De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

*SIGH* This was last week's big scandal which I sort of covered here . As reported in ALL the secular press, here in The Tablet , every Chilean bishop has offered his resignation to Pope Francis after a series of closed-door meetings with all 34 bishops at the Vatican this week, to discuss the abuse crisis in the country. The dramatic announcement followed the leaking of a 10-page letter to television channel T13, reportedly handed to the bishops at the start of this week’s discussions, in which Francis said removing bishops may be needed but would not be sufficient to solve the abuse crisis in Chile. In the letter Francis cites clericalist, elitist and authoritarian attitudes dominating in the Church and an urgent need to put Christ back at the “ecclesial centre”. "It would be irresponsible on our part not to delve into looking for the roots and the structures that allowed these [abuses] to happen and to be perpetuated,” the Latin American Pope explained. ...

So yesterday brought another great shock as ALL the Chilean Cardinals offered to resign en masse . Some background to this can be gleaned from  this post . If you are cynically minded, you might be thinking that is rather convenient. A resignation accepted closes the narrative without full process or assignment of culpability and application of penalty, it merely allows malefactors to assume indistinct responsibility and go quietly into retirement. Pope Francis' Motu Proprio - As A loving Mother  written by the Pope and published by the Vatican on 4th June 2016 makes it clear bishops CAN be removed from office, so why is this process not being used in regard to the guilty bishops in Chile? It would lead a cynical person to consider that this could even be some sort of stage managed PR stunt. Indeed, one might think this is a way for the Chilean bishops to avoid culpability, but it also leads to bigger questions. The whole debacle is about a priest, Father Ferna...

Marie Collins handing the letter detailing victims’ complaints of a sex abuse cover up in Chile to Cardinal Seán O’Malley on April 12th 2015. I can't believe I am reading the Tablet these days but it is born of some sort of morbid curiosity as I watch the Pope's former buddies organise themselves into a firing squad. You may remember I drew your attention to an article by Robert Mickens in La Croix on Jan 20th. Mickens continues to chase this story writing yesterday in the Tablet. The latest revelation is that, despite Pope Francis claim that "No one has come forward" he actually received an 8-page letter in 2015 detailing the abuse suffered at the hands of Fr Karadima (pictured above is the letter being given to Cardinal Sean O’Malley). The existence of this letter contradicts the Pope’s insistence that victims of Fr Fernando Karadima had not come forward to complain about a cover-up by Bishop Juan Barros, who Francis appointed to lead the Diocese...

Bishop Juan Barros Madrid, centre, during a Mass celebrated by Pope Francis, far right, on Thursday near Iquique, Chile. The Pope said there was "not one single piece of evidence" that Bishop Barros had protected a peadophile priest. Credit Vincenzo Pinto/Agence France Presse - Getty Images The papal plane stunt provided a great smoke-screen from the Pope awarding a extremist lgbt / pro-abortion politician a Knighthood in the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great  (although this was pretty well hidden among a plethora of awful ecclesial developments over the last week as I noted  in this post ). But there was another, much bigger issue which this PR stunt was perhaps designed to cover up, as Robert Mickens (not the most traddy journalist on the planet) points out in this La Croix article: Pope Francis has been away in South America this past week and, while in Chile, he drew only modest crowds of supporters. It was the frostiest recept...