Posted on 08/04/2017 7:01:16 PM PDT by ebb tide
This week the Vatican launched an international campaign against corruption and organized crime. Well, that’s not quite right. This week the Vatican announced the campaign; it will actually be launched in September. So we don’t know exactly what it will be.
If you read the full announcement, released on August 2 by the dicastery for Integral Human Development, you’ll notice that the statement is short on specifics. There will be an “international consultation group,” which will promote education and public awareness of the damage done by corruption. So far, so good. But who will be the members of this group, and what will they actually do?
“The consultation group will not just come up with virtuous exhortations, because concrete gestures are needed,” we are told. Excellent. And what might those “concrete gestures” be? The announcement offers just one suggestion: a discussion of excommunication as a penalty for corruption or for involvement in the Mafia.
Is the excommunication of prominent individuals a realistic possibility in the age of Pope Francis? Could the canonical penalty actually deter corruption?
Let’s stipulate that corruption is a very serious problem. The problem is typically most acute in impoverished societies, for three reasons. First, because kleptocratic rulers steal from their people and even siphon off a portion of the humanitarian aid their countries receive. Second, because endemic corruption impedes economic development; investors shy away from countries where the rules can change abruptly at the whim of a greedy government official. Third, because poor people lack the resources they would need to fight against public corruption. Corruption in government is a form of oppression; it’s no coincidence that corruption is most evident in authoritarian regimes. So it is not illogical to suggest that the Church should treat public corruption as a serious offense: a grave sin and scandal.
However, in order to punish corruption, Church leaders would first need to prove corruption. Therein lies a difficulty. We might all feel sure that a particular government leader is corrupt, and we might all be right. But canon law, like secular law, requires proof before a penalty can be imposed. How would an ecclesiastical court acquire that sort of proof?
It would be simple enough, I suppose, if a venal politician called a press conference to boast about his acceptance of bribes and kickbacks. But that isn’t likely. (The same is true for Mafia dons, who typically identify themselves to the public as legitimate businessmen. Don Corleone wouldn’t be excommunicated for importing olive oil.)
And yet…Wait a minute! Haven’t more than a few prominent Catholic politicians held press conferences to announce their support for unrestricted legal abortion on demand? Haven’t they been amply warned that support for legal abortion is gravely wrong, and separates them from the Church to which they protest their fidelity? If there’s any argument to be made for the excommunication of corrupt politicians, there’s a stronger argument for excommunication of Catholic politicians who support abortion.
Somehow I doubt that the dicastery for Integral Human Development, under its present leadership, will pursue that argument. Just as, frankly, I doubt that the dicastery will produce anything more than a pro forma denunciation of corrupt politicians.
I don’t think he can do that..He would tip his hand too early in the game...All of 2018,the shouts of baby killing catholics and francis loooooves them could put a damper on the collection boxes...The fact that these liberals in the catholic hierarchy are after money as well as trying to destroy the church...Boy,has God got a surprise in store for them...A few hail Mary’s won’t get them out of the mess they have created last 40 years..
EX the abortion cabal
Nancy Pelosi?
Somehow I don’t think she’s one he has in mind...
and a hundred others
Starting with the ‘Pope’
The “Catholic” Campaign for Human Development gets caught every year by the Lepanto Institute and other investigators giving money to pro-abortion groups, supporting pro-abortion politicians, financing campaign workers for pro-abortion politicians, forming coalitions with pro-abortion groups, etc., etc.
Every year, (and the lefty bishop in charge) they express outrage at the Lepanto Institute’s “lies,” and then they back down.
And the following year they get caught again.
The explanation is pretty simple: They don’t know anyone who ISN’T pro-abortion.
It has become obvious that Bergoglio and his inner circle literally don’t know anyone who isn’t an actual abortionist or a supporter of abortion. (They systematically freeze out “climate deniers,” which guarantees that everyone they talk to is pro-abortion.)
This new dicastery is going to get caught over and over snuggling with and giving money to abortion-promoting organizations.
The autor’s naive assumption is that this group is looking for what we traditionally know as corruption - that is, bribery, defalcation, etc. - and that they even care about legal proof or a process for determining guilt.
This will be used purely for political purposes, that is, to charge that corruption consists of anything they say (such as capitalism in general, for example) and to excommunicate any Catholic politician they don’t like, such as Marci of Argentina. Believe me, UN leaders and their regional minions, who are fabulously corrupt, will never have to worry about this. Nor will the Francis’ dearly beloved leftist Latin American politicians, for whom theft and extortion (often with violence) are simply part of the job.
Wouldn’t be feasible for them to excommunicate corruption. To excommunicate someone from corruption they have to be a proven to be corrupt. How would the Church go about doing that? Canon law insists that a person is innocent until proven guilty. So they would need to convene an ecclesiastic tribunal and request criminal records.
That wont happen.
Excommunication would be the best thing that ever happened to anyone in the Catholic Church.
You are not Catholic. A Catholic wouldn’t say that. This is a Catholic Caucus.
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