claims that McCarrick abused him on family trips and at various hotels in the state.

He pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges and was ordered to stay away from the alleged victim and away from anyone under the age of 18. He has also been accused of similar offences in New York and New Jersey, where the statutes of limitation mean he cannot face prosecution for those offences in those states. These offences were investigated by the Vatican in addition to claims that he had sexually harassed and performed homosexual acts with adult seminarians under his authority. A two-year investigation by the Vatican also revealed that Pope John-Paul II had been aware of the allegations concerning his sexual relations with seminarians and allegations of paedophile abuse, when he appointed McCarrick to the post of Archbishop of Washington and made him a cardinal.

Given that Pope John-Paul II knew of these allegations, it is almost inconceivable that his then right-hand man and enforcer, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, effectively acting Pope in John-Paul II's prolonged dotage, later to become Pope Benedict XVI, knew nothing of them. This revelation then deepens the mystery surrounding why McCarrick was allowed to continue for so long in his post before anyone moved to stop him.

Here is how I covered it at the time:

The report bends over backwards to try to leave Pope Francis looking whiter than white but still leaves a number of questions unanswered. Particularly how much he was told about McCarrick by Pope Benedict XVI following his sudden abdication, and if nothing, why not? According to Archbishop Viganò, Pope Francis was fully aware not only of the allegations against McCarrick, but also that his activities had been 'restricted' by Benedict XVI, but Pope Francis removed these restrictions anyway and was thus complicit in his further predatory behaviour.

During John-Paul II's reign, his 'enforcer' was none other than Cardinal Ratzinger, later to become Pope Benedict XVI. It was widely reported when the sexual abuse scandals began to emerge that Ratzinger, acting on John-Paul II's orders, has instructed senior figure in the church to supress allegations of sexual abuse in order to protect the Church's reputation. It was assumed that Benedict XVI's hasty elevation of the dead John-Paul II to the sainthood, was intended to quell these rumours, on the assumption that this was not what a future saint would do. Therefore he could not have ordered Ratzinger to pervert the course of justice, deny redress and compensation to the victims of abuse, and to facilitate the paedophile activities of the Catholic priesthood by being instrumental in covering it up and keeping it from the child-protection agencies.

Pope Francis denies this (in effect, calling Viganò a liar), which begs the question, why did Benedict XVI not tell him? Or did he? By claiming he knew nothing, Pope Francis is shifting the blame onto Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

The executive summary reveals a litany of bumbling incompetence, an over-eager willingness by both John-Paul II and Benedict XVI to believe people who were close to them, and a credulous receptiveness to lies and false assurances that was naive in the extreme. Neither man appeared to be capable of believing a senior Catholic cleric could behave in such a way and then lie about it when challenged. McCarrick's 'oath as a bishop' was regarded as sufficient evidence of his veracity, when he lied about his sexual predation.

The executive summary of that Vatican reports, in the embedded PDF, bears further reading, revealing as it does, scapegoating and a laisses-faire attitude to child abuse and other inappropriate behaviour by senior clerics by Pope John-Paul II and his close advisers.

Meanwhile, Pope Francis, who has shed crocodile tears over the abuse allegations and even blamed Satan, not for the abuses but for encouraging people to speak out against them, is still under a strict code of Omertà regarding the truth of Viganò's allegation that his predecessor, Benedict XVI, placed McCarrick on restricted duties but that Francis rescinded those restrictions, and Francis' claim that McCarrick was never restricted in the first place and he knew mothing of the allegations. Either Francis is lying, or Benedict XVI knew about McCarrick and did nothing he deemed worthy of informing Francis about on his sudden resignation. Either way, McCarrick's predation continued unchecked and it was only when the scandal became public that Francis decided to act, throwing his hands up in horror when the full scale of McCarrick's predatory behaviour and arrogant betrayal of his clerical vows became public knowledge.

Kim Davis, Christian extremist
Ambush meeting with Pope Francis arranged by Cardinal Viganò.

Mind you, it should be said that Viganò bears a grudge. As Papal Legate to Washington, he was in charge of Pope Francis' 2015 official visit, which had been something of a PR coup, until Viganò arrange an ambush meeting between the odious Kim Davis, and Pope Francis. Davis was a Christian extreme fundamentalist and serial adulterer, with multiple extra-marital pregnancies, then disobeying a court order to register same-sex marriage in her job as a registrar. Viganò then issued a press statement announcing triumphantly that Pope Francis had given Davis encouragement in her resistance to authority (and to the rule of law) in the name of Jesus and the sanctity of heterosexual-only marriage.

For a visiting head of state to be seen to encourage law-breaking in his host state and take sides with someone disobeying a court order, turned the triumph into a diplomatic disaster, all so Viganò could sequester the visit and turn it into a victory for right-wing Christian conservatism. He was promptly transferred back to the Vatican, and stripped of his diplomat status, and Francis was left looking like a patsy, casting round for a scapegoat and claiming he knew nothing of Davis' criminal behaviour in the name of Jesus and would not have met her if he had - although, of course, his church still agreed with her about same-sex marriage being a sin.

Maybe the truth about what Pope Francis knew of his predatory behavior will emerge during the coming court case, if McCarrick's lawyers don't manage to get it halted on the grounds that McCarrick is now too old and frail to stand trial, and anyway it was all a long time ago and McCarrick is very sorry. In which case, all the old predator will have suffered is a loss of status and his pension. None of his victims will have received justice.

Covidiot News - Cardinal Burke off a Ventilator but Unrepentant for Misleading Catholics Over Covid-19 Vaccines.

Cardinal Raymod Burke
Recovering from COVID-19 having lied about the vaccine.

Cardinal Burke off ventilator, still hospitalized with COVID

Cardinal Burke, one of Catholicism's most influential Covidiots, who has been deliberately spreading false anti-vaccine information to deter those gullible enough to listen to him from being vaccinated, is now recovering from COVID-19 and off the ventilator that medical science used to save him when prayers failed. A ventilator, incidentally, that could have been used to save one of his victims or one of the few people who ignored his lies and had the vaccine, but fell sick from the δ variant anyway.

Needless to say, rather than thanking the medical staff and the scientists behind the medical science that was used to save him, he and his supporters are thanking the same god they believe created the virus and in particular the magic spells chanted to that god by his followers. Rather than credit their skill to their dedication and hard work, he even attributed the skills of the hospital staff to his god.

Catholic Corruption News - More Malodorous Bubbles Burst on the Surface of the Stinking Cesspit

Monsignor Alberto Perlasca
"Gave incomplete or partial information"

Pope Francis receives death threat as he grapples with Vatican financial scandals

Just when you thought the Vatican financial scandals couldn't get any murkier, we have news that someone is sending Pope Francis death threats, presumably to try to intimidate him into dropping the charges against former cardinal, Angelo Becciu and his shady cronies in the dodgy London property deal and money-laundering operation. Meanwhile the Vatican is degenerating into mutual back-stabbing and finger-pointing.

Readers may recall how Becciu was summarily sacked and stripped of his rank as cardinal last September. He had been replaced by Archbishop Edgar Pena Parra, as sostituto (effectively, Pope Francis' Chief of Staff), in 2018.

The Mafioso-style death threat, in the form of an envelope containing three 9mm bullets and a letter referring to Vatican financial mismanagement, addressed to "Pope Francis — Vatican City — St. Peter’s Square in Rome", was sent from France. According to this report, Vatican police believe they know the person who sent it.

Religion - The Good, The Bad and The Completely Irrelevant.

Words of encouragement and beatific smiles, but little else for Greta Thunberg, from the increasingly powerless Pope Francis.

COVID-19, global warming and diminishing Catholic guilt.

If ever there was a time for the Catholic Church, under the leadership of Pope Francis, to do some good for the future of mankind and life on Earth it is now, with two major crises currently playing havoc: the coronavirus pandemic and global warming. The latter being perhaps the most serious in the longer term.

And yet we have had very little in the way of encouraging Catholics, let alone the rest of us, to do something constructive about either!

In an article by Thomas Reese in Religion News Service, he simultaneously points out this failure by the Pope and identifies some of the reason for it. The main problem is that the Pope can no longer command the support and mandate the actions of Catholics, under the threat of hellfire and damnation, or even death for heresy for non-compliance, so all he can do is smile and mutter warm words and platitudes in the hope that someone will listen to him.

The problem is not just the lack of any moral authority from the leader of a church whose clerics systematically and routinely abused their positions of trust to sexually predate on children and vulnerable adults, but the fact that when Popes did have those autocratic powers, they almost invariably abused them. Far from supporting scientists like Galileo and Darwin on the basis that the truth is worth defending, they were condemned as heretics because they reported evidence that went against the established doctrines. The test was not "What does the evidence show?" or "What is the truth?", but "What do we need people to believe?".

Reese points out the contrast between when Popes could order Crusades against Muslims and how today the Pope is powerless to order a 'crusade' to save the planet, or to get the world's people vaccinated against the coronavirus:

And rather than organizing crusades against Muslims, as it did in the past, the church could mobilize its people to protect the health of the Earth and humanity. But today, the children’s crusade is led, not by the church, but by Greta Thunberg. Hopefully she will be more successful than the Children’s Crusade of 1212, which ended in disaster.

But of course, by the murderous Medieval crusades, and the Inquisition, the Pope showed how to abuse dictatorial powers, so those powers, post-enlightenment, have been removed.

Again, Reese points out:

There was a time when Christianity had the ability to do great things (some good, some bad).

We marvel at those Christians in the past who dug the foundations of great cathedrals, the completion of which they and their children would never see. The idea of taking on a project, like building a cathedral, that might take centuries to complete is incomprehensible to us.

Indeed, although it is quite difficult to think of many 'great things' that Christianity did. Reese cites the laying of foundations for Cathedrals for their grandchildren by people who would never see the full fruits of their labours, but those were invariably on the instructions of powerful bishops and monarchs, intent on consolidating their grip on the people with an ostentatious display of wealth and power.

It is doubtful that the labourers, or those who paid them, were motivated by a vision of the great architecture, impressive vaulting and stained glass that would follow. Skilled though they may have been, they were likely more motivated by the need to earn their daily bread and feed a family, in the case of the diggers, and their own self-aggrandizement in the case of the financiers, than thoughts of what their grandchildren might eventually see.

In stark contrast, there are the very many bad things that Christianity did, from witch burning, holy wars like the Albigensian Crusade (read, genocide of the Cathars), antisemitic pogroms, the Inquisition, marginalisation of women and minorities, the literal demonization of people suffering with mental health and neurological problems, imperialism and permitting slavery in the nameunder the guise of 'civilising' other peoples and teaching them the 'good news' of the need for salvation and how to achieve it by adopting Christianity, obeying the priests, accepting the autocratic rule of Christian kings and emperors, and knowing their place and staying in it.

Yes, Thomas Reese is right: the Pope could and should use what authority he still has to urge Catholics to do their utmost to save the planet and get on top of the coronavirus pandemic. But he cannot, for the simple reason that he has little or no moral authority left after centuries of abuse of their power by his predecessors, the accumulation of vast treasures of incalculable worth for nothing more important than self-glorification, decades of abuse of children and vulnerable adults by his priests and a long, sorry history of marginalisation, demonization and damnation of minorities, degradation of women, and the promotion of poverty and suffering as a blessing.

He now leads a church visibly struggling to keep up with the advances in humanist ethics now replacing the primitive, Bronze Age superstitions and brutal, misogynistic tribal moral codes that his church still holds sacred, in civilised countries. To paraphrase Stephen Fry's words in the Intelligence Squared debate, the Pope could take that vast wealth stored in the Vatican and use it to send his nuns and priest and monks out into the world with instructions to use it to vaccinate the poor and invest in green technologies and renewable energy.

If he did so, the Catholic Church could be a force for good in the world; but he does not, and it is not.

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Religion News - Ignorance and Indifference to Child Abuses in American Catholics

Former Cardinal McCarrick
Facing criminal charges for the sexual abuse of minors

National Survey of Adult Catholics | America Magazine (pdf)

As the news broke that former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, has been formally charged with sexual offences against minors, a survey revealed that 62% of American Catholics (52% of men and 69% of women) said they had never heard of him.

Given his former high profile as the senior Catholic cleric in America and the high-profile nature of both his crimes and his public laicisation, this shows an astonishing degree of indifference to the scandal of clerical sexual abuse that has engulfed the Catholic Church in recent decades. It suggests that many American Catholics are Catholic in name only, and have no particular affiliation to the Church or identification with what priests, Catholic school teachers, etc, have been doing under its protective and facilitative cover for decades now.

Catholic Abuse News - The Scandal Rumbles On...

Bishop Peter Libasci, centre, arrives at the Cathedral of St. Joseph for his Installation service as the Tenth Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire, USA (2011). A lawsuit is accusing him of sexually abusing an unidentified, then 12- or 13-year-old youth, on numerous occasions in 1983 and 1984.

Photo: AP/Jim Cole

New Hampshire bishop accused of abusing teenage boy.

The latest senior Catholic to face allegations of the sexual abuse of a minor is Peter Libasci, bishop of the New Hampshire Catholic Diocese of Manchester.

A Lawsuit filed in Supreme Court in Suffolk County, New York alleges that he sexually abused a male youth aged 12 or 13 on numerous occasions while serving as a pastor in the Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius and the Saints Cyril and Methodius School in Deer Park, New York, in 1983 and 1984. The youth was a student at the school at the time. The church and school are run by the Diocese of Rockville Center.

We worry that allowing the Bishop to remain in ministry may further endanger young lives in New Hampshire. We hope that the Bishop’s Metropolitan or the Vatican intervene to correct this troubling situation immediately.

Statement by Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP)

The lawsuit also names the church and the school as well as the Sisters of St Joseph, which is responsible for organizing activities at the school. Rockville centre is one of a number of New York Catholic dices that have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection because of the large number of abuse allegations which have emerged since New York abolished the statute of limitations, allowing formerly time-lapsed allegations to come to court. This is but one of the more than 200 allegations of sexual abuse that have been filed against this one Catholic diocese since then.

Catholic Abuse News - Compensation for Victims of Paedophile Priests Bankrupts Yet Another Diocese

Bishop Michael R Cote
“grievously sorry.”

Connecticut diocese files for bankruptcy amid abuse claims

In common with many other American Catholic diocese, the diocese of Norwich, Connecticut has declared itself bankrupt and applied for Chapter 11 protection. This is often a devise to protect church funds from claimants and ensure victims are denied the compensation they are entitled to while the diocese hangs on to the funds it needs to pay its expenses such as the wages and pensions of those who oversaw the abuses.

This action was precipitated by dozens of lawsuits of victims of the regime that ran the now closed Academy at Mount Saint John School, a residential treatment centre for 'troubled youth' in Deep River. They are also suing the former Bishop of Norwich, Daniel Reilly.

According to this report in Religion News Service:

Another Stink Rising from the Vatican Cesspit

Former Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, now under indictment in the Vatican for bribery, abuse of office and embezzlement.

Vatican indicts cardinal and nine others connected to financial scandal.

The murky world of Vatican finances is to be brought under the spotlight again towards the end of July when a Vatican tribunal begins hearing charges brought against former cardinal and powerful chief of staff of the Vatican secretariat of state, Giovanni Angelo Becciu and nine other business associates and Vatican officials are facing corruption charges in connection with a $225 million property deal in London in 2014.

The corruption charges relate to the use of the Vatican slush fund known as "Peter's Pence", which is the recipient of charitable donations throughout the Catholic world and which is supposed to be used by the Pope for charitable works. As former effective number 2 in the Vatican, Becciu had access to this largely unregulated account. I appears that he, like so many Vatican officials before him with access to large, unregulated slush funds, couldn't resist the temptation to plunge his grubby hands deep into the coffer.

Covidiot News - Catholics to Try Magic Spells and Chants to End the Coronavirus Pandemic

Photo credit:Thérèse Westby/Unsplash (CC BY)

Pope Francis invites faithful to monthlong rosary marathon for end of pandemic.

Inspired no doubt by the singular lack of success with praying to make the coronavirus pandemic go away, the Pope has announced a month-long period for Catholics to try praying to make the coronavirus pandemic to go away. They are to do this ritually, while chanting short prayers in a strict order as predetermined by a string of magic beads, known as a rosary and bearing a strong resemblance to the 'worry beads' which are popular in Arab countries.

The belief is that ancient dead people will be alerted to the human requests and tell God about them. At the moment, God is not aware that the virus it created to make us sick is making us sick, or if he is aware of the success of his plan in that regard, he doesn't realise it's wrong. Having been so informed by his long-dead advisors, the belief is, he will see the error of his ways and stop his virus from working the way it was designed to work.

Sound like a plan?

Apparently, the Pope thinks so. According to this report in Religion News Service:

In this month of May, led by the shrines scattered throughout the world, we are reciting the rosary to pray for the end of the pandemic and for the resumption of social activity and work.

Pope Francis
5 May, 2021

Thirty sanctuaries located all over the world and dedicated to the Virgin Mary will take part in reciting the rosary in unison, each one in turn leading the prayer. From Poland to Nigeria to South Korea, faithful Catholics will join together with special intentions for those who have been affected the most by COVID-19.

This period of spell-casting by millions of Catholics will achieve more than medical science has so far with its vaccines which are reducing the seriousness of the Covid-19 illness the SARS-CoV-2 virus causes and reducing the rate of transmission from person to person.

Insanity Is Doing the Same Thing Over and Over Again and Expecting Different Results

Atrib. Albert Einstein
(Probably wrongly)

The spell-casting began on Wednesday, 5th May in South Korea at 'The Shrine of the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary' in Namyang. Over the next few days, more spell-casting took place at various shrines across the world, from the shrine of ' Our Lady of Lujan', in Argentina, 'The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Knock', Ireland and various other Marian shrines including 'Our Lady of Health', India and 'Our Lady of Lourdes', Myanmar, culminating is a special spell-casting ritual at 'The National shrine of the Immaculate Conception' in Washington, D.C., USA. where special spells will be cast to protect "all world leaders and for all heads of international organizations". This is expected to bring about:

...the end of the pandemic and the resumption of our social and economic life.

Despite this period of spell-casting, either no-one was listening or the dead remains of the legendary mother of Jesus either didn't ask God to change his perfect plan for mankind, or God declined to do so, since nothing whatsoever happened in terms of reduced transmissions or reduced mortality rates from Covid-19, which could not be directly attributed to the success of the vaccination and social distancing campaigns.

Last December, Pope Francis braved the rain to cast special anti-coronavirus spells at the 'Shrine of the Immaculate Conception' near the Spanish Steps in Rome, just as another, more serious, wave of infections was taking off over most of Europe and elsewhere.

It made no discernible difference whatsoever.

So, inspired by this spectacular failure, and following his policy of backing both horses in a two-horse race, Pope Francis then announced that he had asked the same dead person to ask God to divert the money intended for military purposes to medical research to prevent God from repeating his success with another similar virus or similar natural catastrophe.

Will this succeed? Don't hold your breath - if God's special virus isn't preventing you from breathing normally.

The only change so far seems to be the design of a new, more contagious variant, the 'Indian variant', that is threatening the tentative moves to lift the restrictions.

Catholic Abuse News - The Church Pays Up to Avoid a Court Case

Fr. Gerald Ridsdale.
Predatory paedophile who abused almost 70 schoolboys when chaplain to their Catholic boys school.

Gerald Ridsdale: Victorian man abused as schoolboy by paedophile priest given $1.5m settlement | Victoria | The Guardian

A man who cannot be named for legal reasons, a victim of the notorious, predatory paedophile Catholic priest, Gerald Ridsdale, has been given one of the largest amounts received to date, a A$1.5 million settlement on the eve of the court case in which he was claiming compensation for the abuses he received from Ridsdale and two Catholic teachers at his school in the Catholic dioceses of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia.

Ridsdale was sentence in 1994, initially to 12 months in prison for abusing 9 boys, but this was extended as more victims came forward. By 2006, he had pleaded guilty to 54 more child victims and his sentence was extended so he would not be eligible for parole until 2019.

Since then, a further batch of 23 additional charges have been brought against him, bringing his total number of victims to 65, and he will now not be eligible for parole untill 2022, Judge Irene Lawson deciding that even at the age of 83 he still posed a threat to the community.

Catholic Abuse News - The Priest Who Saw Sex With Young Girls as Payment for His Good Works

Rev. Richard Daschbach

Defrocked US priest revered in East Timor accused of abuse

The newly-independent nation of East Timor, or Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste as it shoud be called, is said to be the most devoutly Catholic country outside the Vatican City.

It was in this atmosphere of unquestioning trust, almost amounting to idolization of Catholic Priests as Men of God, that the American, Rev. Richard Daschbach, predated on children to satisfy his sexual perversion.

He had risen to local fame when he set up a refuge for the destitute and orphaned child victims of the long, bloody war for independence from Indonesia, that the Timorese final won in 2002.

The way that you determine who sits on his lap is by the list that he’d have on his door, and that meant that you were the little girl that was going to go with him.

Abuse victim

But there was a grim price to pay for his protection. Every evening a list would be posted on his bedroom door and the girl whose name appeared at the top of the list was expected to share a bed with Daschbach and another elementary school-aged girl. Fear of banishment from the shelter prevented the young girls from complaining or resisting at the time.

Vatican's Byzantine Financial Stink Reaches a London Crown Court

Gianluigi Torzi with Pope Francis

UK judge lifts restraining order on arrested Vatican businessman - The Pillar

A whiff of the stinking cesspit of corruption that is the Vatican under Pope Francis was hanging around Southwark Crown Court in March when Judge Tony Baumgartner lifted a freezing order which had been placed on Gianluigi Torizi’s bank account. Torizi is the Italian businessman who was arrested in the Vatican City last year as part of its ongoing investigation into the London property deal at the heart of the financial scandal concerning the finances of the Vatican Secretariat of State.

Delivering his judgment, Judge Baumgartner criticised the Vatican Promoter of Justice offices for court filings that the judge said were riddled with “non-disclosures and misrepresentations.

Readers may remember how this scandal first surfaced when Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu suddenly 'resigned his rights as a cardinal' (a euphemism for 'was summarily sacked and stripped of his powers') over his involvement in financial scandals, including the London property deal, using a Vatican slush fund known as "Peter's Pence", and his doctoring of the Vatican's financial accounts.

Covidiot News - Priest From Super-Spreader Church Dies of COVID-19

Saint Peter and Paul Church in the North Beach neighbourhood of San Francisco, California, USA

Photo: Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

Priest dies from COVID after San Francisco Catholic church closes due to outbreak

According to this report, a Catholic priest from a church in the North Beach neighbourhood of San Francisco has died of Covid-19 after his church was forced to close temporarily after at least three of its five priests tested positive for the virus.

And it's not as though they didn't understand the risks; they just chose to ignore them.

The church has repeatedly ignored the city health ordinances, prompting the city to issue a cease and desist order on the Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco. According to this report in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Covidiot News - Christian Fruitloops Lying About the Jab

Precious Life director, Bernadette Smyth
"Jesus is in the womb of every pregnant woman"

Photo: Hugh Rusell.

Northern Ireland anti-abortion group's 'misinformation' about Covid jab causing infertility criticised by WHO - The Irish News

A northern Ireland-based 'pro-life' Christian fundamentalist group are actively campaigning to frighten pregnant women into refusing the anti-Covid-19 vaccination, with disinformation about the vaccine.

Amongst their disinformation is the false claim that the vaccine causes sterility. According to this report in Irish Times the group has been criticised by the WHO for issuing leaflets warning people against getting immunised due to concerns the jabs are "rushed" and that excess deaths are reportedly linked to the jab. They offer no evidence for these claims.

Religion Declining Even in Former Devout Islamic and Catholic Countries

Middle East: Are people losing their religion? | Middle East| News and analysis of events in the Arab world | DW | 04.02.2021

The increasing rejection of religion which we have seen in most of the predominantly former Christian Western industrialised world since the mid 20th century, is now also being seen in the predominantly Moslem parts of the Middle East according to a poll conducted by the Arab Barometer, a research group based in Princeton University and the University of Michigan. The poll was the subject of a recent article in The Economist.

Coincident with, or maybe because of, this loss of faith, there is a corresponding fall in the trust of political parties and religious leaders who, in some countries are one and the same.

Catholic Child Abuse News - Suffer Little German Children, Sold By Nuns to Paedophiles

Archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki.
Refusing to publish the report into the sexual abuse of children by Catholic nuns and priests in his archdioces.

Child abuse in the Catholic Church — a scandalous approach to scandal  | Germany| News and in-depth reporting from Berlin and beyond | DW | 25.11.2020

We're used to stories of the sexual exploitation and abuse of children by Catholic nuns, what with the Irish Mother and Bay Homes scandal and reports of Spanish nuns selling new-born babies and telling their single mothers their baby had died, that it comes as little surprise that a scandal has been uncovered in Germany, involving nuns and priest selling orphaned children for sexual exploitation in the Archdiocese of Cologne.

This scandal has come to light as a result of a lawsuit brought by some of the victims.

The lawsuit alleges that boys living in the boarding houses of the Order of the Sisters of the Divine Redeemer were sold or loaned for weeks at a time to predatory priests and businessmen in a sick rape trade. The boys were denied the chance of being adopted or fostered out to families because selling them or hiring them out for sex orgies was more lucrative.