Excerpt…
(Phil Lawler/CWN) — More than a month ago I wrote about a stunning new Vatican scandal, in which the Pope’s chief of staff overturned a disciplinary sentence imposed on a priest by an ecclesiastical tribunal—and then was himself overruled by the top official of the Vatican office charged with the disciplinary treatment of abuse cases. After analyzing this astonishing double-reverse, I concluded:
So two influential Vatican officials have issued statements that contradict each other, and it seems reasonable to think that each one consulted with Pope Francis. If they did both talk with the Pope, it seems he pointed them in opposite directions—or else at least one of the prelates has gone rogue. If the Pope was not involved in this case—the latest Vatican mishandling of the most damaging scandal in recent Church history—that too is part of this curious story.
Anyone who honestly seeks a “zero tolerance” policy regarding abuse must confront the implications of this latest scandal. Yet the Vatican—and the world’s Catholic hierarchy, and even the world’s media—has shown no interest. Ed Condon of The Pillar (the only other outlet that has taken the story seriously), today vented his frustration about “the deafening silence surrounding the Principi affair.”
