ABDICATING THE PAPAL POWER OF JUDGMENT

ABDICATING THE PAPAL POWER OF JUDGMENT

Atila Sinke Guimarães

In his in-flight interview from Krakow back to Rome on July 31, Pope Francis answered a question about the multiple accusations of pedophilia against Card. George Pell, whom he chose to be the Prefect for the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy. His answer regarding the ongoing investigation of Pell’s past by Australian civil authorities was: “We don’t know what the result will be; but, once justice speaks, I will speak.” (The Tablet, August 6, 2016, p. 21) 

 
Apparently firm words conceal the abdication of the papal power to judge his own subordinates

This, superficially, seems the answer of a very resolute man, ready to act firmly. In reality, however, it resonates much more as an abdication of the pontifical ability to judge, which is a prerogative of the Pope’s power of government, or power of jurisdiction.

When we analyze the pedophilia crisis that has rocked the Catholic Church for more than a decade, we see that at its root is the failure of the Church authorities to administer justice to her own members. Nonetheless, the Church has all the necessary means to judge and punish her guilty members, and she had done so very well until Vatican II.

Only after the Council mandated to the Hierarchy, clergy and religious orders the unfortunate adaptation to the modern world have we seen Freudism and Eastern spirituality – actually erotic practices taught under the guise of spirituality – replacing the traditional Catholic moral discipline and asceticism. Consequently, the clergy and members of religious orders were told to “liberate” their sexual passions so that their “complexes” would be cured. Among the tragic results of this policy is the overwhelming wave of crimes of sexual abuse committed by priests and monks against children and teenagers.

Instead of punishing these corrupted persons, the Bishops, the Vatican and the conciliar Popes took another course. They covered up their crimes under different pretexts – almost all false – in order not to reveal the real and untouchable cause of this moral abyss: Vatican II’s adaptation to the modern world.

A papal tribunal judging the crimes of the heretic Giordano Bruno

This systematic cover-up is in itself a crime, as we all know. It shows complicity with the abuses of the priests and monks. But it is also a manifestation that the Conciliar Church’s capacity to judge its members has for all intents and purposes ceased to exist.

If it were not for the interference of the civil power to protect the victims of pedophilia against the corrupted clergy and monks, the Conciliar Church would have never stepped up to the plate to do so.

It is this monumental bankruptcy of the judicial system inside the Conciliar Church that Pope Bergoglio acknowledged when he said: “We don’t know what the result will be; once [civil] justice speaks, I will speak.”

Why doesn’t he speak first? Isn’t the Pope the arbiter of morality in the Church and the world? How can he not know whether Card. Pell is guilty or innocent when the Pope is the head of the judicial power of the Church?

As Bergoglio makes himself dependent on the civil justice, he abdicates his prerogative to judge his own subordinates.

A fish rots from the head down

An interesting byproduct of the civil investigation of a pedophile priest in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis came to light this month, exposing how rotten the whole Conciliar Church is.

The discovery of sexual abuses of children by Fr. Curtis Wehmeyer in 2012 led, fortunately, to his incarceration. It also led to investigations on how Archbishop John Nienstedt had handled that abuse. As inquiries were made, evidence emerged that Archbishop Nienstedt himself was allegedly a homosexual and had several male partners among seminarians and priests. In February 2014, the Archdiocese’s Auxiliary Bishops Lee Piché and Andrew Cozzens consigned the investigation of Nienstedt to the lay law firm of Greene Espel.

Flamboyant Archbishop John Nienstedt facing serious accusations of homosexuality

According to a written report by Fr. Dan Griffith – who served as an intermediary between the Archdiocese and the investigating firm – Greene Espel issued a memorandum some months later confirming accusations against Nienstedt. Among them, coming from priests and persons who knew the Archbishop since the time he was a priest in Detroit, were the following: unwanted touching, sexual solicitations, frequenting a “gay” bar/strip club in Windsor, Ontario, and living an overall promiscuous “gay” lifestyle. In addition, concerns were expressed about his relationship with child abuser Fr. Wehmeyer.

At this point, Fr. Griffith affirms, the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, entered the pictured and ordered Auxiliary Bishops Piché and Cozzens to shut down the inquiry immediately. The Bishops replied with a letter disagreeing with that decision.

The Nuncio Viganò ordered them to destroy their letter and again urged that the case be closed. Greene Espel was dismissed; Archbishop Nienstedt resigned as well as Bishop Piché (June 15, 2015), and Bernard Hebda was named Coadjutor Archbishop and later assumed the head of the Archdiocese on May 13, 2016. (Cf. National Catholic Reporter, August 12, 2016, pp. 12, 14)

 
Above, Bergoglio kisses boys in their mounths in Rome & Rio; below, tender embrances with an adolescent in Buenos Aires

Meanwhile, the Archdiocese filed for bankruptcy on January 16, 2016.

Next, speaking for the Archdiocese, Archbishop Hebda pleaded guilty in the Ramsey Court of Law where three abused children had placed charges against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. He admitted that “the Archdiocese failed to respond and prevent the sexual abuse.” With this, Judge Teresa Warner closed the case on July 20, imposing various measures to control the Archdiocese in this regard. To wit:

• The court will oversee the Archdiocese until 2020;
• One attorney of the Ramsey Court of Law will sit as a member of the Archdiocesan Ministerial Review Board;
• Archbishop Hebda is required to participate in at least three “restorative justice sessions”;
• Confidentiality agreements in future abuse cases are barred and any such past commitments voided.

With the case closed, the documents from the criminal proceedings were released to the public. This is why the whole story came to the attention of the press in early August. (Cf. ibid.)

Although this case ended, there are still 17 ongoing lawsuits and 100 pending. Among the latter is the unfinished investigation of the sexual misconduct of Archbishop John Nienstedt.

It is not difficult to come to the conclusion of this case involving the prior Archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis: Papal Nuncio Carlo Viganò was the one who ordered the investigation of Nienstedt’s homosexuality to be closed. Who is behind Viganò? The Vatican, of course. Who is head of the Vatican? Pope Francis, of course.

So, Bergoglio – who has boasted several times that he ended the cover-up of pedophile priests and Bishops – was the one who invited Card. Pell, with his rotten past, to take over the Church’s Secretariat for the Economy and the one who ordered the close of the investigation on Arch. Nienstedt’s homosexuality.

I note here that the disputable past of another of Francis’ dear friends – Card. Reinhold Marx – also appears to be surfacing. It is not possible for me to deal with his case in this already long article. I just offer two English translations and the original document in German to my reader (here, here and here) so that he can observe the first symptoms of what seems to be another cover-up.

With this, I end my exploratory x-ray of who the “humble and pure” Francis actually is, based only on the news reports of this month of August.