Tag Archives: scandals

Pope blames devil for Church divisions, scandals, seeks angel’s help

FILE PHOTO: Pope Francis talks as he meets youth and the Synod Fathers at the Pope Paul VI hall in Vatican, October 6, 2018. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The devil is alive and well and working overtime to undermine the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis says.

In fact, the pope is so convinced that Satan is to blame for the sexual abuse crisis and deep divisions racking the Church that he has asked Catholics around the world to recite a special prayer every day in October to try to beat him back.

“(The Church must be) saved from the attacks of the malign one, the great accuser and at the same time be made ever more aware of its guilt, its mistakes, and abuses committed in the present and the past,” Francis said in a message on Sept. 29.

Since he was elected in 2013, Francis has made clear that he believes the devil to be real. In a document in April on holiness in the modern world, Francis mentioned the devil more than a dozen times.

“We should not think of the devil as a myth, a representation, a symbol, a figure of speech or an idea. This mistake would lead us to let down our guard, to grow careless and end up more vulnerable,” he wrote in the document.

The Church has recently been hit by one sexual abuse scandal after another, from Germany, to the United States, to Chile. At the same time, a deepening polarization between conservatives and liberals in the Church has played out on social media.

Francis’ use of the term “the great accuser” to describe Satan hit a raw nerve with one of the pope’s harshest conservative critics, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the Vatican’s former ambassador to Washington.

 

CHURCH DIVISIONS

In an 11-page statement published on Aug. 26, Viganò launched an unprecedented broadside by a Church insider against the pope and a long list of Vatican and U.S. Church officials.

He accused Francis of knowing about sexual misconduct by a former U.S. cardinal with male adult seminarians but not doing anything about it.

Viganò, concluding that his former boss had singled him out as the devil in disguise, complained in his next statement that Francis “compared me to the great accuser, Satan, who sows scandal and division in the Church, though without ever uttering my name”.

On Sunday, a top Vatican official issued a scathing open letter accusing Viganò of mounting a “political frame job devoid of real foundation” and contesting his accusations against the pope point by point.

Francis is so convinced that Satan is ultimately to blame for both the sexual abuse scandals and the divisions within the Church that he has enlisted the aid of spiritual big gun – St. Michael the Archangel. Michael is mentioned several times in the Bible as the leader of the angels who ousted Lucifer, the fallen angel, from paradise.

Catholics are being asked to recite the rosary daily in October and conclude it with a prayer to St. Michael that was said after Mass until 1964 but then fell into disuse.

The prayer reads:

“St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of heavenly hosts, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan, and all evil spirits, who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.”

(Reporting By Philip Pullella; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Mexico leftist vows no tolerance on corruption after historic win

By Dave Graham

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s new president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he would pursue friend and foe alike in a crackdown on corruption after voters handed him a powerful mandate for government with a landslide election victory on Sunday.

Lopez Obrador, the first leftist president since the end of one-party rule in 2000, won between 53 and 53.8 percent of votes, according to a quick count by the electoral authority, more than double the total for his nearest rival.

That would be the biggest share of the vote since the early 1980s, and would give Lopez Obrador a strong platform both to address Mexico’s internal problems and face external challenges like the threat of a trade war with the United States.

Going into Monday it was unclear whether Lopez Obrador had done enough to secure the first outright majority in Congress in over 20 years, with pollsters’ early estimates suggesting he was close in the lower house but farther away in the Senate.

Speaking to reporters after his win, Lopez Obrador identified corruption as the “principal cause” of inequality and the criminal violence that has bedeviled Mexico for years, and said he would spare no one in his commitment to root it out.

“Whoever it is will be punished, I include comrades, officials, friends and family members,” the 64-year-old said. “A good judge begins at home.”

The election was a crushing defeat for the ruling centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which governed Mexico from 1929-2000 continually and again from 2012.

Public anger over corruption scandals, which have shattered the PRI’s credibility, was a defining feature of the campaign, alongside nationwide discontent over soaring levels of violence and years of lackluster economic growth.

Lopez Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor, was greeted with rapturous cheers by supporters in the capital’s Zocalo central square around midnight, while friends celebrated in his tiny hometown of Tepetitan, in the poor southern state of Tabasco.

The victory was a vindication for Lopez Obrador, who was written off by many critics after narrowly failing to capture the presidency at his first bid in 2006.

Then, he cried fraud and declared himself the rightful winner, but alienated many supporters with huge street protests that brought much of the capital to a standstill for weeks.

He also began campaigning relentlessly around Mexico with the message that he alone could fix the country’s problems, calling out his opponents as corrupt and inept.

Finishing second again in 2012, he remained the most visible opposition leader and by this year had become the focal point of public frustration with the establishment’s shortcomings.

Once results showed his margin of victory on Sunday, and mindful of accusations that his instincts cleave toward authoritarianism, Lopez Obrador quickly sought to calm nerves about his presidency. He pledged to pursue responsible economic policies, respect private property and guarantee individual liberties.

And he paid tribute to the role in the campaign played by outgoing President Enrique Pena Nieto and the media, both of which have felt the bite of his scorn in the past.

Mexican presidents are limited by law to a single term.

Lopez Obrador will take office in December facing a U.S. government that has been openly antagonistic to Mexico over trade and migration under President Donald Trump.

The newly elected president has said he wants to make Mexico more economically independent of the United States. At the same time, he also hopes to persuade Trump to help develop Mexico and Central America in order to contain illegal migration.

Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, saw a change from past Mexican leaders who were “obsessed” about being on good terms with the United States

“It means that the U.S. can’t take Mexico for granted any more,” he said. “Lopez Obrador will be pragmatic … but he’s not going to bend over backwards to have a good relationship.”

(Reporting by Dave Graham; Additional reporting by Julia Love, Christine Murray, Anthony Esposito, Berengere Sim and Delphine Schrank; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Catherine Evans)