How Pope Francis took 2013 by storm
UNITED STATES
GlobalPost
Jason Berry
There is Pope Francis with angelic wings, smiling beatifically on the cover of the New Yorker magazine wherein James Carroll’s profile sings hope for a church reformed. And there is Francis featured as Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. They are just two of the many prominent public expressions of the new pope’s virtues that stand in high relief from the darkness that has shadowed the church for two decades now.
In the nine months since his election in Rome, the pope from Argentina, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, has become a moral statesman on the global stage, preaching an ethos of mercy, justice and peace. ...
Cardinal Bergogolio was elected last March by cardinals aghast at a Roman Curia so balkanized that a butler leaked papal correspondence to the media; money-laundering at the Vatican Bank; and the clergy abuse scandals which sociologist Father Andrew M. Greeley, in 1992, called “perhaps the most serous crisis Catholicism has faced since the Reformation.”
How has Francis responded to the crisis? Do his early moves suggest structural changes to match his eloquence on mercy and justice? ...
“Masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape,” Francis wrote, “not the ‘exploited’ but the outcast, the ‘leftovers.’”
But the church has her own leftovers, like the 575 claimants sexually violated as children by priests in the Milwaukee archdiocese, which chose grinding bankruptcy litigation to slash its compensation to victims. A central issue there is $57 million then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan took from general funds and buried in the budget for cemeteries. A Catholic federal judge with relatives buried in those Milwaukee cemeteries ruled the $57 million “untouchable” and cannot be used to pay victims because the US Constitution guarantees freedom of religion. His ruling is on appeal.
“I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security,” Pope Francis stated in “The Joy of the Gospel.”
Dolan left Milwaukee to become archbishop of New York, and a cardinal under Benedict. In the run-up to the March conclave, the Italian press gushed over Dolan’s glad-handing and kissing babies, suggesting that he’d be a grand pope. Imagine what the international media would have made of that $57 million stuffed in cemetery coffers, had Dolan become pope, or the $20,000 bonus package he gave Milwaukee pedophiles to leave the priesthood. Dolan wisely tamped down the speculation.
GlobalPost
Jason Berry
There is Pope Francis with angelic wings, smiling beatifically on the cover of the New Yorker magazine wherein James Carroll’s profile sings hope for a church reformed. And there is Francis featured as Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. They are just two of the many prominent public expressions of the new pope’s virtues that stand in high relief from the darkness that has shadowed the church for two decades now.
In the nine months since his election in Rome, the pope from Argentina, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, has become a moral statesman on the global stage, preaching an ethos of mercy, justice and peace. ...
Cardinal Bergogolio was elected last March by cardinals aghast at a Roman Curia so balkanized that a butler leaked papal correspondence to the media; money-laundering at the Vatican Bank; and the clergy abuse scandals which sociologist Father Andrew M. Greeley, in 1992, called “perhaps the most serous crisis Catholicism has faced since the Reformation.”
How has Francis responded to the crisis? Do his early moves suggest structural changes to match his eloquence on mercy and justice? ...
“Masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape,” Francis wrote, “not the ‘exploited’ but the outcast, the ‘leftovers.’”
But the church has her own leftovers, like the 575 claimants sexually violated as children by priests in the Milwaukee archdiocese, which chose grinding bankruptcy litigation to slash its compensation to victims. A central issue there is $57 million then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan took from general funds and buried in the budget for cemeteries. A Catholic federal judge with relatives buried in those Milwaukee cemeteries ruled the $57 million “untouchable” and cannot be used to pay victims because the US Constitution guarantees freedom of religion. His ruling is on appeal.
“I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security,” Pope Francis stated in “The Joy of the Gospel.”
Dolan left Milwaukee to become archbishop of New York, and a cardinal under Benedict. In the run-up to the March conclave, the Italian press gushed over Dolan’s glad-handing and kissing babies, suggesting that he’d be a grand pope. Imagine what the international media would have made of that $57 million stuffed in cemetery coffers, had Dolan become pope, or the $20,000 bonus package he gave Milwaukee pedophiles to leave the priesthood. Dolan wisely tamped down the speculation.
No comments:
Post a Comment