Our Pope's Promises

Our Pope Francis just celebrated his 5^th Anniversary. The world loves him because he at least tried to change the secretive ways of the Catholic Church. When he took the job of replacing a living Pope to take over the job, he inherited two major issues to deal with. There was the issue of Priests sexually abusing parishioners that was being ignored by the Church and Church finances going un-reported since the collection plate is still a cash donation. Five years ago he promised to deal with both issues but here we are five years later and nothing much has actually been done in the form of reforming the Catholic Church.

The Pope has at least publicaly addressed survivors. Pope Francis said, “God cries, the crimes of sexual abuse against minors cannot be kept secret any longer.” He did appoint a Commission in 2014 to investigate how the Church can deal with abuse cases. Now the problem is that as time went on and he approved policy changes not much has actually been changed. The Vatican is a large bureaucracy and as usual resists change of any kind. Does that mean the Pope is just a figure head? The implementation of Change in the Church hasn’t been done. We haven’t heard of any bishops being removed especially the ones who protected sexual abusing Priests. We haven’t even heard of any disciplinary procedures being taken.

Pope Francis even publically defended Bishop Juan Barros this past January who has been accused of covering up criminal Priests. The Pope called the allegations Fake News. When did anything ever that cropped up  become Fake News that a leader didn’t like about himself? Pope Francis has supported the clerical side in Chile and didn’t even talk to the survivors of abuse. This is all going back to the old days when the clergy believed other clergy but didn’t believe the victims.

Pope Francis pledged to reform the Vatican’s finances but nothing has changed in that department either in the past 5 years. It wasn’t until the middle of World War II, 1942, that the Vatican formed the famous Vatican Bank. Read Gerald Posner’s book called God’s Bankers that describes the history of money and power at the Vatican. He describes the money in the Church as something between Goldman Sachs and the Federal Reserve. There must be between $15-20billion dollars in terms of assets. The Vatican is a very wealthy organization. Their cash business comes from mostly money raised from Third World missions and around the word for charities.

Under previous Popes before Francis there was almost no accountability about the Vatican Bank. In terms of finances it was unpredictable in the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. Then Pope Benedict XVI comes in and was forced to put in some accounting rules by the European Union, but if you remember he was the flamboyant Pope who wore his flaming red designer shoes and chose to live in a palace. In Pope Francis’s first year it looked like he was going to provide accountability and change when he established his Council for the Economy. He made a Secretariat for the Economy, a whole new division that was intended to implement reform. He created an independent Auditor General designed to keep everyone honest. It all sounded so good 5 years ago.

Today there is no Auditor General. He quit last year. The Secretariat isn’t present so much of the original early promise of Francis hasn’t lived up to it just a few years afterwards. The Vatican has always been resistant to change. The Pope even joked about his failures. He said, “Reforming Rome is like cleaning Egypt’s sphinx with a toothbrush.” Pope Francis is still good at preaching good will but how long can he be respected without reform? It is Lent now and in a few weeks it will be Easter. Pray for the Pope to have clear leadership in the Catholic Church. We need a respected leader lately..