Faith and Flag?

One week after getting confirmed in the Roman Catholic Church, the church of my birth, I had a disturbing experience at Mass today.

The service began with the priest speaking about Memorial Day and asking that we show respect for those who have died in service of the United States.  That was fine by me, but a parishioner marked the moment by carrying a large American flag to the altar, where he placed into a flag stand where the very same flag always rests.

Although today as the observation of the Pentecost, the priest's homily linked the Pentecost to the values of patriotism and the celebration of freedom and liberty in America. Freedom and liberty in an America run by Donald Trump? Every Catholic homily in every parish in the world was devoted to the Pentecost, because homilies are always based on the same Scriptures on any given Sunday, but how many Pentecost homilies in other parts of the world were associated with patriotism and nationalism?  Not many, to be sure, since the association in my priest's homily was part of the Memorial Day theme, but even in countries observing national holidays in late May, would there be any nationalistic homilies?

The closing hymn at Mass in my parish was "America the Beautiful," which, despite the mention of God, is mostly a secular song celebrating the nation's natural beauty and is more national anthem material (and it's a pity it's not our national anthem) than a sacred song  Earlier, the vocalist sang "God Bless America," one of those songs that would have offended Jeremiah Wright. When I walked outside after Mass ended, I notices small banners on the lawn like the one below, celebrating America's 250th birthday and celebrating "faith, family and freedom" - and Trump has done an excellent job in severely damaging all three. And, of course there were manty miniature flags on display.  I was so upset about the nationalism in today's Mass that I bumped into a chain-link fence post backing my car out of the parking space. (Don't worry, both my car and I are fine.)

This all obviously made an impression on me.  Hey, why fib?  It may be true that Pope Leo XIV is an American and obviously cares about the moral turpitude and the hypocritical un-Christian behavior of MAGA supporters, some if not many of whom are Catholics, but Leo doesn't see the Church as being a personal dominion and a reflection of his own Americanism.  It's a universal church, which is what the word "catholic" means.  Unlike Leo, though, many of his forebears in the American Church have tried to guide the faithful in a uniquely American understanding of the Gospels to link the faith to American values.  This has been a tradition so longstanding and so disturbing that the previous Leo, Pope Leo XIII, who reigned in the late nineteenth century, complained to his American bishops about it. 

I recommitted myself to the Church not out of patriotism but to put my trust in God and honor the Holy Father and his agenda for the Church - help for the poor, support for life from cradle to grave, humility toward the Holy Trinity.  I did not recommit myself to the Church to worship at the altar of the United States of America.  If I wanted to devote myself to a faith that imagines Jesus as an embodiment of American values, I'd have become a Mormon.

I'm sure I mentioned this here on my blog before, but when I went to France and Germany, I could count the national flags in Catholic cathedrals there on zero fingers.   European Catholicism, given its history of integration with the state, is now dissociated from secular governments that run Catholic-majority countries like France, Ireland and Italy.  In France, as part of the need to separate church and state, the government owns the houses of worship and gives the Church the right to use the buildings for free - unlike in America, where the Church owns the houses of worship and gets tax exemptions.  Also, American Catholics, having fought hard for acceptance by the Protestant majority, have traditionally emphasized patriotism to demonstrate their devotion to this country.  But how can American Catholics continue to do so when a Christian nationalist dictatorship led by the least religious President in U.S. history is attempting to construct the most repressive society since the Third Reich?  While Leo continues to move the Church in a more humanistic direction and speak out against Trump's inhumane policies, many MAGA Catholics decry the pope's involvement in politics (he's a head of state, how can he not be involved in politics?) and denounce the Church's direction toward humility and acceptance since the abdication of Pope Benedict XVI.  (Noted MAGA Catholic Steve Bannon considered Pope Francis a disaster.)  The American Church should not be celebrating America as an extension of the faith, and certainly not in this semiquincentennial year of American independence.  The liberty that America supposedly represents cannot be seen as integral to or entwined in the Catholic faith when the United States has curtailed liberty under Trump.

In other words, the Church should be illuminating the lack of freedom and justice in America rather than celebrate the freedom and justice it only nominally represents today.  It should be resisting, not celebrating, the America that exists now.  And, given my secessionist views, the Church should be prepared for the fall of the United States as sure as the European empires it once consecrated dissolved.

Every Sunday after Mass, in addition to praying for my late mother, I'm always praying for the cancer in Washington to be removed and by any means that God deems necessary and just. As noted before in this space, I have already decided that my allegiance is to the Holy Father in Rome, not to the Antichrist in Washington.

I Bow to Rome, Not Washington

Today is a milestone in my life.  After failing to get confirmed in the Roman Catholic Church, the church of my birth, when I was supposed to back when I was thirteen, I finally received the Holy Spirit and entered into fellowship with my fellow parishioners.

How did I miss getting confirmed when I was a kid?  Let's just say that, despite the traditions of Catholic confirmations, Jewish mitzvahs, and Mormon lay priesthood indoctrinations at the age of thirteen, that age, according to my own personal experience, is an extremely inappropriate age for the clergy to confer adult status on any child. 

I chose as my confirmation name Linus, after the saint to became the first successor to the Apostle St. Peter after the apostle was martyred via inverted crucifixion.   As I explained on my Facebook timeline, where I first announced the good news, Peter had established his ministry in Rome at the direction of Jesus and, with the followers he attracted, built the foundation for the Roman Catholic Church as we know it today. When Peter was martyred, Linus assumed leadership of Rome’s Christians and led the new church under difficult circumstances, and Linus himself was martyred after twelve years as the bishop of Rome. Linus was succeeded by Anacletus, and with that succession, the Holy See was firmly in place, thanks in no small part in Linus’s work as the bishop of Rome. Saint Linus represents starting from the beginning. I only returned to the Church recently and I have been confirmed 47 years late, so this is very much for me a beginning.

Unfortunately, for me and my fellow initiated Catholics in my parish, today was also the day of Rededicate 250, a Christian jubilee of recommitting These States to Jesus Christ, or at least the stern, stoic, authoritarian Jesus Christ that MAGA evangelical Christians revere unreservedly.  In addition to the usual fundamentalist charlatans and snake-oil salesmen who make up the MAGA Christian nationalist clergy, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who served his long-awaited last day as archbishop of New York three months ago, also officiated.  It was mostly a gathering of misanthropic clerics who want Americans to live a life of Christian fundamentalist self-repression and control through the federal government - and oh yes, ostracize Jews and Muslims.  And, despite the presence of Cardinal Dolan and MAGA Bishop Robert Barron, Catholics, whom MAGA Christian leaders like Pete Hegseth's pastor regard as enemies of the state.  Because, apparently we bow to a Roman dictator.

That's pretty rich from Christian nationalist Trump supporters who bow to a golden calf. 

Or should I say a golden jackass?

This monstrosity was unveiled recently at Trump's Doral golf club outside Miami.  It was dedicated by one of Trump's "spiritual advisors."  

I have a feeling that mime artists who make a living as living statues of gold will need to pick another color.

How about white?  Trump likes that!

Count me out.  By getting confirmed, I rededicated myself to a church with beautiful and enduring traditions and principles, the church of Rome, the church of my family.  I have also turned away from the land of my birth.  I am turning away from the American ideals that have propped up this nation and the reality of the U.S. as it is today, der Amerikanisches Reich.  I will direct my attention to the Vatican, and as always, I will commit myself to following the Holy Father in Rome - not the Antichrist in Washington.

And don't be surprised if the Church identifies the United States as an oppressor that must be broken up into smaller entities.   

Pope Leo XIV - One Year On

There can be no doubt that Pope Leo XIV, the first American pontiff, was selected by the voting members of the College of Cardinals in May 2025 to be a talisman against Donald Trump.  Leo is a champion of immigrants, he had ministered to the poor in Peru as Bishop Robert Prevost, he opposes nationalism, and he is pro-life in that he supports government aid for women and children and opposes capital punishment - two positions that puts him at odds with MAGA in the U.S.

The pope has spent the past year appointing new bishops and archbishops, particularly in the U.S., that are less confrontational and more belligerent in an effort to promote the humanity and the compassion taught in the Gospels as opposed to a more militant Christianity promoted by Catholic and evangelical rank-and-file believers alike.  His biggest problem, however, remains Donald Trump.  Trump is to Leo what Polish strongman Wojciech Jaruzelski had been to John Paul II, a political leader from the pontiff's homeland making trouble for his people that the pontiff must stand up against and react to.  And, like Jaruzelski, Trump is being prompted by the Kremlin in Moscow.

Leo has had to deal with the slings and arrows from Trump, who has questioned his integrity as a religious leader and as a head of state (the Vatican papal state)  and has tried to undermine his authority as the spiritual leader of his fellow American Catholics, many of whom inexplicably (unless you've heard of the word "hypocrisy") voted for Trump in 2024.  Trump is to find out that he's met his match.  Leo knows more about the Christian faith and the Gospels than Trump pretends to, and he leads a Church that has persisted for two thousand years, assembled by St. Peter and led in the wake of St Peter's martyrdom by St. Linus, who established the bishopric of Rome that is now the modern papacy.  He's held off Trump quite well so far.  He's in a good position to bring Trump down that way John Paul II brought down Communism in Eastern Europe.

One question, however, remains to be answered.  If Pope Leo XIV is America's John Paul II, who is our Lech Wałęsa?  Maybe after the midterms, we'll find out.

His Holiness Pope Leo XIV

I announce to you a great joy; we have a pope who scares the hell out of the MAGA movement!

Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost is now His Holiness Pope Leo XIV.  And his elevation to the papacy is the Roman Catholic Church's way of challenging Donald Trump and the more reactionary elements of the American Church - perhaps the most socially conservative national Church within Catholicism - with a new Holy Father who will remain faithful to Pope Francis' mission for the Church to be more welcoming to the ostracized and shunned elements of society, more committed to preserving the environment and saving the planet, and providing charity and comfort to migrants.  Pope Leo is for all of these objectives; MAGA is for crushing them.  Leo also took his name in honor of the previous pope of that name - Leo XIII (1878-1903), the former Gioacchino Pecci, who in his 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum argued for social justice for industrial workers, the right of workers to organize, and the right to a living wage. 

And MAGA is really pissed off about that! 

Furthermore, Leo is an American, and he is likely to preach his message of fairness and charity directly to American Catholics and sympathetic non-believers, which is an obvious threat to the American reactionary power structure created by Trump and his confederates.  Leo is in a position to stoke the flames of resistance to MAGA, and he is likely to foster a new covenant between American Catholics and migrants from Latin America, rooted in what he learned from parishioners of his ministries in Peru. 

Leo's election is an acknowledgment that the United States is no longer so powerful that the world would fear an American heading a Church of 1.4 billion followers.  It's a statement that the United States, long a colossus of unilateralism and unfettered strength, is merely a paper tiger that must be humbled by one of its fellow countrymen.  Leo, as the priest-king of Vatican City, is yet another world leader who has been chosen to oppose Donald Trump in the aftermath of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's election and the return of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to office.

Leo is likely to use his position to urge American Catholics to continue to resist Trump and the MAGA movement without violence, and he could purge the more conservative elements of the American clergy.  The Church is now an instrument to pull at the thread of MAGA and have the whole enterprise unravel.  The last pope to have such an impact on a similar threat to world peace, John Paul II, was able to encourage his homeland of Poland and other Catholic populations in eastern Europe to stand for their faith and their rights in resisting communism; the resistance he fostered ended up bringing down the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics without a shot fired in anger.

All American Catholics with a conscience should renounce Trump and accept Leo XIV, the Holy Father, the sovereign of the Vatican papal state, as their one and only leader.  There are only two followers they can choose from.  One is the Holy Father, the representative and voice of God on Earth, and he points the way to a fair and just life in the light of goodness; the other, as described in 2 Thessalonians, is the lawless one, "the one destined for destruction. He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, declaring himself to be God."

Donald Trump is not my President, and he never will be.  My leader is the Holy Father, His Holiness Pope Leo XIV.

And once Trump put out an AI picture of himself as the pope, it only makes sense that the Vatican would deliver swift and severe punishment.

Defiler of the Faith

Donald Trump has done something I never expected him to do.  He offended American Catholics - the majority of whom have supported him at the polls - and somehow got progressives - among whom one would find many with anti-Catholic attitudes - to sympathize with them.  And he did it by doing someone he did that I once thought was too low even for him.

He posted an AI image of himself as the pope.

The blasphemous image was so offensive to Catholics that what Ira Levin, Roman Polanski, Madonna, Sinead O'Connor, Dan Brown and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence failed to do - offend Catholics to the point where those outside the faith would be equally appalled (indeed, many non-Catholics applauded O'Connor for tearing up a picture of Pope John Paul II on live TV and identifying him as the "evil" referred to in Bob Marley's "War") -  Trump managed to do with a text-free picture worth more than a thousand words.

Someone somewhere online suggested that, if our lapsed Presbyterian "President" were to be elected pope, he should take the name Adolf the Turd.

As for the upcoming conclave, which begins Wednesday, my hope is that the Church will choose someone who will continue Pope Francis' reforms and his efforts to offer a more benevolent Church devoted to devotion to Christian principles such as charity and social justice.  That is exactly the sort of pontiff that the Church ought to select in the face of the demonic cruelty that Trump is trying to impose not just on the United States but upon the world.

My biggest fear is that a doctrinaire conservative like Pope Pius XII, whom my father was raised Catholic under and whose reign he spent his entire childhood and adolescence under, and thus received so much psychological damage from as a result, will succeed Francis and appoint another right-winger like Cardinal Dolan as archbishop of New York, which is the closest the U.S. Church has to a national patriarch, or a "primate."  But the only way  I can see that happening is if the cardinals choose someone more out of strategy than out of faith.  Cardinal Pacelli became Pope Pius XII in March 1939 largely because he had been the Vatican Secretary of State and was seen as someone who could deal diplomatically not just with Benito Mussolini in Italy (who would invade Albania just a month earlier) but also with Adolf Hitler, who in March 1939 annexed Czechoslovakia, forced heavily Catholic Lithuania to cede its seaport city of Klaipeda (once the German city of Memel) to the Reich, and began threatening heavily Catholic Poland to agree to German annexation of the Free City of Danzig and a strip of land across the Polish Corridor along the Baltic to connect the German exclave of East Prussia with the rest of the Reich.  Pius had become pope in a Vatican effort to play games of state and diplomacy to deal with the devil.  What the Church got was a pope who cracked the whip of authority and kept the faithful in line long after the Axis Powers were defeated in the Second World War. 

If we get another pope in the Piusian mold, the Church may not be finished, but it will deserve every derision it gets from progressives who fear and loathe the Vatican for its patriarchy and misogyny but excuse Islam despite the fact that it has the same flaws.  Of course, the whole hypocrisy of progressive relativists who go after the Church of Rome but turn a blind eye to the reactionary attitudes of mullahs who regularly make a pilgrimage to Mecca should have been exposed long ago. 

I once respected Bill Maher for his anti-Catholic views, actually, because he is is an atheist who bashes all religions and has also been virulently critical of Islam, and he's been consistent in his defense of Western civilization over the politically and religiously restrictive Middle Eastern culture that progressives excuse out of some twisted, anti-Western solidarity with non-Western and Third World perspectives that remain stuck in the Dark Ages.  Now, of course, Maher praises Trump, who threatens to bring us back to the Dark Ages, while conservative Catholic and evangelical figures applaud his medieval agenda.  And then there is actor Ben Affleck, who once excoriated Bill Maher to his face on Maher's HBO show or being an Islamophobe yet did not challenge him for his anti-Catholic views. 

Bill Maher . . .  Ben Affleck . . . I wouldn't buy a used car from either of them.  

The Next Pope

With Pope Francis having been laid to rest, the Roman Catholic Church is now taking a breather known as an "interregnum" while the College of Cardinals assess each other and try to figure out who the next pope should be.  Then, a week from today, the conclave to select a new Holy Father begins in the Sistine Chapel (below). 

I'm not going to go through any potential candidates for the next pope, because there are too many of them and the next Holy Father might very well be someone no one's considered.   But there are obvious considerations among the cardinals as to what is required of the next pope at a time when Roman Catholicism is under immense pressure to adapt to modernity and at a time when Donald Trump, the most amoral world leader in eighty years (literally - Adolf Hitler committed suicide eighty years ago today), has unlimited power that threatens humanity.  Also, the Church must decide if it wants to continue along the trajectory that Francis set it on - now more likely given how Trump is happy to send migrants from predominantly Catholic countries to a torture chamber in a place ironically named for Jesus Christ Himself.

The cardinals believe that God chooses the the pope through divine guidance in their "scrutinies," or ballots, based on a two-thirds majority of those voting.  Because the pope, as the leader of the sovereign Vatican state, is a priest-king, he assumes monarchical trappings, from a title ("His Holiness") and a throne to regnal name, leaving his past name and identity behind.  Usually there's nothing in a name, but the new pope's choice of a name usually speaks volumes for how he envisions which path the Church should follow.  If the next pope chooses to be called Pius XIII or Gregory XVII, Catholics who yearn for reform in the Church will have to abandon all hope, as the last popes to take the names Pius and Gregory were doctrinaire reactionaries.  A pope who plans to continue Francis' reforms will likely either take his name or maybe become John XXIV or Leo XIV.  (Pope John XXIII began the last great reforms in the Church by calling the Second Vatican Council; Pope Leo XIII, the last pope of the nineteenth century, is best remembered for his 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, which advocated for workers' rights.)  And it would be a breath of fresh air if the next pope takes an unprecedented name like, say, Thomas, after the skeptical apostle who demanded that his doubts we satisfied. 

One other thing.  Many Catholics, particularly American Catholics, fear and dread the notion of an American being chosen as pope, which has become a distinct possibility, given the U.S. Church's virulent arch-conservatism and hostility to modernity.  Even if the next pope is an American, that's no reason to fear the absolute worst.  The Catholic Church, as its name suggests, is a universal church; it is not rooted in American exceptionalism.  That's the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  

RIP Pope Francis

I was shocked to learn of Pope Francis's death after he appeared to be on the mend from an illness.  He was a pope as a pope should be, caring for the poor, speaking out for migrants, and being tolerant toward homosexuals as well as reconciling faith in the Savior to the need to preserve the environment.

Unfortunately, he did not change the trajectory of the Roman Catholic Church permanently, as the Church eventually drifts back to a more traditionalist ideology once a more modern pope leaves the scene.  There are some virulent critics of Francis in positions of power in both Europe and North America, and in the U.S., that goes double.  The American Church has too many cardinals and archbishops who bristle at reform and remain rooted in reactionism.  Many of them opposed Francis's efforts to modernize the Church, and some of them, like Cardinal Dolan, the archbishop of New York - the closest the United States to a primate, or a national Church patriarch - has been friendly to Donald Trump.

It is the specter of Trump which the Church must fight back against in the same way Pope John Paul II led his energies in the fight against the leadership of the Soviet Union.  Trump has already compromised the global community with his intransigence, his bigotry, and his narcissism.  The Roman Catholic Church should be as strong a bulwark against the fascist tyranny of Trump as it was against Soviet Communism.  

While many of the faithful fear an emergence of an American-backed pontiff who will pursue a temporally arch-conservative agenda, we ought to just catch our collective breath and calm down once Francis' funeral is behind us and just sit back and take it easy through the interregnum.  

Pope Francis - Ten Years

As I consider recommitting myself to the Roman Catholic Church - the church I was baptized in, a church I slipped away from but never actually left - I ponder a decade of Pope Francis on the throne of Peter. 

This pope has revitalized the Church in a way unseen since in the 1980s, when Pope John Paul II was in his prime and led the peaceful resistance against Communism that liberated eastern Europe, reunified Germany and instigated the dissolution of the Soviet Union (which was set into motion by the secession ordinance passed by Lithuania, the only Catholic-majority ex-Soviet republic).  Pope Francis has expressed greater concern for the poor than many of his recent predecessors, and he continues to live simply in a guest apartment at the Vatican, spurning the more luxurious penthouse residence.  He has also preached for preserving the environment, recognizing God's hand in the creation of life and the need to preserve all life on the planet.  His work for the poor and for the earth is an extension of the Catholic "culture of life" that not only stands against abortion but urges care for the sick and respects human dignity even for the most wretched among us, standing against the barbarism of capital punishment.   

And even though he has yet to liberalize the Church's teachings that restrict the priesthood to men (and likely won't), he has appointed more women to lay positions than any other pope before them, and he has made it clear that homosexuality is not a crime and non-heterosexual Catholics are not sinners.  "Who am I to judge?"  He has furthered his dialogue with other Christian and also non-Christian faiths and, in an underreported event that would have seemed unthinkable only ten or twenty years ago, the Holy Father received the Living Prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  Pope Francis received LDS church president Russell Nelson in Rome in March 2019, when Nelson was there to dedicate the LDS church's Rome temple.  Their agreement on the need to promote religious freedom, help the unfortunate and work for peace was the first step in improving relations between two churches that have long viewed each other with suspicion and fear.

That is the Franciscan way - not being judgmental, not being dour, and always look at the brighter and more optimistic vision of the faith that of the living God and the dwelling of the Holy Spirit in all of us.  It's a way of guiding the Roman Catholic Church that will continue to serve Pope Francis for the rest of hid reign.  

Habemus Problem

It was five years ago today that Cardinal Jorge Medina Estevez of Chile announced to the world that Catholics had a new pope, Benedict XVI. While I'm sure the Pope is marking the fifth anniversary of his reign, I'm also certain that he's not celebrating it.

Pope Benedict, who turned 83 on Friday, was chosen in part for his advanced age - after a quarter century and change with John Paul II on the throne of Peter, the College Of Cardinals wanted a caretaker pontiff who wouldn't last too long. Maybe he already has. Benedict has in fact reigned longer than John XXIII by five months, and he does not see himself as a caretaker of the Church, but he has hardly left an enduring mark on the papacy like John, who called the Second Vatican Council to recommit the Church to the times, did. As noted earlier, Pope Benedict XVI's pontificate is devoted to a continuity of the Johannpauline period, and as a member of the Catholic laity (and a lapsed member at that), I have yet to see this Pope taking the Church in any particular or distinctive direction. He keeps insisting that he does not intend to be a caretaker, and with the ongoing sex abuse scandals, it's obvious that he can't merely be a caretaker.

Alas, the Holy Father's handling of the situation is lamentable at best. It's easy to see why, during the conclave that elected him, the former Joseph Ratzinger prayed to God that he wouldn't be chosen and hoped to retire from his role as prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith and return to Germany. Benedict has expressed regret and attempted to apologize on behalf of the Church regarding this scandal without admitting any negligence or error on his part. He parses his words similar to how noted heretic John Lennon did when he explained his remark that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ, except that Lennon had good reason to do so (and the Vatican accepted his apology).

To be fair, Benedict had a tough act to follow, succeeding a larger-than-life pontiff who just about singlehandedly liberated eastern Europe from Communism - he is like Andrew Johnson to John Paul II's Abraham Lincoln. But his inability to get a grasp on the sex abuse scandal shows how is own personality has conspired against him. Benedict is a rather stubborn fellow, usually relying on his own instincts and conclusions - which is to be expected, given his introverted character - and he still comes across as the taciturn professor from the University of Regensburg that he used to be (and, officially at least, still is). He's lecturing his audience and only occasionally accepting contrary input in return.

Although there's a precedent for popes not serving out their lifetime reigns - Martin I was dethroned and kidnapped in 653 by an Eastern patriarch for refusing to legitimize Monothelitism, a belief that Jesus had two natures but only one will - Benedict is unlikely to abdicate or be dethroned, and the best we can hope for is that the Holy Father will handle the Church crisis better going forward. More likely, he will continue to bear the papacy like a cross while the Vatican continues to protect him.

A Benedictine Mess

It may be an understatement to say that the Roman Catholic Church is in its greatest crisis since the rudderless drift it experienced in the 1970s, but it suits the circumstances well enough. Pope Benedict XVI is apparently at a loss over what to do about clerical sex and physical abuse scandals dating back over fifty years. Indeed, he seems to have trouble accepting the fact that they actually happened.

No one can blame Benedict for all of the child molestation cases, obviously, but he can be held responsible for not addressing them in a forthright manner. He shows more regret than remorse about cases in the United States and Ireland, and he seems oblivious to the charges of possible connections to similar cases in Germany - especially that involving his older brother, also a priest, who has admitted to slapping children's faces. Georg Ratzinger directed the choir at St. Peter's Cathedral in Regensburg, Germany and was present when several instances of abuse described by one man who living in the boarding school linked to the choir as "sadistic punishments in connection with sexual lust" were supposedly committed. It's inconceivable that Father Ratzinger could not have known about it. And the fact that the Pope was archbishop of Munich and Freising, whose jurisdiction included Regensburg, seems to suggest that he knows more about the abuse cases than he is willing to let on.

As the successor to John Paul II, Benedict has sought to continue a hard line against moral relativism and modern consumerist capitalism, suggesting a sense of continuity in the Church. Ironically, this continuity has extended to the pedophilia cases. The first such cases, mainly out of Boston, surfaced in 2002, late in John Paul's papacy when he was aging and becoming less proactive in his role as Holy Father. The transition to another pontificate has hardly helped the Catholic Church deal with the legacy of these cases of abuse, and Benedict is ceding moral authority by the day with his current posturing.

If the Church is going to survive this scandal, it's going to have to be more open and more relevant to its parishioners. The Vatican can't just preach to the faithful; it has to listen. Somehow, I suspect that it may fall to the next papacy to begin the listening and healing process.

An American Pope?

We may have lost the Olympics, but we may one day get the Vatican.

I had a dream the other night that the Pope had died and that the College of Cardinals chose Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago (!), to step into the shoes of the fisherman . . . and he took the name Pope Benedict XVII.

I don't think I have the gift of prophecy any more than I think Cardinal George will be Pope one day. Interestingly, I once heard someone say that the conservative Chicago archbishop is very papabile - Italian for having the makings of a pope - but because he's an American, he would never be chosen. No one wants to choose a Holy Father from the most powerful nation on earth - conflict of interest and all that. But I do think I will live to see the Roman Catholic Church select an American Pope.

Why? Because I think I will also live to see the time when America is no longer a superpower and not even a world power. I see this country going the way of the British Empire, its foreign influence diminished and its cultural influence restricted to popular music. And that's when the United States will will no longer matter so much on the world stage and become just another country.

And that's when an American Pope will be elected.

More Abortion Debate

President Obama delivered the commencement speech at the Catholic Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana, yesterday, and because of his pro-choice stand on abortion and his support for stem cell research, several people opposed to the idea of him at Notre Dame acted as if the Vatican had been destroyed.

Obama delfected the criticsm, addressing the abortion issue head-on and urging people on both sides of the debate to work together on reducing unwanted pregnancies and promoting adoption. Fat chance. Both pro-choicers and pro-lifers have every reason to dig in to their respective, reflexive positions. Pro-lifers - who want to outlaw the practice of abortion in most, if not all, circumstances - can now point to a Gallup poll showing that 51 percent of all adult Americans identify themselves as pro-life for the first time since Gallup started asking that question in 1995. Right-to-lifers are, in a word, feeling their oats.

Abortion rights activists have been quick to insist that the wording of the questions encouraged such results and misinterprets them as meaning that more Americans want to criminalize abortion than keep it legal, but they can't help but feel under siege these days. After all, social liberals haven't been doing to well in courting public opinion these days. Support for gun rights is growing, too.

The abortion debate has obscured far more important debates - debates over energy policy, the solvnecy of Social Security, health care - for so long, that it's an embarrassment to this nation. Someone from Japan was once on Jim Lehrer's PBS show and pointed out that Americans wasted too much time on debating abortion - and when he did so, he was laughing. Obama can't get Americans to settle the issue once and for all, and that's no laughing matter.

By the way, there's a name for people on this continent who have chosen to settle the abortion issue and move on.

Canadians.

Happy Victoria Day. :-D