Scandals And Scoundrels Abound, by Christopher Manion

By Christopher Manion, The Wanderer, October 3, 2020

It’s been quite a week. In the Vatican, Angelo Cardinal Becciu, a powerful Curia insider, has been fired and stripped of his privileges as a cardinal. George Cardinal Pell, exonerated of trumped-up charges by a unanimous supreme court in Australia, has returned to Rome. Joseph Cardinal Zen also arrived in Rome, hoping to persuade Pope Francis not to renew the Vatican’s secret agreement with Communist China that has fomented so much persecution of Catholics there. Pope Francis refused to meet with him, and a dispirited Zen returned to Hong Kong, which now suffers under tightening Communist rule.

At the same time U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Rome to meet with his Italian diplomatic counterparts. He too had hoped to meet with Francis and argue that the still-secret agreement had harmed, rather than helped, human rights in Communist China. Francis, who routinely welcomes atheists and Communists to his parlor, refused to meet with Pompeo.  …

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