The Pope is not serious about the corruption in the hierarchy
My husband posted this commentary on his site:
Waiting for episcopal reform? Nighty-night, baby.
Today the Vatican announced that Pope Francis has appointed Cardinal Tobin to the Congregation for Bishops, the Vatican body charged with choosing new bishops.
He quotes what our friend Fr. Mankowski SJ emailed to us on the occasion -- that as long as Tobin retains his miter, we simply know that no one in the hierarchy is serious about corruption in the hierarchy. I urge you to read it.
Fr. Mankowski was wroth. Here is what he followed up with, after a bit of further commentary on Rod Dreher's "put the best construction on the matter" post, and I think it's important to internalize what he is saying:
Remember the beginning of Bonfire of the Vanities, when Sherman McCoy slips out of his apartment to phone his mistress and hears his wife say, "Sherman, is that you?" He had dialed his home phone number by mistake, and even though he tried to bluff his way out of it, his marriage is on the rocks from that point onward.
Tobin's tweet is just as unequivocal and just as final. Rod misses the point by casting around to see if any of Tobin's sisters actually have Twitter accounts. We and the other 3.2 billion persons with internet access also understand perfectly well what the tweet was. [I am somewhat redacting here, as those familiar with Fr. M's style will know that he kept things salty and vivid.]
If the other bishops genuinely believed extra-marital sex was a sin, and if they genuinely believed that sin was harmful to the human person, they would have called Tobin's bluff.
He is saying that we can't ignore what we know -- at the cost of souls.