They both dress like popes, speak as popes, and even were papal rings.
But are they both Catholic?
P.S. The one on the left looks likes he's bored.
Posted on 06/02/2019 7:04:36 PM PDT by ebb tide
In my last column I discussed the problematic responses Pope Francis gave to journalist Valentina Alazraki, who had pressed him on his original refusal to comment on the accusation by Archbishop Viganò, last year, that he had told Francis all about the long history of sexual predation of seminarians by ex-Cardinal McCarrick. I noted that during this interview Francis declared: “And when he [Viganò] says that he spoke to me on the day that he came – and I don’t remember if he spoke to me about this, whether it’s true or not. I have no idea.”
What I did not know at the time was that the Vatican’s publication of the interview in what was supposed be a complete text had censored Francis’ dubious claim of memory lapse while leaving in his declaration: “I knew nothing, naturally, nothing. I have said it many different times, I did not know anything.”
The stealthy omission was uncovered by Marco Tosatti, in an article entitled “Did the Pope lie? The Vatican censors him by ‘cleaning up’ his statement on Vigano.” Tosatti published the crucial passage from the uncensored interview, whose full text was made available to him by Alazraki, alongside the expurgated Vatican version expunging the embarrassing claim of memory lapse. Writes Tosatti (my translation): “The ‘I don’t remember’ is certainly an incredible and embarrassing response. So embarrassing that it was not reported in the FIRST [his emphasis] version of the interview published by Vatican News. That phrase was expunged. Evidently someone, and we can imagine who, who could not have cared less about journalism, realized that that response was hardly tenable and thought it best to hide it.”
Even the liberal journal Crux is constrained to comment on the brazenness of the deception in a story from the Associated Press by Nicole Winfield headlined “Vatican omitted part of pope’s crucial quote about McCarrick.”
Winfield reports that “The initial Italian version omitted Francis’s reference to not remembering if Vigano told him about McCarrick, and only quoted Francis as saying he knew nothing about McCarrick.” But now that the concealed text has been revealed — forcing a Vatican “correction” of its original doctored publication — Francis’ belated defense of “I knew nothing” has been demolished.
Writes Winfield: “…Francis’s claim not to remember if Vigano told him about McCarrick now amounts to his defense against such criticism.” In other words: “I don’t remember,” not “I knew nothing,” is now Francis’ only defense to the claim that he knowingly rehabilitated a clerical monster and sent him on important missions, including the negotiated betrayal of the Underground Church in China.
Winfield was quick to link this Vatican deception to another: “Vigano’s allegations have been used by Francis’s conservative critics to attack him, since they seemingly show Francis disregarded information that McCarrick preyed on seminarians and rehabilitated him from restrictions imposed by Pope Benedict XVI in 2008… Last year, the Vatican communications office published a doctored photograph and a partial quote from a letter penned by retired Pope Benedict XVI that misrepresented its complete meaning. The then-prefect of the communications office had to resign as a result.”
In one of her several attempts to press Francis for an answer about what he knew and when he knew it, Alazraki told him that his original refusal to comment on Viganò’s accusation (my translation): “weighed heavily, because for the press and for most people, when one is silent it is like between a husband and wife, no? You peck your wife on the cheek and do not answer her and she says: ‘Something is not right here.’ Why, then, that silence? The moment has come to respond to the question they put to you on the airplane [last year]; more than eight months have passed, Pope Francis.”
Yes, the moment has come for the Pope to answer the question. But the answer he gave was yet another self-incriminating evasion — so much so that the Vatican attempted to censor it. The truth, however, came out. And as the title of another piece by Tosatti archly observes: “Concerning Pope Bergoglio on McCarrick, it might have been better — for him — to keep silent.”
Some questions regarding the “alternate title” of English version of Socci book
Ping
I wonder what they would think about what is going on now
I visited the parish I grew up in today. In the school’s lunch room was a life size cut out of Jorge. I wanted to throw up.
They both dress like popes, speak as popes, and even were papal rings.
But are they both Catholic?
P.S. The one on the left looks likes he's bored.
This actually seems exculpatory. His claim that he didn’t know is completely unbelievable. If, on the other hand, he was merely saying he didn’t remember, that’s much more plausible. There is an ocean of difference between claiming vigano is lying, and claiming that he doesn’t remember that he was told something by vigano.
I think Frank wanted to be Pope and also be “one of the guys.”
He failed at both.
I pray his days are numbered. Not his final days, just his False Pope part.
Are you serious?
Do you really think a pope who was warned by the U.S. papal nuncio about a predatory homosexual cardinal didn't remember it?
>> Do you really think a pope who was warned by the U.S. papal nuncio about a predatory homosexual cardinal didn’t remember it? <<
Certainly not excusable. But Cdl. Francis is apparently very low-IQ for such a high-level job, is very old, and is functioning on a lack of oxygen to the brain. No, seriously: he has one lung, and I’ve seen in my own mother the effects of reduced oxygen. AND — HERE’S WHAT’S INEXCUSABLE— HE DOESN’T HAVE THE PROPER SENSE OF MORAL HORROR.
To be clear: Vigano did NOT tell Pope Francis that Cdl. McCarrack was a child-rapist; he told Francis that McCarrack was having homosexual trysts with underlings. The majority of Americans (and almost certainly Europeans) see there’s nothing at all wrong with Clinton and Lewinski, or with homosexuality, so they won’t see anything wrong with that.
I expect someday he will be declared an antipope. If not, perhaps St Malachi was right, and there is a gap between the Glory of the Olives pope and the Peter the Roman.
(Then again, I’ve always read Peter the Roman to be the one nurturing the flock during the time of troubles. Frankophiles seem to like the idea that he’s Peter the Roman, through the most contorted logic I’ve ever read. At the same time, there seems to be a reading of St Malachi that Peter the Roman is a wicked pope, an almost anti-Christ-like figure. So maybe they’re right.)
(The prophecy says, “In the final persecution of the Holy Roman Church, there will sit Peter the Roman, who will pasture his sheep in many tribulations, and when these things are finished, the city of seven hills [i.e. Rome] will be destroyed, and the dreadful judge will judge his people. The End.” Some read this as meaning that the Holy Roman Church will be persecuted by Peter the Roman, or that the Holy Roman Church will do the persecution.)
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