By CHRISTOPHER MANION
It’s been quite a week. In the Vatican, Angelo Cardinal Becciu, a powerful Curia insider, has been fired and stripped of his privileges as a cardinal. George Cardinal Pell, exonerated of trumped-up charges by a unanimous supreme court in Australia, has returned to Rome. Joseph Cardinal Zen also arrived in Rome, hoping to persuade Pope Francis not to renew the Vatican’s secret agreement with Communist China that has fomented so much persecution of Catholics there. Pope Francis refused to meet with him, and a dispirited Zen returned to Hong Kong, which now suffers under tightening Communist rule.
At the same time U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Rome to meet with his Italian diplomatic counterparts. He too had hoped to meet with Francis and argue that the still-secret agreement had harmed, rather than helped, human rights in Communist China. Francis, who routinely welcomes atheists and Communists to his parlor, refused to meet with Pompeo.
Gone are the days when President Reagan’s Ambassador-At-Large Vernon Walters worked closely and quietly with Pope John Paul II to bring down the Soviet Communist regime. From all appearances, Pope Francis would rather work with Communist China to bring down the United States. After all, didn’t the Pope’s Argentine sidekick, Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, say two years ago that “right now, those who are best implementing the social doctrine of the Church are the [Communist] Chinese”? Thus were the tireless efforts of then-cardinal Theodore McCarrick brought to fruition with that rancid lie.
Far be it from Pope Francis to hear any truths to the contrary now, as the Vatican prepares to renew the deal.
Becciu’s abrupt departure merely marks the most recent chapter in the Vatican’s parade of scandals. As he rose in Francis’ inner circle, Becciu opposed Cardinal Pell’s efforts to bring transparency and accountability to the Vatican’s finances. He seemed to have won when Pell returned to Australia three years ago to respond to the patently false charges of abuse he faced in a corrupt court proceeding there. Becciu’s downfall might go far to reveal just who mastered that malignant mission.
The Catholic News Agency reported last week that Pell, the former prefect of the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy, made this statement on Becciu’s departure: “The Holy Father was elected to clean up Vatican finances. He plays a long game and is to be thanked and congratulated on recent developments. I hope the cleaning of the stables continues in both the Vatican and Victoria.”
Blunt and all too true.
Becciu was also involved in the scandal surrounding the Peter’s Pence worldwide collection. Last year it was revealed that most of the funds collected for the poor were actually used for administration expenses and speculative real estate investments. The USCCB, which is currently being sued in a class-action suit for its alleged part in the scandal, has scheduled the annual Peter’s Pence collection for this Sunday, October 4.
The FBI Agent Of Fraud
In other news, in Cleveland Joe Biden and the moderator faced off against Donald Trump in what was loosely termed a presidential “debate.” The next day, the Senate began a series of hearings to delve into malfeasance in the FBI and the Department of Justice at the FBI that led to the “Russia! Russia!” fraud. In the first session, former FBI Director James Comey demonstrated that his firing in 2017 was not only merited but overdue. His repeated memory lapses and admissions of malfeasance under oath demonstrated that he is not only a hypocrite, but a scoundrel.
Consider: This charlatan, fired for cause, paraded around the country hawking what The Washington Post called “the book of the moment.” Calling for “ethical leadership” in the hard times of Trump, it drew cheers from the usual suspects and snagged Comey a gig as Visiting Professor of Ethics at Virginia’s College of William and Mary this fall. [After the hearing, we reached out to confirm with the college that the course was in fact under way. Our efforts were unsuccessful].
Comey’s book now sells for 99 cents on Amazon, which is a dollar more than his reputation is worth. He admitted that that the entire “Russia!!” hoax was the result of his ignorance and bad judgment. Perhaps Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) said it best: “Based upon what we know about how you and your agency ran the FBI’s anti-Trump investigation,” he told Comey, “you are either criminally corrupt or completely incompetent. And I don’t believe you were incompetent.”
Of course, Comey’s admissions were ignored by the “Orange Man Bad” media that had broadcast his lies with gusto for three years. They realized that Cruz’s indictment applied to them as well.
Catholic Stuff
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone led a Eucharistic Procession through the streets of San Francisco to protest one of the most oppressive lockdowns on the Mass in the country. Catholics “have been patiently putting up with unjust treatment long enough,” he said, and demanded that San Francisco cancel its oppressive lockdowns on the Mass.
As the Barrett hearings approach, some history. In May 2007, Pope Benedict told a reporter that it was indeed proper to bar pro-abortion politicians from Communion. When a reporter for an obscure Capitol Hill newspaper asked Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.) for comment on the Pope’s statement, Leahy was blunt: “I’ve always thought that those bishops and archbishops who for decades hid pederasts and are now being protected by the Vatican should be indicted,” he said.
Today Leahy, a Catholic, is the most senior member of the committee that will be hearing testimony from Barrett. Dare he ask her if she agrees?
At his confirmation hearings in 1991, Judge Clarence Thomas was asked by Joe Biden about the natural law. Thomas deflected the question — why bother trying to teach Catholic Joe about anything? Would the Constitutional Convention ever have happened in 1787 if the Declaration of Independence hadn’t come first?
“I love the United States and I love the Constitution of United States,” Judge Barrett said as she accepted her nomination to the Supreme Court. She graduated first in her class at Notre Dame Law School, where my father had founded the Natural Law Institute 75 years ago. It would be interesting to hear her response to Biden’s question, since the answer lies at the heart of “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.”
We all remember “the dogma lives loudly within you,” California Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s remark to Barrett in 2017. It’s unlikely that Feinstein will repeat that performance next week, but the Hate Media has, erupting in anti-Catholic bigotry aimed at Barrett as well as the Catholic faith. It is fitting that we conclude here with the words of our longtime colleague Joe Sobran, as we prayerfully commemorate his death ten years ago this week:
“What is startling is the perpetual passion of anti-Catholicism. You’d think that by now people who reject Catholicism would calmly ignore its teachings as old and irrelevant superstitions. After all, the Church has none of her old political power, adherence is now totally voluntary, and she has enough trouble getting her own children to listen to her.
“But Catholicism still has a strange moral authority, and many people are unable to achieve a calm and assured disbelief. They are still driven to discredit the Church — perhaps for the same reason so many of us believe in her.”
Michael Joseph Sobran, RIP.
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