Just watch me. Speaking to the press as he arrived in the Philippines, Pope Francis shared his take on the recent events in Paris, “You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others.” In the words of Mandy Rice-Davies, “He would say that wouldn’t he?” Yes, a little respect please. But the dream that this pope was going to be something different died last summer when, just like his predecessors, he gave safe haven to a chronic pedophile.
For years Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, the Vatican’s ambassador to the Dominican Republic, had a thing for young shoeshine boys down by the beach, paying them for sex. He also had his deacon run out and procure for him on those days he was just too tired or too busy. The new Pope’s zero-tolerance statements notwithstanding, when these facts came to light, Wesolowski was quickly whisked away to Rome. (NYT 8.23.14)
. . . the Vatican has stirred an outcry because it helped Mr. Wesolowski avoid criminal prosecution and a possible jail sentence in the Dominican Republic. Acting against its own guidelines for handling abuse cases, the church failed to inform the local authorities of the evidence against him, secretly recalled him to Rome last year before he could be investigated, and then invoked diplomatic immunity for Mr. Wesolowski so that he could not face trial in the Dominican Republic.
The Vatican police have since charged him with sexual abuse (we’ll see where that goes) but the Pope has refused extradition requests from the Dominican Republic where prosecutors want to press criminal charges. This is an institution just begging to be insulted.
Does the Pope not realize the irony of his statements? If a certain carpenter hadn’t insulted and provoked the faith of the temple priests 2,000 years ago, the Vatican and its merry band of perverted deviants would never have existed.