There are now credible allegations that Pope Francis knew all about sexual misconduct allegations regarding disgraced Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, and that he attempted to cover them up and restore McCarrick to a public position. Those allegations, originally aired publicly by Cardinal Carlo Maria Vigano, have been supported by a variety of sources including the state attorney in Pennsylvania, who says the Vatican was aware of local abuses for years.
Now, you’d imagine that the media would be all over these allegations. After all, the media coverage of Boston archdiocese sexual abuse made headlines the world over, and became such a glorious moment for the press that it won them an Oscar in Spotlight. But instead of tracking down Francis and his acolytes for answers on whether the church looked the other way regarding both homosexual activity within the church and abuse of minors, the media have rushed to Francis’ defense. Why? Because Francis is widely perceived to share Leftist sensibilities regarding issues like climate change, illegal immigration, and homosexuality.
That’s why Cardinal Blaise Cupich hasn’t been run out of town on a rail for openly stating that “The Pope has a bigger agenda. He’s got to get on with other things, of talking about the environment and protecting migrants and carrying on the work of the church. We’re not going to go down a rabbit hole on this.” The media believe, like Cupich, that the abuse of children is of lower priority than climate change and illegal immigration. Furthermore, they fear that focus will be placed on a homosexual subculture within the church, some of whose participants have been linked with molestation; victims of church abuse have been disproportionately male, as Professor Katherine van Wormer wrote in 2010 at Psychology Today, “Outside of the Catholic Church, the overwhelming numbers of juvenile victims of sexual abuse are female. Within the church, however, four out of five of their victims are male.” That’s not to say that homosexuality is linked with child abuse; the data don’t bear out the idea that self-identified homosexual men are more likely to molest than self-identified heterosexual men. But regardless of all facts, members of the media would rather put children in danger to defend Pope Francis than report the accusations against the Vatican objectively.
This isn’t speculation. The members of the media are openly saying as much.
Take, for example, this headline from The New York Times: “Vatican Power Struggle Bursts Into Open as Conservatives Pounce.”
The scandal, you see, isn’t the head of the most powerful religious organization on the planet knowing about and covering for sexual abuses – it’s conservatives within the church calling him on it. Francis’ priorities must be maintained at all costs. The “news” piece opens this way:
Since the start of his papacy, Francis has infuriated Catholic traditionalists as he tries to nurture a more welcoming church and shift it away from culture war issues, whether abortion or homosexuality. “Who am I to judge?” the pope famously said, when asked about gay priests. Just how angry his political and doctrinal enemies are became clear this weekend, when a caustic letter published by the Vatican’s former top diplomat in the United States blamed a “homosexual current” in the Vatican hierarchy for sexual abuse. It called for Francis’ resignation, accusing him of covering up for a disgraced cardinal, Theodore E. McCarrick. With the letter — released in the middle of the pope’s visit to Ireland — an ideologically motivated opposition has weaponized the church’s sex abuse crisis to threaten not only Francis’ agenda but his entire papacy.
Yes, the anger is clearly at Francis’ political positions, not the allegations that he covered for a child molester. Only the leftist press could come up with such a morally obtuse position. But the Left sees Francis as an actual weapon against doctrine within the Church, and so they’ll prop him up no matter the moral consequences. Better to have a Pope who says soft things about homosexual practices than a Pope who stands up to doctrinal abuses, including the abuse of minors, after all. Priorities are priorities.
It’s not just the Times pushing the “conservatives pounce” narrative. It’s Reuters as well. Here was their tweet:
Yes, it’s conservatives escalating the war, not the Pope allegedly covering for sexual abuse. If you ever thought the media’s agenda was the protection of kids rather than the promotion of a specific political agenda, you thought wrong.
