Pope Protects Abuser Priest, Now Returning to a Parish

As I said recently, Francis has protected or rehabilitated numerous abusers or their enablers. Rupnik is just the one that's in the news right now.

From One Peter Five

By Timothy Flanders

It has now been confirmed that the infamous Fr. Rupnik has been incardinated into the Slovenian diocese of Koper. This happened back in August, before Pope Francis made ostentatious moves to defend the priest and his organisation, while his ghastly artwork fills Rome’s churches and the synod website.

Rorate summarises the progress of Benedict:

As head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and Pope, Benedict XVI took pioneering measures to punish priestly sexual abuse. In so doing, he overcame resistance from an old guard in the Vatican who clung to prior practice. In 2002, Benedict XVI (as CDF head) embraced the ‘zero tolerance’ approach pioneered (under heavy pressure) by American bishops, requiring priests be defrocked over a single case of verified sexual abuse. Benedict codified ‘zero tolerance’ as the approach of the universal Church in 2010. Benedict XVI (also as CDF head) allowed the statute of limitations to be waived for clerical abuse cases, allowing for expulsion based on abuse dating back decades. He created expedited procedures for abuse cases, dispensing with lengthy appeals. And Benedict XVI defrocked scores of sexually abusive clerics– including powerful abusers who had been protected for decades such as Italian Father Gino Burresi, founder of the Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legion of Christ. Both were adjudged guilty and barred from public ministry in the early months of Benedict’s papacy. Benedict XVI was also the first Pope to meet with victims of clerical sexual abuse, a gesture he repeated several times. Benedict also wrote on priestly sexual abuse prolifically and insightfully.

As in so many other areas, Pope Francis has undone all that progress.

What is telling is that Mr. Mike Lewis, the consistent Francis defender, has this to say about this new development in the saga of Rupnik, (with Mr. Robert Nugent offering an important observation):

Dr. Edward Feser, therefore, comments:

Even some of the pope’s biggest admirers are finding it hard to excuse his leniency toward the diabolical Fr. Rupnik. As the scales fall from their eyes, here is one of many hard questions they need to consider. Is there a connection between the pope’s theology and his leniency toward Rupnik and other abusers? The pope says much about mercy, but little about repentance; has a discomfort with punishment that is so extreme that he opposes life imprisonment even for mass murderers; appears to allow for Holy Communion for adulterers even without firm purpose of amendment; has said that sexual sins are the “least serious sins”; and so on. Is it really an accident that someone with such views would give a man like Fr. Rupnik a pass?

This seems to be the lamentable application of this “medicine of mercy for the Antichrist.” The conspiracy of the fallen angels has pleaded for mercy, in order that they may implement their designs. Heretics aligned with good faith Catholics who sought to impose this excess of mercy in a way that has obscured justice, and the Third Pornocracy has been strengthened.

God has permitted all of this in punishment for our sins. Let us be humbled under the mighty hand of God and turn to Our Lady of Fatima and do penance for the conversion of sinners.

O God I believe, I adore, I trust and I love You.

I ask pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not trust, do not love You.