I Hate to Think the Pope is a Liar...

...but it's hard to ignore the facts.

Burke: Cardinal Caffarra “Personally Delivered” Dubia Letter to Papal Residence

But the pope says he only learned about the dubia when he read about  it in the media. Cardinal Burke says it was hand delivered to the papal residence and the CDF (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) several months before they made it public.

So who gets the Pinocchio award?

Cardinal Burke, in charity, says the pope must have misunderstood the journalist's question. I'm not so charitable -- too many situations like this since Jorge Bergoglio came out on the balcony as Pope Francis to the cheering crowds. He has shown himself since then to rival the slickest of politicians saying one thing and doing another -- attacking his political enemies as rigid, pharisaical, even mentally disturbed individuals -- demoting the good and elevating the bad -- letting champions of the culture of death take positions on pontifical academies and address important meetings. He illustrates that, while the doctrine of the Church is protected by the Holy Spirit, the choice of magisterial clerics is not. Although anyone who's studied Church history, with its procession of evil men in red and black garments (or even wearing papal white), already knows that.

Sad to say, lying seems to be endemic to high positions in the Church (poor battered bride of Christ). The "revelations" about Cardinal McCarrick have been greeted by absolute incredulity by some of the men in red hats. Cardinal Timothy Dolan is "saddened and shocked." Cardinal Donald Wuerl of D.C. is "shocked and saddened."

Please! Excuse my head-shaking and eye-rolling.

They all knew he was a homosexual who had harassed and abused seminarians. It was an open "secret." Were they really shocked that he would molest an altar boy? I'm sorry, I just don't buy it. They knew McCarrick; they enabled him! It's what many of the bishops do -- enable molesters.

At the bishops' Dallas meeting in 2002, they did everything they could to shift the blame for the sex abuse crisis down the line to parish priests and laity. Two thirds of them covered up the sex abuse in their dioceses. They moved the abusers around, even traded them between dioceses. And when they put in strategies to "protect children," they didn't include themselves in all the hoops people would have to jump through. No finger-printing for them, only the lay volunteers. And many dioceses immediately turned to strategies to protect diocesan assets after spending billions of parishioners' donations to pay off sex abuse victims. And so they produced the "Cadillac" of safe touch programs, VIRTUS, a product of the National Catholic Risk Retention Group, an insurance company.

Never heard of them? You can check out their most recent online annual report (2016). Keep in mind that their mission is not to protect children; it's to protect the money! They are all about limiting the liability of dioceses by shifting accountability and risk from the dioceses to lay volunteers. (Hey, we gave the volunteers the skills. It's not our fault they didn't report the perps!)

Here's what their report says:

"National Catholic is owned and ultimately managed by its Shareholders. Company policies are therefore established by Shareholders for the benefit of Shareholders. As of 2016 the Company currently has 55 Shareholders consisting of 54 archdioceses and dioceses and one risk pooling trust."

"Vision: We protect assets of the Catholic Church." [Why does the expression, cover your a** immediately come to mind?]

Msgr. Steve Rossetti, VIRTUS
advisor.  He thinks moms are
 more likely to be sex abusers
than homosexuals are!

"Mission: TNCRRG exists to assist the Catholic Church to be a better steward in the performance of its ministry by identifying risks and providing solutions for the management of these risks."

VIRTUS has been problematic from the beginning, claiming that homosexuality was not an abuse problem. In fact the head of the VIRTUS program in Arlington in 2004 (no longer there) told me children are safer with homosexuals than heterosexuals. (Yes, she really said it!)

Msgr. Stephen Rossetti, a past head of the infamous St. Luke's Institute that treats troubled priests and has a reputation as a homosexual enclave, is on the VIRTUS "programs expert consulting team." I wrote about Fr. Rossetti in 2004 and I wouldn't trust him near one of my grandchildren! You can read about him here and here. And you can read more about the VIRTUS program here and here. And you can read about St. Luke's sordid history here and here and here and here.

Yes, indeed, there are many liars in the Church. I doubt if there are enough Pinocchio awards to go around. Who do these men serve? Certainly not the One we call "the Way, the TRUTH, and the light."

Pray for clergy at all levels. They will be called to a heavy accounting on Judgment Day. Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on them.