PopeWatch: Mercy for Cronies

Hmmm:

Those familiar with Jorge Bergoglio in Argentina before he became Pope Francis say it is a “classic” move of his to provide “mercy” to clergy who are sexual predators while asking everybody else to simply “move on,” said attorney and child advocate Elizabeth Yore on an EWTN show last week.

“I think this is a misplaced mercy. It is mercy for the predator priests,” she told EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo on the February 8 episode of World Over.

“There are many people who know the Pope from Argentina who have said this is classic Bergoglio to provide mercy to the predators and ask everybody else to move on,” she added.

Yore, who has handled child abuse investigations and clergy abuse investigations throughout her legal career, was commenting on the latest sexual abuse case to touch the Francis papacy, in this case where the Pope appointed a bishop with a history of complicity in child sex abuse. The Pope’s claim that he had never received any victim testimony regarding the complicity of Chilean Bishop Juan Barros in child sex abuse has proven to be false. 

“The Barros case is putting the Pope, for the first time, in the middle as a principal in a cover-up,” Yore said during the interview.  

Yore said that not only is it now known that the Pope received a letter from one of the victims, but it is also now known that he was “told from the moment he appointed Bishop Barros in 2015 that this was a bad decision.”

“The Chilean Archbishop conference told him to revoke this appointment. He received petitions and letters and calls, yet, ignored them all,” she said. 

As details continue to surface, the pontiff’s professed empathy for abuse victims has come into question as well.

Yore called the child sex abuse case involving infamous Chilean priest abuser Father Fernando Karadima and Bishop Juan Barros “a scandal of epic proportions.” 

This scandal has some of the hall marks of the current Pontificate:

1.  Special treatment for cronies.

2. Blatant mendacity from the Pope and those surrounding him.

3. The Pope reacting with anger when challenged.

4. The Pope refusing to deal honestly with opponents.

The difference this time is that the main stream media is not running interference for him on this occasion by biased coverage or non-coverage.  We will see how this plays out.