Free Republic

Many of us have praised Pope Francis for his humbleness and for his tolerance toward victims of discrimination who had long been neglected by the Vatican, but it’s time to tell him loud and clear: Get out of Venezuela.The Vatican’s mediation effort in Venezuela has been — to use a word much in vogue in Washington these days — a disaster. It has legitimized that country’s authoritarian ruler Nicolás Maduro, throwing him a lifeline when millions of protesters were demanding his resignation on the streets in October 2016. And it has helped him get back on his feet by further...

Many of us have praised Pope Francis for his humbleness and for his tolerance toward victims of discrimination who had long been neglected by the Vatican, but it’s time to tell him loud and clear: Get out of Venezuela. The Vatican’s mediation effort in Venezuela has been — to use a word much in vogue in Washington these days — a disaster. It has legitimized that country’s authoritarian ruler Nicolás Maduro, throwing him a lifeline when millions of protesters were demanding his resignation on the streets in October 2016. And it has helped him get back on his feet by...

VATICAN CITY — Five years ago, Pope Francis was elected to be an agent of change within a church shaken by scandals and the historic resignation of Benedict XVI. He quickly became a global force in geopolitics, setting the agenda on climate change and care for migrants. World leaders wanted to be near him. Even non-Catholics adored him.Today, Francis is increasingly embattled. The political climate has shifted abruptly around the world, empowering populists and nationalists who oppose much of what he stands for. Conservative forces arrayed against him within the Vatican have been emboldened, seeking to thwart him on multiple...

Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who served at the papal nuncio (that is, Vatican ambassador) to the United States from 2011-2016, has dropped an atomic bomb on Francis’s papacy, charging that “corruption has reached the very top of the Church’s hierarchy.”In a lengthy statement, Vigano says that Francis has known for years about Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s sexual abuse, but brought him into the pontifical inner circle anyway, and sent him around the world on papal missions.In fact, says Vigano, the Roman curia has known about McCarrick since the year 2000, but McCarrick was protected by gay supporters honeycombed throughout the Vatican....