Habemus papam! And, what's up with the style of Leo XIV?

Habemus papam! Wonder what was behind the "style" of Leo XIV? 

 

It may be because Leo XIII was known as Pope of the Workers.

 

Contra non-Pope Donald blathering about this being an honor for Merikkka, the former Cardinal Prevost stands for nothing he does. Most of his pre-Vatican ecclesiastical life was spent in Peru and he even has Peruvian citizenship. 

 

Wiki already has a page up on the former Robert Prevost. First thing to note? He's only 69. So, like his stylistic predecessor, who was the third-longest serving pope, he could be around a while. He also was hand-picked by Francis to get his cardinal's hat, and per the paragraph above, will continue down various social justice roads, while not necessarily having the same emphasis as Francis. In other words, contra the cliche, which is trite and not really true (see also Benedict XVI following John Paul II) "a fat pope followed a fat pope." 

 

His insider background, per Wiki's info? In 2019, Francis named him to the Congregation of the Clergy. That oversees matters related to "secular" versus "regular" clergy. A year later, named to the Congregation for Bishops, which oversees their appointment. So, he has a network that would have been building up for the past five years. That will have increased when he was named prefect, or overseer, of the organization in early 2023. (It should be noted that, a year earlier, Francis appointed the first women to the organization.)

 

In February of this year, he gets his cardinal's biretta. Remember that Francis is already hitting the finish line here, and the appointment would have certainly elevated his standing. The conclave CAN elect non-cardinals, but really, that doesn't happen. So, the elevation, and the timing, were certainly a papal kiss.

Prevost is not perfect. He's certainly not perfect on sexual abuse scandal issues, as Wiki notes. And, per the Pope Crave account on Shitter, he might not be as "good" as Francis on sexual orientation issues and matters related. A respondent to Pope Crave also notes that he's not as good, apparently, on handling of sexual abuse issues as his defenders suspect.

 

Final note: Prevost is on Shitter himself. And bagged on Bagger Vance three months ago:

 

JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others https://t.co/hDKPKuMXmu via @NCRonline

— Robert Prevost (@drprevost) February 3, 2025

So, there you go.

 

That said, for fundamental mainline Protestants who still follow Martin Luther or John Calvin on this? We have a new holder of the office of antichrist! Actually, per the link, as I've said before, good Lutheran or Calvinist theology would actually call the papacy "the man of lawlessness," and good biblical criticism distinguishes between that person, antichrist and the Beast of 666.

Right-wing US chickens home to roost with border influx of young Ill Eagles

The Dallas Morning News has a good summary of what's up with the recent surge of border crossings.

There's a few things to note, besides the biggie that these are primarily youth. (Sidebar: I'm surprised the wingnuts haven't unveiled the phrase "anchor teens" yet.) The second biggest is that, while the numbers are growing, the U.S. border isn't being overrun by 1 million, or even 100,000, Hispanic teenagers.

The next big thing is that these are not from Mexico. Rather, most of them are from Central America, specifically the so-called "northern triangle" of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

Commonality? U.S. meddling, sometimes going back decades, to prop up or install repressive right-wing governments.

Guatemala is the original banana republic, when Jacobo Arbenz was overthrown in a 1954 coup, launched by the CIA and done on behalf of United Fruit, parent of Chiquita Bananas. Sidebar: This is why Ike blathered about the military-industrial complex. He thought the snoops-industrial complex could do things like this cheaper, as it had already in Iran, and as Ike planned for it to do in Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.

Per that Wikipedia link:

Following the coup Guatemala was ruled by a series of US-backed military regimes until 1996. The coup sparked off the Guatemalan civil war against leftist guerrillas, during which the military committed massive human rights violations against the civilian population, including a genocidal campaign against the Mayans.

All of that contributed to a lack of stability that is tied to gang-related crime in Guatemala today.

El Salvador? This is where Reagan backed death squads in the early 1980s. 

Honduras? That's where Reagan built up a U.S. military presence in the 1980s, to support the aid to the death squads in El Salvador as well as the help to the "freedom fighters" trying to overthrow the democratically elected leftist government in Nicaragua. Can't forget about the burning U.S. hatred for the Sandanistas, can we? That said, Nicaragua has managed to have more stability than the above three countries, probably in part because the U.S. was never able to get the same foothold there.

That said, all four countries, including Nicaragua, have per capita incomes about one-third that of Mexico. Purchasing power may go farther, but still, that's a slim income. Also, while NAFTA only undercut Mexico's agriculture, CAFTA may have some similar effects further south.

So, between U.S.-caused instability, U.S.-connected violence, and possible U.S.-caused wage instability, is it any wonder that people from these countries are coming north?

Chickens coming home to roost.

And, that's not the only way they are.

In its own craven nod to McCarthyism, already back at the time of that Arbenz coup, the AFL-CIO was helping set up "friendly" unions in Latin America, many of which were little more than CIA listening posts.

And, the Reaganite anti-Communism of the 1980s, combined with conservative Catholics in both the U.S. and Latin America taking their cues from the papal ascent of John Paul II and kicking liberation theology, and a more liberal attitude toward birth control, to the curb had other consequences.

Result? On birth control? Guatemala having the highest birth rate in the Western Hemisphere. Honduras is second highest. They're both below a number of African and south Asian countries, but their rate is high enough to add to all the instability, with exploding populations.

On the rest of liberation theology? More liberal priests and bishops, and nuns, who challenged right-wing governments to do more for the poor, especially if they led protests and movements themselves, got reassigned. Ask Francis the Talking Pope about that, and his own involvement with the reassignments.

Of course, that ignores the more liberal church workers who, at least in places like Francis' Argentina, met the jails and torture cells of the right-wing dictators. Or sometimes, met their guns.

Take that, to a Texas lite guv candidate, The Stinking Anglo Formerly Known as Danny Goeb™. And no, they're not diseased, either.

So, yes, failure to actually go to the border may be Obama's Katrina moment, or at least something in the neighborhood. But, he's cleaning up a mess that's more Republican than Democratic.  (That's setting aside that neoliberal Democrats often went along for the GOP ride, especially on free trade.)

And, making it easier to throw the kids back across the border may be a short-term answer for the U.S. but it's not a long-term answer for us, nor any sort of answer at all for Central America.

I'm actually surprised it took this long for this much of a surge like this. That said, in the previous decade, when I was in suburban Dallas, my anecdotal evidence is that, based on young children's entries in elementary school projects, at least 10 percent of Hispanic immigration to America, if not more, was from further south than Mexico, namely, from Central America.

#CatholicMoment: Ross Douthat hits Ratzi the Nazi lying levels

Douthat's latest column bemoans the loss of Catholic social influence in the US from the death of John Paul II to the resignation of Benedict XVI, aka Ratzi the Nazi.

The lying starts here:

Indeed, between Mitt Romney’s comments about the mooching 47 percent and the White House’s cynical decision to energize its base by picking fights over abortion and contraception, both parties spent 2012 effectively running against Catholic ideas about the common good. 

The reality, of course, is that President Obama has pretty much bent over backward on Obamacare vis-a-vis Catholic hospital issues, etc. Catholic hospitals themselves, at least the one in Colorado trying to claim a fetus is not a person in order to dodge a lawsuit, have been running against their own ideas.

And, beyond recent lying over sexual abuse, you have a church that is institutionally anti-female on contraception, institutionally anti-sexuality on clergy celibacy, and, at the level of the Vatican treasury, speaking of lies, institutionally anti-social justice by "laying up treasures here on earth."

Add in Benedict's decision to stay in the Vatican post-resignation to avoid extradition (and we should de-recognize it) and it's clear nothing will change.

Thanks, Ross. I'll pass on any future "Catholic moments."

Ratzi the Nazi resigns — thoughts and questions

That's my pet phrase for, in case you haven't guessed it, Pope Benedict XVI, who probably did shock Catholics with his surprise resignation. The Guardian has a roundup of live reactions.

When's the last time a pope resigned, and at least semi-voluntarily at that?

Well, none since the Great Schism, which was non-voluntary, and possibly no voluntary ones ever, per Wikipedia.

Benedict cited his age, but that is surely only a partial factor. The ongoing sexual abuse crises, and the revelations that Benedict himself, when in charge of trying to clean up the mess under John Paul II, had done a half-assed, cover your priests' asses job, was surely a factor.

Per the first link:

The abuse scandals dominated his nearly eight years as leader of the world's Catholics. Before his accession, there had been scandals in the US and Ireland. But in 2010, evidence of clerical sexual abuse was made public in a succession of countries in continental Europe, notably Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway and Germany.

The pope was personally affected by one of these scandals. It emerged that, while he was archbishop of Munich, a known molester was quietly reassigned, allowing him in time to return to pastoral duties and make contact with young people.

The flood of allegations represented a vast setback for the project at the heart of Benedict's papacy. The goal he had set for himself, and for which he was elected, was to launch the re-evangelisation of Europe, Catholicism's heartland: it was why he adopted as his papal name that of the continent's patron saint, Benedict of Nursia. But if the numbers of the faithful in Europe as the pope leaves office are fewer than when he was elected, then – surveys repeatedly indicated – it is in large part because of anger and despair in the Catholic laity over the sex abuse scandals. ...

Before he was elected to be pope, Ratzinger undoubtedly tightened the procedures for dealing with paedophile, hebephile and ephebophile clerics. But critics have argued that a letter he issued in 2001 to dioceses around the world did not make sufficiently clear the responsibility of bishops to inform the civil authorities. Their frequent reluctance to do so was a key reason why evidence of sexual abuse did not surface earlier.

Insufficient vigour in the pursuit of his aims was a charge also levelled at Benedict after he became pope. He showed no interest, for example, in introducing specific reforms to filter out potential abusers before they were appointed to pastoral care. As he made clear in his 2010 letter to Irish Catholics, he believed that the sins of the clergy were an expression of insufficient sanctity rather than a product of defective procedures.

It was not until the same year that he created a Vatican department charged with the mission that was originally central to his pontificate. Even then, the so-called Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelisation was viewed by Vatican insiders as lacking clout.

The gist is, to me, that Benedict knew full well, long before coming pope, that the Roman Catholic Church in many countries around the world, and not just the US, had a ticking time bomb, or actually several.

He may have been sincere in trying to address the bomb of actual sexual abuse, but he tried to lock, shut and bolt the door on the bomb of legal liability. And, as we've seen in places like Los Angeles, this fish clearly rotted from the head down.

So, not for nothing does he get the name Ratzi the Nazi from me.

With all of John Paul II's conservative cardinal appointments in place, and Benedict/Ratzinger heading the modern successor to the Inquisition, his succession of John Paul II was almost guaranteed. He should have been prepared to do more about the sex abuse issues than he did.

Next question is ... is that College of Cardinals, and the Roman curia, prepared to take the next steps, and to get a new pope who will?

And, semi-faithful Catholics in the developed world must surely also be wondering if they're prepared to elect a more socially liberal pope in general. And, if they'll look for one, liberal or conservative, with the undeniable charisma of JPII.

For those of us who are atheists but not Gnu Atheists, to the degree the RC can be a force for good in the world, Ratzi's successor has a lot of work cut out for him. On those issues above, as the RC in the developing world remains strongly socially conservative, one wonders if a non-Westerner will get the puff of white smoke.

I think it's probably still a bit early for that, but, since a 2/3 vote is needed, their could be a lot of horse-trading inside the conclave of red hats.

Bill Keller tells more liberal Catholics, "don't get your hopes up" for somebody like a John Paul I (not II, but I, of alleged poisoning conspiracy). He notes that more than half the cardinals that will elect Benedict's successor were appointed by ... Benedict!

Benedict ascended because the Church – rather like the Republican Party – has gradually marginalized its moderates. And while we are now hearing Republican voices call for softening the rhetoric (if not moderating the agenda), the Catholic Church has heard no such wake-up call. The Vatican has an even lower tolerance for dissent than the Republican Party – and is more willing to accept a smaller, coherently conservative base. Benedict himself said before his elevation to the papacy that a smaller Church might be a better Church.

That said, speaking as a non-Gnu Atheist, you can always leave. Start a breakaway "American Catholic Church." Or vote with your feet enough to go to Mass less. And with your wallets enough to contribute less.

For example, Gary Wills is one of those Catholics who's beyond even the "cafeteria Catholic" stage, and I don't get why, if he wants to be religious and semi-high church and Western, he doesn't become Episcopalian or Lutheran. Or, if he wants to be even higher church than he is now, join Orthodoxy. I guess he prefers to keep kvetching rather than migrate. Talk about tribalism!

Meanwhile, speaking of Gnu Atheists, Slate has just reposted a 2010 column by Christopher Hitchens on the sex abuse scandal and coverup.

But, back to the non-Gnu that I am, and true skeptic.

In general, priests and ministers, taking all Christian denominations together, do NOT have a higher rate of being sexually abusive than the general adult population. However, they are in positions of trust, as are another stigmatized group, Scoutmasters, and a non-stigmatized group, school teachers.

That's not even counting incestuous sexual abuse, which makes up a clear plurality, at least, of sexual abuse in the US but is still largely taboo to discuss.

And, all of the above show that "stranger danger" is a myth that, if anything, is damaging itself when it comes from helicopter moms, especially, making them paranoid.

I'll talk more about this in a separate post.

Even child molesters need a patron saint?

Well, in just hours, their "man," Pope John Paul II, will be on the road to that distinction.

Wikipedia is in in the frenzy enough to have a new page just about Karol Wojtyla's beautification and (presumed) canonization, written by some Brit, I presume, using "s" for "z" in "canonization."

And, you'll find nothing about JPII's hiding, coddling, etc. of child molesters in his church's priesthood in Wikipedia's hagiography.

And, what "icon" will we have? Instead of a St. Christopher medal, a JPII phallus?

Pope Benedict goes paranoid with 'anti-hate' claim

Yep, that's the latest from the Vatican. Supposedly all the brouhaha over his cover-up of child sex abuse by Catholic priests, and all done so on behalf of his semi-sainted predecessor, John Paul II? It's part of a hate-based anti-Catholic plot.

Yes, non-Catholics hate the church for its anti-female, anti-contraceptive, anti-abortion, anti-gay-rights agenda.

Well, now, we learn, as of April 12, that it's not "everybody" that hates Catholics so much as it is ... those effing god-killing Jews.

A couple of months ago, supposedly, the Catholic Church was being persecuted like Jews in the Holocaust.

The Catholic Church is being persecuted BY JEWS.

(R)etired Bishop Giacomo Babini of the Italian town of Grosseto told the Catholic Pontifex website that the Catholic pedophile scandal is being orchestrated by the "eternal enemies of Catholicism, namely the freemasons and the Jews, whose mutual entanglements are not always easy to see through… I think that it is primarily a Zionist attack, in view of its power and refinement. They do not want the church, they are its natural enemies. Deep down, historically speaking, the Jews are God-killers."

What's that sound I hear from the Vatican? It's crickets, I believe.

Hey, Herr Ratzinger? Put the shovel down!

More seriously? I could give a rat's ass one way or the other about Catholic doctrine. OR about more liberal Catholics bitching about it. They can vote with their feet or their wallets. And, until they do, they can stop whining outside Catholic circles so much. Vote with your wallets, AND with an e-mail to your bishop, archbishop, etc. about a more liberal next pope, as well as a morth ethical one. (And, some antitoxin for John Paul III, since John Paul I obviously didn't have any.)

I do care if anybody breaks the law, especially something as egregious as child sexual abuse. I do care if people use positions of authority to help them break such laws. I do care if their compadres (pun intended, here) and superiors aid and abet their lawbreaking through cover-ups, stonewalling and similar actions. I do care if the world's only religious body to be recognized as an independent nation hides behind diplomatic law. I do care if it trivializes the Holocaust, which has roots all the way back in the First Pogram conducted by knights on the way to the First Crusade.

Beyond the child sex abuse scandal, Benedict Ratzinger has other problems back in his German homeland, anyway.

Uhh, Herr Ratzinger, when you get a chance, between child sex abuse woes and getting Jews mad, and speaking of that, you might want to tackle this:

A chapel built on a mountainside in Germany is turning into a shrine for neo-Nazis after it emerged that it was built with marble and grainte taken from the ruins of Adolf Hitler's luxury retreat.

A swastika was reportedly found carved into one of the wooden beams of the Wegmacher Chapel, which was built in 1997, while local residents claim a number of shaven-headed, leather jacket-wearing 'pilgrims' leave behind notes of praise to Hitler and candles burning in his memory.

It was only recently that the Bavarian government admitted that material from the wreckage of Hitler's retreat, the Berghof in Berchtesgaden, was used in the construction of the chapel.

Some of the stones are from the terrace of the Berghof - quarried by Jewish slave labourers in concentration camps.

Oh. My. Fucking. Doorknob. Why the German Catholic Church hasn't taken the simple solution and just razed this place to the ground, I have no idea.

Meanwhile, back to the sex abuse scandal. Plenty of Catholics in robes besides Herr Ratzinger need to put down their shovels.

First, in what is indeed appalling, the bishop of Tenerife, Spain, like U.S. rape case trials of 30 years ago, raises the old, ugly, "they were asking for it" angle, this time in relation to abused kids.

And, via Ed Brayton, George Neumayr, editor of Catholic World Report, claims that people like me really don't care about the kids. He doesn't go down the Vatican's Catholic-bashing angle; rather, he says, the non-Catholic secular culture is the real abuser of children.

Update, April 9: And now, we see Herr Ratzinger has real reason to be afraid. The AP has uncoverd a letter with Ratzi's on signature, opposing the defrocking of American priest Stephen Kiesle.

AP said the Rev Kiesle was sentenced to three years of probation in 1978 for lewd conduct with two young boys in San Francisco. It said the Oakland diocese had recommended Kiesle's removal in 1981 but that that did not happen until 1987.

Cardinal Ratzinger took over the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which deals with sex abuse cases, in 1981.

Yeah, but Herr Ratzinger was too busy serving as John Paul II's attack dog on Catholic liberals to take the time to deal with this.

Update, April 14:From one canard to another: Now it's the old claim that homosexuality causes pedophilia. If you're a gay priest, keep your head very low.

JPII sainthood takes a step back

I think it helps, when a would-be Catholic saint allegedly performs a miraculous healing, that the person should stay healed.

You've got a bit of a fail here, John Paul II. Maybe Herr Ratzinger will get the Vatican spin machine cranked up.