YOU EVER GET SICK OF THESE PRIESTS TRYING TO TELL US HOW TO LEAD OUR LIVES AS THEIR PEDOPHILES ESCAPE PROSECUTION?
A Plea to the Supreme Court for DACA, and for Immigrants, From Lexington’s Bishop
By John Stowe
The Lexington Herald-Leader, November 11, 2019
. . .
https://www.kentucky.com/opinion/op-ed/article237242914.html
Mexican Immigrant Jose Gomez, New Leader of America’s Catholic Bishops, Has a Top Priority. It’s Not Sacking Pervert Priests.
By Eugene Gant
VDare.com
https://vdare.com/articles/mexican-immigrant-jose-gomez-new-leader-of-america-s-catholic-bishops-has-a-top-priority-it-s-not-sacking-pervert-priests
Clergy: An uncompromising film about the hypocrisy and corruption of the Catholic Church in Poland
Clergy, the new film from director Wojciech Smarzowski, reaffirms his place as one of Poland’s leading directors. His 2016 film Hatred (Wolyn), dealing with a traumatic event in Polish-Ukrainian history, stirred up controversy and attracted a wide audience in Poland.
Clergy
Smarzowski’s latest offering, Clergy, was released in Poland in the autumn of 2018 and broke several box office records. Nearly a million people viewed the film on its opening weekend, the best result for a Polish film in Poland in three decades. To date over five million people have seen the work, which depicts in uncompromising fashion the hypocrisy and corruption of the Catholic Church in contemporary Poland.
At a recent festival of Polish films held in Berlin, the individual introducing Clergy noted that Smarzowski had been denied permission to film his movie in any Polish church. Instead he had to move production to the neighbouring Czech Republic to complete the film. It was also pointed out that the target of Smarzowski’s film was the institution of the Catholic Church and not individual believers.
Clergy opens with a drinking session involving the film’s three main protagonists—the priests Leszek Lisowski (Jacek Braciak), Tadeusz Trybus (Robert Wieckiewicz) and Andrzej Kukuła (Arkadiusz Jakubik). Between shots of vodka, Trybus is quizzed on passages from the Bible, all of which he knows by heart. At the end of their drinking orgy, the three priests set up their own obstacle race through the rooms of the house. Every successful round is rewarded with yet another shot.
It turns out all three have secrets to hide. Trybus shares his house with a woman whom he makes pregnant. When confronted with the news, the shocked priest asks his lover, “But … how … didn’t you take any precautions?” “My faith didn’t allow me,” she replies. The priest is adamant. To avoid a scandal, “You must get rid of it.”
The second priest, Lisowski, is higher up the clerical ladder and acts as adjutant to the thoroughly crooked and foul-mouthed Archbishop Mordowicz (Janusz Gajos), who is up to his neck in sordid deals with criminal gangs and politicians. When crossed, the archbishop is quite ready to blame “Jewish” so-and-sos for the consequences of his own misdeeds.
Mordowicz drives around in a brand new Bentley with chauffeur and dispatches servile priests to an anteroom in his palace to fetch huge sacks of money to pay off bribes to building firms and politicians. In one scene, we see the collection plate being passed around in a church where ordinary Poles donate what they can afford. The funds from such collections, swelled by numerous generous donations from the Polish state, provide the mounds of money needed to finance the archbishop’s lavish life style, as well as the drinking bouts of ordinary priests.
Jacek Braciak, Arkadiusz Jakubik and Robert Wieckiewicz in Clergy
In another scene, we witness the archbishop urging a leading politician to insert one of the Polish Catholic Church’s main demands, a “total ban on abortion,” into the government’s program. The politician starts to speak, but is promptly put in his place. “With all due respect, dear MP, now I’m talking,” declares the archbishop in the manner of an autocrat.
Lisowski has the job of carrying out and covering up for his master’s dirty work. He dreams of a transfer to the Vatican and is prepared to go to any lengths to achieve it, including blackmailing his boss.
Through the figure of the third priest Kukuła, Smarzowski addresses the issue of the clerical abuse of young boys and girls. Kukula is accused of abusing a boy from a broken family and is promptly shunned by his congregation. The archbishop’s office immediately goes into damage control mode. The accused priest is transferred to a monastery that functions as a sort of clinic for the recuperation and rehabilitation of clerics with all sorts of problems and crimes on their conscience. The young victim of the priest is paid to keep quiet with a television and video game console.
In the course of a series of flashbacks, we realise that Kukula himself was the subject of brutal abuse as a young boy in a home run by a sadistically cruel nun. The perpetrator Kukula is himself the victim of the Catholic Church’s inhuman policy of celibacy for its priests—a vicious circle destined to perpetuate physical and mental abuse.
Smarzowski’s target is the organised Church, not its individual representatives. The figures in the film are not caricatures, not least due to the outstanding performances by the cast of actors. Two of the priests, Trybus and Kukula, recognise their wrongdoings and seek to make some amends. The archbishop’s plans to suppress details of Kukula’s pedophilia come unstuck when the latter decides to go public and reveal the true extent of child abuse by members of the clergy. Once again the archbishop’s team go into action to ensure that Kukula’s revelations are smothered. The next morning they are able to report: Mission accomplished. There is barely a word in the press about the priest’s misdeeds.
Kukula is ditched by the Church. The priest is unstable (“For some time, his behaviour revealed that he suffered from some kind of mental health problems”), Archbishop Mordowicz tells the media, which is quite prepared to print his version of events.
In addition to its portrayal of a Church official who controls a financial empire, the media and leading politicians, Clergy includes one scene in which a fascist group practice their racist chants from within the secure walls of a church building.
The reaction to Smarzowski’s film in Poland by the Church and the government was predictably prompt and ferocious. It was dismissed by Church officials as “vulgar clergyphobia.” Some towns, under the influence of the Church, sought to prevent showings of the film.
Senior members of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, which relies heavily on the Church for electoral support, called for the film to be banned. The deputy culture minister in the PiS government, Jaroslaw Sellin, accused Clergy of fostering “negative stereotypes,” while Paweł Soloch, head of the National Security Bureau in Poland, compared the film to Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda.
Poland’s leading news program, which is closely aligned with the PiS, described Clergy as “yet another attack on the Catholic Church, brutal and untrue.” The right-wing newspaper, Gazeta Polska, responded by whipping up anti-communism and reproduced the film’s poster on billboards across Poland using the image of a priest who was a victim of the Stalinist security services. The text to the poster read: “The clergy: our treasure in the fight against Nazism, communism, LGBT and Islamists.”
Janusz Gajos in Clergy
In fact, the criminal activities addressed in the film realistically reflect the deeply reactionary role of the Catholic Church in Poland.
Smarzowski spoke with victims of clerical abuse before making his film, which includes statements from such victims read by actors. Some are too traumatised by what had taken place to properly speak out. Since the film’s release, the number of victims reporting mistreatment has increased ten-fold.
In regard to the abortion issue, it is no secret that the Catholic Church is the driving force behind the campaign to ban all medical assistance to pregnant women. A bill to ban abortion was introduced by the far-right Catholic organization, Ordo Iuris [Legal Order], in 2016 and agreed by parliament. The bill would have provided for a complete ban on abortions, including for minors and victims of sexual assault. It was only dropped after massive protests swept the country.
Smarzowski’s film also realistically portrays the links existing between ultra-right and fascist groups, the media and the organised Church.
The ultra-conservative priest Tadeusz Rydzyk runs a Catholic media empire, including the pro-government Radio Maryja station, a television station and a daily newspaper, which all pump out anti-Semitic, homophobic and Islamophobic content. Rydzyk was fined for illegal fundraising in 2011, but his business empire continues to receive government grants and contracts worth millions of euros.
In 2016, the Islamophobic and anti-Semitic priest Jacek Międlar held a mass at Bialystok cathedral for members of the neo-Nazi group National Radical Camp (ONR). Another far-right group, All Polish Youth, campaigns against abortion and gay marriage under the slogan of “Great Catholic Poland.”
Smarzowski is a courageous filmmaker. Clergy deserves a wide international audience.
Francis Effect: Catholic membership drops sharply in Argentina
Pope Francis, who was widely reported to have been chosen for the highest office in the Catholic Church as a means of reinvigorating participation among Latinos, isn't quite working out the way they thought he would. He was supposed to be the people's pope, with "the smell of the sheep" on him as he put it. But all he's managed to do is become an advocate for the phony claims of socialism. That may be the problem.
Here's the item from the Buenos Aires Herald, citing a TIME/AFP piece:
Catholicism is on the decline in Pope Francis' Argentina, a new study from the CONICET (National Scientific and Technical Research Council) has revealed.The results also showed that close to three-quarters of the population believes the State should not finance religious institutions, while 46.2 percent believe that religious education should not be taught in public schools.The government agency published a study on Wednesday revealing that while Catholics remain the biggest religious force in Argentina by a long way, the number of faithful has fallen by more than 13 percentage points over the past decade.According to CONICET, 76.5 percent of the population said they were Catholics in 2008, compared to the 62.9 percent who say so today.
Which is a pretty miserable record for a supposed people's pope. Instead of raising enthusiasm or participation in the Church, Pope Francis seems to have achieved the opposite effect.
A decline in membership seems to have actually accelerated.
Now, it's possible to argue that this isn't his fault. The Church was in decline before he was elected pope, and older lines of faith everywhere are seeing declines in membership, it's a function of broken families, urbanization, secularization, rising incomes, tech, the appeal of the Evangelicals, they all have some roles to play.
But to imagine that none of this is Pope Francis's fault is kind of unsatisfactory, too. He is, after all, a favorite son, and we've seen thr effect of that from Pope John Paul II's papacy on Poland. That Pope Francis is Argentinian ought to be worth something in Argentina ... and it's not.
The poll errantly premises falling popular support for the Church with falling popular support for state funding of Argentinian church institutions as part of this trend. Actually, that mixes apples with oranges - state funding is what tends to drive Church membership down, so falling support is probably a good thing.
State funding is a very signficant reason why Catholic membership is at rock-bottom levels in Europe and churches are going empty. In Germany, church membership even requires special high compulsory taxes, which is why many Germans say 'no thanks.' When the state is the big daddy and the source of all social welfare, doing the charity and all the things the Christian participants are supposed to do willingly on their own, who needs the the Church? The state's the story, nobody's individually responsible, and the Church fades.
Which brings us back to Pope Francis. The pontiff, despite his reputation, is constantly defending the state rather than the people. He even defends the indefensible, such as the Venezuelan state. The state, to him, is the source of all salvation to the people, which is why he always sides with socialists and other statists, no matter what the issue. It's why he talks about global warming when churches are being set on fire by socialists in places like Chile. It's why he chose the Chinese government over the tiny Church underground in China. It's why he stiff-armed the Ukrainian uniate Catholics in favor of an alliance with the state-linked Orthodox leaders. It's always the state for him. Sound appealing? Not to me.
Which might just be why they're staying away in Argentina, too. He never manages to put in a good word for the people. It ought to be a public relations problem for him at the very least since it's unlikely that as a dyed-in-the-wool socialist he's going to figure this out on his own.
The sheep are going a different direction, they'd apparently like a bit less state in the Church, even if there isn't a large amount of clarity. Maybe the selectors of the next pope can take this unexpectedly weak performance to heart.
By Michael W. Chapman | November 21, 2019 | 11:55am EST
Argentine Prosecutor Requests Arrest of Bishop Now Living at Vatican, Faces Sex Abuse Charges
By Michael W. Chapman | November 21, 2019 | 11:55am EST
Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta. (Getty Images)
A sex-crimes prosecutor in Argentina has publicly requested the arrest of Argentine Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, a close friend of Pope Francis, who is now reportedly residing in the Vatican City State in the same hotel where the Pope resides, the Domus Santa Marta.
Zanchetta, the former bishop of the Oran diocese in Argentina, was charged in June with the sexual abuse of seminarians, or as the legal document states, “aggravated continuous sexual abuse committed by a minister of a religious organization.” If he is found guilty of the allegations, he could face 3 to 10 years in jail, reported the Catholic publication Crux.
Complaints about Zanchetta reportedly first arose in 2015, according to the Catholic News Agency (CNA). Quoting the Argentine paper El Tribuno, the CNA reported that one of Zanchetta's secretaries accidentally found lewd images on his cell phone and alerted authorities.
Pope Francis greets Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta at the Vatican. (Screenshot, YouTube)
"The complaint says that some of the images depict 'young people' having sex in addition to lewd images of Zanchetta himself," according to CNA. Zanchetta reportedly claimed that his cell phone and computer had been hacked by anti-Francis forces.
Pope Francis met with Zanchetta in October 2015 and "appeared to have accepted Zanchetta's excuse that his cell phone had been hacked, and dismissed the allegations," said the CNA.
However, other claims were made in 2016-17 about alleged abuse of seminarians and Zanchetta was officially charged in June 2019. "Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta has been criminally charged with sexually assaulting two seminarians before a court in Argentina," reported the CNA on June 11, 2019.
Before those charges were made, in August 2017, Zanchetta, then 53, had resigned as bishop of Oran, citing health reasons. Four months later, in December 2017, Zanchetta was appointed by Pope Francis to a position created for him at the Vatican, assessor of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA).
"The office of 'assessor' to the APSA ... did not exist until Francis decided Zanchetta was too valuable to let go," said the Catholic Herald.
The prosecutor, Maria Soledad Filtrin Cuezzo, opposed Zanchetta leaving Argentina after he appeared to face the June 2019 charges. Nonetheless, he was allowed to depart after he showed he was employed by the Vatican, reported the CNA.
The late Cardinal Bernard Law, who ineptly handled some of the clergy sex abuse problems in Boston, Mass., which led to his retirement and relocation to the Vatican.
Cuezzo issued the new request for Zanchetta's arrest on Nov. 20 because, according to El Tribuno and reported by the CNA, the bishop "has has not responded to repeated telephone calls or emails to the contact information provided by his defense counsel."
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, at the Vatican, reportedly is investigating the allegations against Zanchetta, with the backing of Pope Francis. But it is not clear where Zanchetta is at this point as the Vatican Press Office has not answered queries about his whereabouts, reported the Catholic Herald.
Commenting on the case, Christopher Altieri at the Catholic Herald, said, "There may well be an element of grandstanding in the Argentine prosecutor’s decision to make the international capture request while Pope Francis is away in Asia. But even if it is so, that does not mean the prosecutor is merely grandstanding."
"The prosecution has a case it is ready to bring to trial, but can’t because the accused left the country with a puzzling note from a high-ranking Vatican official and now won’t respond to calls or emails sent to the Vatican addresses he gave the court," said Altieri.
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