Tuesday, July 12, 2016

The Pope's Secular Appointments

A pope who does not speak the language of Catholic conservative doctrine, on July 11, 2016, appointed a secular Spanish woman, Paloma García Ovejero, who "speaks Spanish, English, Italian and Chinese," as the Vatican's new deputy spokeswoman [1] and named a secular American, Greg Burke, a celibate member of Opus Dei per John L Allen Jr. and "a former Fox and Time correspondent from St. Louis as his personal spokesman and director of the Vatican press office." [2]

"Speaking of their meeting with the Pope, García Ovejero said that Francis was 'tender,' but also 'serious and firm. He said clearly that fidelity, loyalty, and transparency are the most important things in communications.'"

It is difficult to imagine how a Vatican spokesperson, whether a member of the clergy or of the secular world, who is loyal to this pope, as opposed to God, can be transparent in his or her communications in any language with the Vatican's sex and financial scandals still being shrouded under layers upon layers of secrecy.

Just two days before the appointments, on July 9, 2016, the pope "reversed a 2014 law that had transferred the main operational section of the patrimony office [Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See ("APSA")] to Pell's Secretariat for the Economy.  ...[Cardinal George] Pell, a longtime critic of the Vatican's financial inefficiencies, had assumed control in a bid to assert authority over different areas of the Vatican's finances." [4]

With his reversal, the pope had in effect "restore[d] several important functions to [the allegedly mismanaged and possibly corrupt] APSA [under Cardinal Domenico Calcagno] that had been given to Pell’s department in 2014," [5] in order to have a clear separation of duties between operations and supervision, as if those who supervise (Pell's people) are able to examine, verify and approve in real time every time an action taken by those (Calcagno's people) who actually hold the cash.  If this were a true separation of powers with checks and balances, the "[o]ne local news agency [would not have] bottom-lined the result this way in its headline: 'The Italians win!'" [6]

The Italians might very well have won, but did God win?  Did God really choose this politically crafty and rather secular pope to be the successor of Peter?  If God had given Saint Malachy his vision, then God probably did choose him so that the saint's prophesy could be fulfilled. [7]  Only time will tell if he is truly "Peter the Roman" and the last pope.

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