![]() ![]() Cardinal Danneels met the victim and, unaware that he was being recorded, told him to shut up about the abuse until the revelation would cause less embarrassment. In 2010, shortly after the very liberal Danneels retired, Bishop Roger Vangheluwe of Bruges admitted to his former boss that he had been sexually abusing his own nephew. No one paid any attention at the time, but one of the cardinals who joined the “humble” new pope on the balcony 10 years ago was the late Godfried Danneels, former Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels. The truth - unforgivably obscured by a mainstream media that relies on papal allies for “commentary” on Vatican affairs - is that Francis himself, both before and after his election, has empowered and protected predatory clergy and their accomplices. They had elected a man about whom they knew little: a divisive and intellectually lazy clerical politician.īut that is not the worst of it. More from this author Is this the end of Pope Francis?Īnd so began one of the darkest decades in the 2,000-year history of the Catholic Church. He rang his newsagent in Buenos Aires to tell him to stop delivering the papers. The media were charmed by these faux-humble stunts. The next morning, Francis turned up at the counter of the Domus to pay his bill in person. His disarming manner sent the crowd into an ecstasy of cheering. The new pope, who had chosen the name Francis after the medieval saint who embraced extreme poverty, walked on to the balcony of St Peter’s minus the traditional gorgeously embroidered stole. The white smoke billowed forth and the bells of St Peter’s rang out to confirm the election (a recent innovation, just in case the accident-prone Vatican sends out black smoke by mistake). When it was over, 90 out of 115 had backed Bergoglio. ![]() The fifth ballot was merely an opportunity for as many cardinals as possible to vote for the winner. By the fourth ballot, the Argentinian Jesuit was unstoppable. On Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, the horse-trading began, carried out sotto voce during meal breaks and rest periods in the Domus Sancta Marthae, a cross between a five-star hotel and a prison where the cardinals are incarcerated between ballots. ![]() Likewise, no one doubted that Bergoglio - who had been a nightclub bouncer before becoming a Jesuit priest - was looking forward to knocking heads together. When he announced that, at 85, he no longer had the strength to do the job, few cardinals doubted that the so-called “Vatileaks” were to blame. The old pope was not personally implicated, but he clearly didn’t have a clue what to do about it. The year before, Benedict XVI’s butler had leaked documents revealing the industrial-scale blackmailing of senior clerics with an appetite for gay sex parties and money-laundering. But, of all the candidates, he seemed the most determined to clear out the filth in the Vatican. Most commentators had written off Bergoglio because he was 76. ![]()
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