The Catholic Church - Nothing Has Really Changed Under Pope Francis

As noted a number of times on this blog, Catholics who have desperately wanted to see Pope Francis as ushering in a kinder, gentler Roman Catholic Church have been serious deluding themselves.  All that has changed is that Pope Francis is much better at the PR game than his horrible Nazi Pope predecessor.   But better PR skills do not equate with substantive change.  For those who need proof that Francis is just more of the same old nasty hypocrisy, one need only look at the "morality clauses" being inserted into contracts for teachers at Catholic schools across America or the ongoing modern day Inquisition being waged against American nuns.  Francis talks a good talk, but actions are far more telling.  The truth is that hypocrisy and the bizarre obsession of bitter old men about all things sexual is what the Church is really all about.  Oh, and let's not forget the Vatican orchestrated cover up of the sexual abuse of children - that other hallmark of the Vatican's leadership.   On the issue of the anti-gay jihad at Catholic schools, a column in the New York Times focuses in on the hypocrisy.  Here are excerpts:

“WOULD Pope Francis Sign the New Catholic Teacher Contract?” That’s the question spelled out on a dozen billboards that have gone up around Cincinnati over the last week or so.

And it’s an excellent one, because it flags the tension between what’s been said in Rome and what’s happening in Ohio, between a message of greater tolerance and the practice of the same old intolerance, between the direction in which the Catholic church needs to move and the matters of sexual morality on which it keeps getting stuck.

Those matters take center stage in an expanded employment contract that the Archdiocese of Cincinnati is forcing on more than 2,000 teachers, some of whom are refusing to sign it. In what the document does and doesn’t spell out, it sends the tired message that virtue resides in whom you share your bed with and how you do or don’t procreate.

The more things change, the more they remain mired in libido and loins.

The new contract expressly forbids a “homosexual lifestyle” and any “public support” of one. But it says nothing about public support of the death penalty, something else that the church opposes.

The new contract specifically rules out any use or advocacy of abortion rights, surrogacy, even in vitro fertilization. But it doesn’t address possible advocacy of the sorts of bloody military engagements that the church often condemns.

The new contract forbids “living together outside marriage,” “sexual activity out of wedlock” and any public endorsement of either. But there’s no reference to concern for the downtrodden, to the spirit of giving, to charity. And while those are surely more difficult to monitor, aren’t they as essential to Catholic principles, and closer to the core of the faith?

And these specifics contradict what Pope Francis said last year about the church’s undue attention to a handful of divisive social issues.

There are so many losers here: kids — many from the inner city — who depend on parochial schools that will now be drained of talent; younger teachers who can’t afford to quit and will carry an embittered attitude into their classrooms; Catholics everywhere, forced to wrestle anew with their church’s archaic fixations; church leaders, who have such a sad knack for driving people away. Isn’t that what Pope Francis was urging an end to?

As for the treatment of American nuns, these blog post highlights summarizes Pope Francis' disconnect between his words and his actions:

Hey, remember when totes progressive Pope Francis said that women should have more influence in the Catholic Church hierarchy? And everyone was all OMG HE IS SO GREAT I LOVES THIS POPE SO MUCH? Ha ha whoooooooooops!

The Vatican official overseeing the crackdown on the largest umbrella group for U.S. nuns is pressing forward with the overhaul under Pope Francis.

Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, the Vatican orthodoxy watchdog, reprimanded officers of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious for planning to honor a theologian who had been criticized by U.S. bishops and said the sisters must show more willingness to cooperate.

Mueller made the remarks in a meeting last Wednesday with the group's leaders in Rome. He apologized repeatedly for speaking so bluntly, while reminding the sisters their organization held its status within the church only through Vatican approval.

"Nice organization you got there, ladies. It'd be a shame if something happened to it!"

The reform order was issued in 2012 under now-retired Pope Benedict XVI, after an investigation concluded the nuns' group had taken positions that undermined Roman Catholic teaching on the priesthood and homosexuality while promoting "radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith." Investigators praised the nuns' humanitarian work, but accused them of focusing too much on social justice and ignoring critical issues, such as fighting abortion.

You might notice that a theme is beginning to emerge, ahem. Pope Francis says something that sounds vaguely progressive; it gets a whole lot of fawning headlines; then comes evidence that it was nothing but empty rhetoric.

Like I've said for a long time now: This guy isn't interested in progress. He's interested in good PR.