Reading The Dictator Pope (#771) by the possibly British author hiding behind the pen name Marcantonio Colonna reminded me forcibly of the anonymous New York Times Op Ed written about the chaos in Donald Trump's White House. This is an author with an agenda: to destroy Jorge Bergoglio, Pope Francis I, and restore the Roman Catholic Church to the "good old days" prior to Vatican II.
He takes aim at progressives, liberals and homosexuals as evil, period. He also condemns child sex abusers and those who shield them, financial malfeasants, and the morally corrupt. In those cases, I do agree with this writer.
It is a mystery to me, though, who his intended audience is. It can't be the average reader, because the text is laden with theological text book terms with no explanations, clerical name-dropping without context, and an astonishing mish-mosh of bureaucratic boards, councils, offices, etc. If you were familiar with the internal workings of the Vatican, this might all make sense to you. What the ordinary reader will be able to pick up without a problem is the personal vitriol for the Pope. If what he is alleging about the Pope's behavior concerning financial shenanigans and his own shielding of pedophile priests and those who protect them is true, though, (And many of the cases he cites seem credible, such as the Pope's recent defense of Chilean bishops accused of this, his cool reception in Ireland which has been riven by the sex abuse scandal for decades, and the Pope's non-response to the unfolding scandal in Pennsylvania), it does raise questions about the Pope's moral authority on so many other issues.
It's an unpleasant book, couched in an unpleasant way, but as they say, where there's smoke, there's fire. Maybe someone does need to be raising objections if what they see and hear feels wrong to them, but progress is made going forward, not backwards. Maybe the best question to ask would be: What would Jesus do?
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