Cardinals Pell, Müller and the Pope: A Reality Check

On June 29, Australian police charged Cardinal George Pell with multiple counts of historical sexual assault offences. The Vatican Press Office stated they learned this “with regret,” that Pell “chose to return to Australia in full respect for civil laws” and that Pope Francis has “appreciated” Pell’s “honesty,” “collaboration” and “energetic dedication to the reforms in the economic and administrative sector, as well as his active participation in the Council of Cardinals (C9).”

On July 1, the Vatican Press Office stated that Pope Francis “thanks Cardinal Müller at the end his quinquennial mandate as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” and “now calls the former Secretary [of the Congregation], Archbishop Ladaria, to take on this role.”

If not stating it outright, the U.S. media is inferring that the above is about the good “liberal” pope v. two bad “conservative” cardinals. That is grossly misinterpreting these events since the pope is not a liberal.

“Pope Francis referred to detractors of Bishop Juan Barros of the Chilean city of Osorno as ‘lefties’” after “more than 1,300 church members in Osorno, along with some 30 priests from the diocese and 51 of Chile’s 120 members of Parliament” sent letters in 2015 to the pope “urging him to rescind” his appointment. Barros was accused of “covering up dozens of sexual abuse cases.”

Last August, Pope Francis said “the epoch of sin against God the Creator” was teaching children that being transgender is acceptable.

In November, the pope said that women will never be Roman Catholic priests. He has also said that all abortion, even to save the life of the mother, “is a crime. It is killing one person to save another. It is what the Mafia does.”

In December, a decree that men with “deeply rooted homosexual tendencies" couldn't be priests was “restated in a new document under Pope Francis" reaffirming the Church's teaching that "this inclination is objectively disordered."

The pope called same-sex marriage an “anthropological regression.”

Cardinal George Pell

“Pell, 76, has been plagued by scandal for decades.”

Pell was ordained in 1966 and assigned to Ballarat, the town where he was born in 1941. Ballarat is in the state of Victoria and Melbourne is the capital.

Pell’s roommate and close friend in the 1970s was Fr. Gerald Ridsdale. A 2012 police report linked the suicides and premature deaths of 34 people to Ridsdale and another Ballarat priest, Fr. Robert Best, both of whom are now both serving lengthy prison sentences. "It would appear that the organisation in charge of... Best and Ridsdale (Catholic Church) would be well and truly aware of the existence of these figures regarding these two clergy and would no doubt be aware of many other similar deaths, however have chosen to remain silent on the matter."

While Pell served as the bishop's vicar for education 1973-84 in Ballarat, “untold numbers of children were beaten and sexually assaulted by priests and nuns at the St. Alipius Primary School.” A February 2016 story by the Australian public broadcasting network SBS called the school “a pedophile’s paradise and a child’s nightmare.” Abuse was rampant throughout the parish in the 1970s, according to the Australian newspaper The Age, which once called Ballarat “probably the worst of Australia’s 32 dioceses for sexual abuse.”

In testimony before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Pell said at the time he knew nothing about Ridsdale’s crimes.

Pell was appointed auxiliary bishop of Melbourne in 1987 and archbishop in 1996. He created the “Melbourne Response,” a system “designed to control the victims and protect the Church … Pell intended to minimize the crimes, conceal the truth, manipulate and intimidate the victims. … Some relatives of abused children have called the cardinal a ‘sociopath.’”

Pell was appointed archbishop of Sydney in 2001 and elevated to cardinal in 2003 by Pope Benedict XVI. The infamous John Ellis case “was all about deterrence.” Ellis sued Pell and the trustees of the Sydney archdiocese in 2006 over abuse he suffered as an altar boy. Pell spent more than $1m fighting Ellis despite him asking for just a tenth of that amount in settlement, put him through “distressing and unnecessary cross-examination” and threatened him with legal costs. Pell had “instructed his lawyers to crush this victim.” Pell’s “Ellis Defense” is “an exemplar of litigation causing further trauma for a victim of abuse.”

When Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced the formation of a royal commission to study child sex abuse in 2012, Pell’s response was to complain about a “’persistent press campaign’ and ‘general smears that we are covering up and moving people around,’ and then capped it off with the claim that abuse by Catholic priests had been singled out and exaggerated.’”

“Catholic clergy commit six times as much abuse as those in the rest of the churches combined, ‘and that’s a conservative figure,’” Patrick Parkinson, a Sydney University law professor, told the commission on May 30, 2013.

“Pell personally knows hundreds of the people involved – the victims and their families as well as the abusers. … He was a very senior authority in the Catholic Church when the court cases began in the 1990s and the top Catholic figure in Australia” until 2013. “[H]e was the leader of a system that protected the guilty and failed innocent people. [H]e was the man in charge during many years of this scandal. Therefore, he can be held accountable and responsible for it.”

Regardless of Pell’s record, Pope Francis chose him as a member of his Council of Cardinals a month after his election on March 13, 2013. He appointed Pell as head of his newly created Secretariat for the Economy in Feb. 2014.

Pope Francis also chose Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz Ossa as as one of his closest advisers. Errazuriz had made national headlines for protecting Fr. Fernando Karadima, the “worst scandal” of the Chilean Church. “Power is the true point of the case. The [sexual abuses against children] were not possible without a network of political, social and religious power working for 50 years,” stated political analyst Ascanio Cavallo, Dean of the Journalism School of the Adolfo Ibáñez University.

Church officials were warned as early as 1984 about Karadima’s “improper conduct.” The first known reports to reach Errazuriz were in 2003. In 2006, a priest appointed by Errázuriz to investigate the claims reported to the cardinal that he believed “the accusers to be credible.”

According to court testimony in a 2011 civil complaint filed against Karadima, Church officials, including Errázuriz, tried to shame accusers into dropping claims, refused to meet with them and failed to carry out formal investigations for years. A judge had dismissed the criminal case against Karadima in November 2011 because the statute of limitations had expired but also determined that the allegations were “truthful and reliable.”

One of the claimants called it “a shame and a disgrace” that Errazuriz was honored by the pope.

Cardinal Gerhard Müller

“When Müller was appointed bishop of Regensburg in 2002, he inherited the case of Fr. Peter Kramer, who had been convicted in 2000 of sexually abusing two boys … Kramer was sentenced to three years probation on July 7, 2000, on condition that he not work with children. But when Müller became bishop, Kramer was already working with children in the parish of Riekhofen, and when Kramer’s probation expired, Müller named him pastor. Müller concealed Kramer’s conviction from his parishioners.”

“Kramer was again convicted of child abuse. Müller combatively disclaimed responsibility for the children who had been abused because of his decision, and even threatened legal action against his critics. When the bishop of Fulda, Heinz J. Algermissen, affirmed the bishops’ guidelines, that a priest who has abused children must not be permitted further contact with children, Müller countered that ‘there is no space free of children and youth.’”

On April 5, 2013, Pope Francis met with Archbishop Müller, now prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), the department that has dealt with all sexual abuse cases since Pope John Paul II consolidated its role on April 30, 2001. “Various issues were discussed” in the meeting with Müller, but “in particular” the pope “recommended that the Congregation continue along the lines set by Benedict XVI” who had appointed Müller as prefect in 2012.

On September 21, 2013, Pope Francis approved Müller as prefect of the CDF.  “It is highly problematic (that) he re-appointed a known enabler of a convicted pedophile priest to lead the Holy See’s office with sole responsibility for abuse cases,” stated Terence McKiernan, President, and Anne Barrett Doyle, Co-Director, of BishopAccountability.org., a group dedicated to documenting the Catholic sex abuse crisis.

Pope Francis elevated Müller to cardinal in 2014.

Pope Francis

In the about a dozen American articles I’ve read the past three days about Pell, none hold the pope accountable for appointing Pell, Errazuriz or elevating Müller to cardinal despite their appalling records regarding child sex abuse. None have suggested that the pope’s apparent contempt for the victims stems from his own terrible record.

As archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio “refused to meet with victims, and he stayed largely silent on the issue of clergy sex abuse, except to issue a surprising denial that he had ever handled an abusive priest. His only known action was to commission a behind-the-scenes report to judges that sought exoneration of a criminally convicted priest by impugning the credibility of the priest’s victims.” BishopAccoutability.org, showed Bergoglio’s involvement in five specific cases.

After missing the Nov. 1, 2013, deadline for responding to a request for information by the U.N. Committee of the Rights of Children, Pope Francis responded on Dec. 4 by stating that it was not the practice of his government to “disclose information on specific cases unless requested to do so by another country as part of legal proceedings” and “that the Vatican can provide information only about known and alleged child sex crimes that have happened on Vatican property,” generating the first negative publicity of his reign. Within two days, the pope announced that he would form a commission to study the problem of sex abuse.

Since then, Pope Francis has personally protected six pedophiles. He had reinstated Fr. Mauro Inzoli to the priesthood in 2014 after he had been defrocked for sex abuse by Pope Benedict in 2012. On June 28, the pope defrocked Inzoli again after the priest was “found guilty of the sexual abuse of minors [and] sentenced to nearly five years in prison.”

On May 19, Fr. Dante Simón - sent by Pope Francis to investigate the horrific sexual assaults in the Provolo Institute for the Deaf in Argentina by another priest protected by the pope - dismissed some cases. He said, children can be “spiteful. For example, [when] a girl or a boy falls in love with a priest, and he doesn’t respond back.”  On the same day, the Simón stated he was refusing to cooperate with the civil court prosecuting the atrocities.

Amoris Laeticia

The New York Times, NPR, CNN and others have characterized Müller as “conservative,” mentioning his opposition to the pope’s “exhortation,”Amoris Laeticia. But Pope Francis’ animus toward Pell and Müller predates this.

The procedures for the October 2015 synod of bishops should have been written by bishops chosen by their confreres. Instead, Pope Francis wrote them himself. Thirteen cardinals – including Pell and Müller – wrote a letter to the pope. Among their objections were “the lack of input by the synod fathers” and that the procedures were “designed to facilitate predetermined results on important disputed questions.”

It was reported that the pope shouted in response, “If this is the case, they [the 13 cardinals] can leave. The Church does not need them. I will throw them all out!” Another account has the pope declaring “Who do these cardinals think they are? I will remove their [red] hats.”

When the 2015 synod ended, the bishops voted 190 to 64 on the question of whether communion for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics should be left to private consultation with their priest or bishop. “As written, however, it’s not entirely clear.” Traditionalists saw this as the majority of attendees being against changing the Church’s doctrine.

Pope Francis accused the bishops who voted against liberalizing the doctrine of having “closed hearts,” “blinkered viewpoints,” judging “sometimes with superiority and superficiality,” being cowardly and “burying their heads in the sand.”

Which is unfortunate seeing as how in Luke 16:18, Matthew 5:32 Mark 10:11 Jesus said that those who divorce and remarry commit adultery, a view held by most of Christendom until recently. It’s only been a little over 50 years since Nelson Rockefeller’s divorce and remarriage made him unsuitable for the Republican nomination in 1964.

Pope Francis released his “apostolic exhortation,” Amoris Laetitia, in April 2016. The document only inferred that the civilly remarried could receive communion under the guidance of a priest or bishop. Endless discussion ensued and is still going on. Four cardinals “asked Pope Francis five dubia questions, or ‘doubts,’ about [Amoris] in a bid to clear up ambiguities and confusion surrounding the text. On Nov. 14, 2016, they went public with their request after they learned that the pope had decided not to respond to their questions.” If the pope refused to clarify the matter, then “a formal act of correction” within the parameters of Church tradition could be sought, they wrote.

Pope Francis responded by stating these cardinals have “a nasty spirit in order to sow division” and are psychologically “born from something missing, from trying to hide one’s own sad dissatisfaction behind a kind of armor.” He warned that they are a “cancer of the Church” in pursuit of glory rooted in “the logic of ambition and power.”

If Müller’s opposition to Amoris Laeticia makes him unfit to hold office, then the pope is going to have to dismiss Archbishop Georg Ganswein, head of the papal household, most of the Polish and African bishops among others.

Additionally, as noted Catholic reporter, John L. Allen, Jr., wrote today, “It’s not as if [Müller's replacement] Ladara is anybody’s idea of a flaming liberal. He was appointed to the number two post at the CDF by Benedict XVI in 2008, and obviously the former prefect of the congregation wasn’t going to name anyone he regarded as doctrinally suspect to such a key post … Ladaria has always been seen as representing the Jesuits’ conservative wing. Even on the contested issue of Communion for the divorced and remarried, it’s not clear that Ladaria represents a dramatic departure from the Müller line.”

So, we have more of the same skewed, biased reporting by U.S. on just about everything connected to this pontificate.

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The more one lies and does what they are not suppose to, the higher up they go. As an x-catholic and now atheist soured by Christian pushy perverts of all stripes, I have to admit I built a wall. I'm not sure who is inside or outside, but I know we are on opposite sides. My mind and brain are both closed.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

Steven D's picture

@dkmich To everyone who does not know her, Betty was banned at TOP for being anti-Catholic. Which is ridiculous. But then most of the bannings there, other than the obvious ones for spam, are at this point a means to erase progressive or dissenting voices from the conversation.

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"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

@Steven D

dailykos is for idiots, replete with stockades, scarlet As, witch drowning, and stoning. You and your essays on the church or anything else are welcome here. We welcome free and independent thinkers. Thank you for the heads up Steven.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

there is something truly evil about the Church. I spent three years in catholic schools (because the public schools in my neighborhood had "too many blacks") and came out an atheist. I never was abused or even suspected it was happening to anyone else, but it was clear even to a naive 14 year old that the sexual repression of catholicism had severely warped the nuns and priests, in my experience mostly the nuns. Misandry and authoritarianism were only faux hidden. I came out firmly believing that religion was a destructive, even satanic force.
I do believe that at least in some ways Pope Francis is "liberal", but knowing the world he has lived in - and succeeded in - I see everything he says and does through a filter.

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On to Biden since 1973

Pluto's Republic's picture

@doh1304

Legend has it that the signs of this madness has been on us for millennia — for so long that we are blind to its towering destructiveness. We normalize the phenomenon and give it non-profit status so its exploitation and asset stripping of human culture is not taxed or encumbered. The occasional pre-teen picks up on it.

At least, that how the story that I heard goes.

Were we to erase artificial (national) borders, and merely observe the milling about of humankind on the continents across time, we could readily see a constant clash of frenzied insanity centered in the Middle East — The War of the Gurus. Here, vast tribes are each committed to a deadly delusion that they are guided by their Invisible Friends in the Sky.

To an epidemiologist, it would appear that they all carry a peculiar genetic twist that manifests in highly-functional, competitive self-destruction. The effect was historically bound by geography, likely caused by an alien virus that fell to earth on an asteroid. It festered in the region for thousands of years. Over time, it migrated beyond the prehistoric battleground of the Invisible Friends, spreading by direct contact. The larger world was blessed with natural spirituality, and it remain uninfected until a scant 500 years ago. That's when the virus sent out ships to enslave, colonize, and replicate.

ymmv

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
LeChienHarry's picture

@Pluto's Republic and historical view of how far back some things go. I am always struck by the irony of the pope's name: Innocent III.

The Cathars spent much of 1209 fending off the crusaders. The Béziers army attempted a sortie but was quickly defeated, then pursued by the crusaders back through the gates and into the city. Arnaud-Amaury, the Cistercian abbot-commander, is supposed to have been asked how to tell Cathars from Catholics. His reply, recalled by Caesarius of Heisterbach, a fellow Cistercian, thirty years later was "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius"—"Kill them all, the Lord will recognise His own".[61][62] The doors of the church of St Mary Magdalene were broken down and the refugees dragged out and slaughtered. Reportedly at least 7,000 innocent men, women and children were killed there by Catholic forces.

My bolding. From Wiki:Crusade in France

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You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again you did not know. ~ William Wiberforce

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CB's picture

@doh1304
Thanks for verbalizing what I experienced as an innocent six-year old in Catholic school. One older nun used to torture me for my failure to get enthusiastic over catechism. If I failed in answering correctly several times, I was made to sit in the corner at the front of the class on a stool with a pointed cardboard hat on my head. Imagine the shame in front of his peers that was for a young child.

When I started refusing, I was dragged out and given the strap by the head nun who carried a one foot black leather strap attached to her belt. I pulled my hand back to evade the pain and the belt hit her thigh. Then I got it good, real good.

One of the worst things was when I was looking out the window at the clouds and daydreaming as little children are want to do and suddenly got whacked over the shoulder with a three foot wooden rule by a nun. She used it with such force it broke. The sudden emotional change from complete bliss to excruciating pain remained with me for a decade.

As a child I was left with the distinct impression that I was personally responsible for a man being tortured and nailed to a cross.

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Was baptized Lutheran but we were never really serious. My parents used to send my sister and I to Sunday school and sleep in. My step-mother is a born again and she converted my dad to that. She worked on me and all I can say is I did try to believe but I just never have been able to. Religion is the cause of so much ugliness in the world, I have no time for it.

Thanks for this very informative essay though. Sickening what they'll do to protect their Church from stain or most importantly, millions in civil suits.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

CS in AZ's picture

It's good to see you here. Welcome.

I thought about your articles just this morning when I read this story:

‘Pope’s hospital’ put children at risk as it chased profits

Facts are hard to come by in the secretive halls of Bambino Gesu, which does not make public financial details or its mortality and infection rates. Perched on a Roman hillside just up the road from Vatican City, the private hospital sits on Holy See territory and enjoys the same extraterritorial status as a foreign embassy — making the Italian taxpayer-funded institution immune to the surprise inspections other Italian hospitals undergo. It is financed by Italy’s public health system, but its main campus isn’t even technically in Italy.

This organization (Catholic Church, inc) needs to be held accountable. You do yeoman's work on that often thankless task.

The protection and covering for pedophiles, while condemning gay and trans people, is so hypocritical it's mind boggling.

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@CS in AZ The article you linked is just the type of info that the MSM in the US ignores or attempts to bury. No wonder the Pope hired a former Fox news reporter to be the media guy at the Vatican.... he knows how to distort and cover up the truth. Thanks for the link!

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"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin

CB's picture

When I was 11-12 my mother encouraged (forced) me to become an altar boy. I attended three times then refused to ever go again. The priest would stroke and run his hands over me as he 'fitted' my vestments. Afterwards he gave 'comradely' hugs by putting his arm around us and drawing us close. Even at that young age, I understood the pedo had no boundaries.

Soon after, I refused to attend masses. Haven't been inside a church since.

BTW, I also attended Catholic school for grades 1 thru 3. Taught by some of the meanest bitches I've ever experienced (to be fair, most of the nuns were OK but that never made up for the ones that were fucked in the head).

I experienced all that crap in the 50's but I'm still a recovering catholic from the mindfuck they lay on you.

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zett's picture

My suspicion about churches is that RCC gets caught more. I have no doubt that if protestant churches were looked at seriously pedophiles would be found all over. Protection and denial, too.

That said, the structure of the RCC needs to be dismantled and the church in its current form needs to be abolished.

Too much wealth and political power involved for that to happen any time soon, I'm afraid.

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One of the reasons I started to doubt my adherence to 40 years of being a registerd Democrat was rooted in what I saw going on in Democratic "thought" on topics such as Pope Francis and the RCC. The overwhelming support for a man who continues to protect pedophilia; a church that tries to hide its money in faux bankrupcies in the US to prevent having to pay for its crimes of child abuse; an organization that runs US hospitals who totally deny women's reproductive medicines and services; and an institution who mouths support for gays while undermining their rights all over the world... all of this made me see that a good portion of Democrats truly do not stand for the issues they claim to. And trying to get people on DKos to see the total hypocrisy of saying they are for women's rights, gay rights and protection of children while rah-rahing the Pope, his visit to the US etc. was like pulling teeth. Here is an example of what I am talking about. This was posted in the help desk section of DKos by one of the more well known long time pleyers. This person is also a catholic, but does exactly what many religious people do... mixes up criticism of an institution and its leaders with personal attacks. And this is what Betty faced in every diary she posted.

6 Posted by Timaeus on Jul 03, 2017 @ 08:32 PM

Timaeus's Avatar
"Betty Clermont, As far as I have seen, every single one of your diaries and comments and diaries for more than seven years after you joined in March 2010 was an attack on Catholics and the Catholic Church. You're interested in only one issue: hatred of Catholics.

I'm glad to see that eventually gets you banned here. Most people expressing similar bigotry against Jews, Muslims, or almost any other religious or ethnic group, would have been banned after one or just a few posts.

Your claim that you only post "factual" information is totally bogus. All of your posts were distorted and many were flat-out CT.

Maybe you should move to Breitbart.

You must have gotten hurt real bad at some point. I hope you find some healing for that."

If I had been able to, I would have taken this person to task for his support of what is nothing less than immorality in the guise of "holiness".

So thanks to caucus99percent for opening up to Betty's writings. Her history of diaries on DKos are a tribute to the opposite of fake news.... facts, evidence and an incisive and thorough reporting of the fact that the emperor (Francis) has no clothes, and his castle is rife with darkness.

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"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin

Hi, and thanks, Betty!

It's evident that many psychopaths are self-identified by their behaviours and world-views; rather than allowing their ruthlessness to let them (edit: claw into) positions where perceived power enables them to harm others with impunity, we need to stop the framing of pathologies as political or religious positions and therefore 'legitimizing' and accepting them as a 'norm'; we need to respond appropriately and refuse to accept those having destructive personality disorders attaining or retaining any position of authority over anyone else. As is now being done regarding the Clintons, a bare start, but a beginning nonetheless.

Absolute impunity corrupts absolutely.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.