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The hypocrisy of Pope Francis He apologises for abuse while defending abusers

Did he go to Canada for the photo op rather than the apology? Credit: Cole Burston/Getty Images

Did he go to Canada for the photo op rather than the apology? Credit: Cole Burston/Getty Images


August 1, 2022   5 mins

Pope Francis is sorry and not sorry. Last week, he was in Canada to deliver an apology for the abuse suffered by indigenous children in schools run by the Catholic Church. He was rewarded with approving headlines — and an even better photo-opportunity involving a spectacular feather headdress. That may strike you as a cynical attitude to the Pope’s “penitential” journey. Then again, you may not be aware that, right now, Francis is protecting the interests of a sex abuser he made a bishop and then hid in the Vatican.

Under normal circumstances, it would be perfectly appropriate for the Supreme Pontiff to express shame for the persecution of pupils at the Residential Schools operated by the Church in Canada between the 1870s and 1990s. Last year, it was reported that the graves of 200 children had been found near one of these schools in British Columbia. That may be fake news. Some experts believe that the “graves” were soil disturbances and point out that they have not been excavated. No one disputes, however, that children suffered monstrously. Former pupils have talked of savage beatings and being forbidden to speak their native languages. Hundreds of sexual predators were protected.

But this pope has little moral authority to apologise for anyone else’s crimes. To understand why, we need to travel 6,500 miles from the scene of Francis’s meticulously staged expression of remorse in Edmonton to a dusty city in the subtropical north-west of Argentina. Although Orán has only 73,000 inhabitants, it does have a cathedral — a spiky concrete tent that embarrasses even the local tourist board.

Shortly after becoming pope, Francis made his friend Father Gustavo Zanchetta the Bishop of Orán. Zanchetta, then aged only 49, had been a protégé of Francis, then known as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires. As an official of the Argentine bishops’ conference, Zanchetta knew that if you were an ally of Cardinal Bergoglio, he could turn a blind eye to just about anything. (For example, in 2009 Fr Julio Grassi, who ran homes for Argentinian street children, was sentenced to 15 years in jail for sexually assaulting minors. In what could be seen as an attempt to have the conviction crushed, Bergoglio authorised a report that trashed Grassi’s accusers.)

The news that Francis was making Zanchetta a bishop horrified the priest’s critics in his home diocese of Quilmes. Two years earlier, Dr Santiago Spadafora, former adviser to the diocese, had complained to Cardinal Bergoglio about Zanchetta’s financial incompetence and “abuse of power” as the diocesan Vicar for Economic Affairs. Spadafora says Bergoglio rang him promising to examine “in detail” the supporting documents he had sent him. Nothing happened. When the new Pope announced that his protégé would be given a mitre, Spadafora started a change.org petition, signed by 100 lay employees from schools administered by Zanchetta, asking Francis to review the appointment. It was ignored.

Gustavo Zanchetta resigned as Bishop of Orán in 2017, less than four years after taking over — and a mere 22 years before he was due to retire — citing unspecified “health reasons”. According to the Italian newspaper La Stampa, he then left the diocese in a “furtive, unexpected flight without even a minimal farewell”.

It turned out that Zanchetta had every reason to act furtively. In 2015, he was reported to have saved pornographic photographs of himself and “young people” on his mobile phone. There were also complaints — fully justified, as it turned out — that he was sexually harassing seminarians. As The Pillar and numerous other Catholic news websites have reported, Pope Francis knew about the complaints and saw the photographs. But he claimed to believe Zanchetta’s explanation that his phone had been hacked.

The Pope met Bishop Zanchetta in Rome and then sent him back to his diocese. Senior priests of the diocese of Orán were so disgusted that they launched a complaint with the papal nuncio in Buenos Aires. Yet, when Zanchetta finally resigned in 2017, the Vatican insisted that it had never received “formal complaints” about the bishop. That was not true.

In 2018, Francis sent his friend to Spain for “therapy”, presumably to address his alleged (and since proven) sexual predation. As for the many stories of financial wrongdoing, the Pope wasn’t worried. He promptly created a new job inside the Vatican for Zanchetta — as “assessor” at the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See (APSA), which manages the Vatican’s property, financial and liquid assets. As they say in Rome, Vos non potestis facere eum. You couldn’t make it up.

In June 2019, Argentine prosecutors charged Bishop Zanchetta with sexually abusing two seminarians. In November that year, police raided his former headquarters in Orán, looking for evidence of fraud against the state. As Inés San Martin, a widely respected Argentinian Vatican correspondent, reported at the time: “Public records show that Zanchetta received over one million pesos, close to $250,000 at the time, from the provincial government for the restoration of a parish rectory and for a series of lectures in the local seminary that never took place.

“Zanchetta has also been accused of mismanaging church funds donated by the faithful and of keeping the sale of a Church-owned property off the books; the funds raised through the sale remain unaccounted for.”

For a time Zanchetta had to step down from his job “assessing” Vatican finances. Then Francis let him go back to work. But in March this year his career was finally brought to an end when he was sentenced to four and a half years in an Argentine prison — after he was found guilty of those charges of sexual abuse.

On the day of the sentencing, journalist Silvia Noviasky of El Tribuno said on Twitter that relatives and friends of seminarians were crying outside the court because the sentence against Zanchetta “was very little for the damage he did”. That’s putting it mildly. Zanchetta didn’t end up in jail. He is being allowed to serve his time in a monastery, because prison might exacerbate his high blood pressure. And now there has been yet another troubling twist to his story.

When it was clear that Zanchetta was heading for a prison sentence, the Vatican finally conducted a canonical investigation into his behaviour, to see what penalties he might have incurred under church law. The proceedings were kept secret. The Argentine court asked to see the findings and was ignored. Now, to quote the veteran Vatican correspondent Christopher Altieri:

“Pope Francis has sent the canon lawyer who represented his friend and former colleague Gustavo Zanchetta (a convicted sex offender serving time in prison), to investigate some of the very clerics who denounced their erstwhile bishop to the Vatican and testified against him”.

Dr Javier Belda Iniesta, who defended Zanchetta in a process whose outcome was never revealed, is now investigating the people who blew the whistle on this abuser.

While the Vatican press corps drool over Francis’s Canadian adventure, many Catholics in Orán are ready to burn him in effigy. They know they’ll never get the chance to confront him in person: not once since becoming Pope has Francis set foot in his home country. But they can talk to the press.

One of Zanchetta’s victims gave an interview to Silvia Noviasky last week. Conveniently for the Vatican, it hasn’t appeared in English until now. M.C., a seminarian who was abused by Zanchetta, said he could hardly sleep because he was so distressed by the decision to put him under house arrest. “I think the judges didn’t take into account the psychological report on him as a manipulator, someone who doesn’t see reality as it is but the way he wants it,” he told Noviasky. “He’s been granted house arrest in a religious house which is frequented by those who are vulnerable.”

According to M.C., Zanchetta is able to call in favours in Orán, “a small town where we know each other or know each other’s secrets”. He’s furious that Zanchetta hasn’t been defrocked and retains the title of bishop. Noviasky asked him why that was. He replied: “Because there are a lot of favours doled out and cronyism and it all comes from Pope Francis, who currently says some things in his sermons and does different ones.”

Needless to say, none of the Vatican correspondents on the flight back from Canada seem to have asked Francis about the latest sinister developments in Orán. If they had, it may well have been their last trip on the papal plane. No more photos of themselves hobnobbing with the Holy Father that they can post on Twitter.

And so we’re no closer to answering the most baffling question of all. Why on Earth is Francis — not for the first time — taking risks to protect a convicted sex offender?


Damian Thompson is a journalist and author

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Julian Farrows
Julian Farrows
2 years ago

Is the Pope Catholic used to be a rhetorical question, now it’s an actual question.

Ri Bradach
Ri Bradach
2 years ago
Reply to  Julian Farrows

Is anyone in the Vatican or is it the centre of evil?

Bruce Crichton
Bruce Crichton
2 years ago
Reply to  Julian Farrows

Yes, he is a Catholic, a fully consistent one, hence his actions.

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
2 years ago
Reply to  Julian Farrows

Do bears still……?

Ian Barton
Ian Barton
2 years ago

Maybe the Vatican will re-locate to Rotherham. They’d be safe from prosecution there.

Ri Bradach
Ri Bradach
2 years ago

As a Catholic, I have not attended mass in over 20 years. This is why. My anger at being deprived of access to the teachers of my faith by their own moral ill means nothing to them. They will continue to abuse any and all trust that is given to them.
Frankly, I wish that the whole leadership of the Catholic Church would be imprisoned and asked to prove their innocence of trust and or child abuse – a different standard of care applies to priests. Burn the Vatican to the ground and start again.

Ian Barton
Ian Barton
2 years ago
Reply to  Ri Bradach

Thank you Ri – it’s very refreshing for a Catholic to state that “priests should be held to a different standard”.
Anyone who can wield the threat of “eternal damnation” over others has to be judged far more harshly when they abuse their position of trust (and their flock)

Last edited 2 years ago by Ian Barton
si mclardy
si mclardy
2 years ago

This feels like old news. I remember cardinal Bernard Law covering up the wrong doings of priest like Geoghan, and when court ordered to appear in court he was given a position in the Vatican so he would not have to be cross examined. The Pope and the Vatican protected him until he died in 2017. Wikipedia leaves out the role of the Vatican for some reason, but I have always held them in contempt as long as they are willing to hide and protect pedophiles. The Boston sex scandal is old news because it was never about Boston but a sickness throughout the Roman catholic church that has been popping up all over the world with very little consequences.

Ian Barton
Ian Barton
2 years ago
Reply to  si mclardy

It is old news – but needs to be aired continually – when “good people do nothing” i.e lose interest – then it’s “hell in a handcart” for all of us.
Just ask the children of Rotherham.
I blame the state-funded media e.g. the BBC for stopping reporting on ongoing issues – just because many people are losing interest.
If a state-funded broadcaster behaves like that – it needs to be shut down.

Last edited 2 years ago by Ian Barton
Bruce Crichton
Bruce Crichton
2 years ago
Reply to  si mclardy

The church attracts abusers because the abusers know they’ll be protected.
Once you grasp that, the rest is easy.

Fred Paul
Fred Paul
2 years ago

Am I reading this right? The First Nations wanted an apology from the pope (small p unless used with a name), and sure enough, they got it. Did the demand set conditions? No. Remember that, no conditions. The news media was the one organization that got away scot-free and bore the most responsibility outside of the government. Where were they when this was going on? Had they no idea what was going on? Hardly. Were they afraid to report the truth? Certainly. Who pressured them to keep it quiet? Does it matter? They kept it quiet to save their own skins, and now they are reporting and providing editorials as if they are the saviours of this mess.
IN TRUTH, THEY HELPED CREATE THIS MESS BECAUSE THEY WERE SCARED AND DIDN’T REPORT IT. THEY LET US DOWN.

Helen Moorhouse
Helen Moorhouse
2 years ago

This is a clear and useful report but I’m baffled that Damian Thompson has submitted it on Unherd instead of in his Holy Smoke section of The Spectator’s Coffee House. Was it to get to a wider/smaller audience? Or was The Spectator unwilling to publish it? I’m interested.

Arkadian X
Arkadian X
2 years ago

Ah, I hadn’t realised it was he. Thanks for pointing it out.
(It is the second time today that I write this comment. I wish we were given all the info in the articles themselves.)

Anyway, Damian does NOT like Francis, does he.

Last edited 2 years ago by Arkadian X
Andrew D
Andrew D
2 years ago

Expletive deleted

Last edited 2 years ago by Andrew D
Andrew Stoll
Andrew Stoll
2 years ago

The pope might as well apologise for being human.
It shouldn’t be his role to attempt the impossible by appeasing the haters of the church.
It is a show trial of Soviet proportions that has been happening to the church.
Guilty as charged, always – any defence is further proof of guilt.
Every institution the size and age of the catholic church had it’s share of rotten apples.
No excuses for serious crimes but fair is fair and on balance with best intentions, none of us are so pure as to not have any faults!
No, I’m not a catholic, I’m not even religious but I respect the catholic church, her dedicated srevants, history – warts and all, more than many of their holier than thou modern day haters and accusers.

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
2 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Stoll

“It shouldn’t be his role to attempt the impossible by appeasing the haters of the church”

Ah, so those who think the head of an organisation who goes out of his way to protect paedophiles with complete and utter disregard for their victims are “haters”.

I see. In fact, i see the Holy See for what it is, aided and abetted by its apologists,.

Citing “they’re only human” is disgraceful. Aren’t we all? Aren’t their victims, who they dehumanised?

They’ve got away with it for so long through exercising a form of thought control. Once anyone believes that the bread and wine are the actual body and blood of someone who existed two millenia ago, they’re susceptible to any kind of manipulation.

I’m fully aware of what it is to be human, flaws and all. Nor do i seek to be ‘holier than thou’. I reject those points you make. Can you reject the suffering and lifelong humiliation of the church-protected victims?

If so, go ahead and downvote.

Last edited 2 years ago by Steve Murray
Andrew Stoll
Andrew Stoll
2 years ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

Critizise anybody but do it for the right reasons and be careful about what you believe and what is prejudice or propaganda before passing judgement.
I’m thinking of the fiasko and miscarriage of justice regarding Cardinal George Pell. So obviously a case of false accusations of paedophelia, all the way through his secretive trial. Luckily it ended with an overturned verdict but the chances of a fair trial didn’t look good for him in Catholic hating Australia. That really made me think! And politics in Canada today are similarly skewed and untrustworthy!
Of course bad things really did happen as well and some clergy protected each other. But.. that’s part of life
I don’t give downvotes easily – thank you for your thoughts!

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
2 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Stoll

I don’t easily “believe” anything, and i certainly don’t need a reminder of how to go about forming a balanced view.
You’ve signally failed to address the issue that this article is about – the hypocrisy of Pope Francis in protecting someone at the expense of the victims of their criminal activity. Instead, you’re trying to use deflection by pointing to a different outcome concerning “Catholic hating Australia” (that “hating” trope again, it’s a dead giveaway for a particular mindset).
You’re very welcome to my thoughts. I’m prepared to challenge anyone who seeks to excuse authoritarian criminals against young victims through manipulation of the religious beliefs of their families, or of state orphanages, which places the victims in danger and allows those with certain proclivities to take advantage. I’ve equally no doubt that many of the priests involved took the cloth precisely because it allowed them such access. Make of that what you will, but i call it the epitome of evil.

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
2 years ago

A more appropriate headline for this article would be “The hypocrisy of the entire Catholic Church”. That such an evil person should be elected as its head tells you all you need to know. Corrupt from top to bottom, and unsurprisingly so, given the ludicrous nature of the doctrine they peddle. I still find it difficult to get my head around why so many otherwise intelligent people fall for it.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
2 years ago

Considering that the Vatican was an ‘invention’ of that renowned Fascist Benito Mussolini,(1929) perhaps it is time for it to be ‘Dissolved’ or at least stripped of its ludicrous Sovereign status?
It is an anachronism unworthy of the twenty first century.

Jeremy Bray
Jeremy Bray
2 years ago

Rather inaccurate history. The Papal States was an independent principality on the Italian peninsula until it was invaded by the newly created Kingdom of Italy in 1870, although they stopped short of invading the area within the Leonine Walls. A proposal was put forward at that point to create an independent principality for the Pope roughly twice the size of the present Vatican state encompassing the area within the Leonine Walls. This was rejected by successive Pope’s until the standoff was ended by the Lateran Pacts in 1929. Nothing to do with Mussolini creating the Vatican. The Popes had had possessed large chunks of Italy as Princes for many centuries before.

Last edited 2 years ago by Jeremy Bray
CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
2 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

Mussolini was the Prime Minister of Italy in 1929, when this ludicrous comprises was agreed on.
Prior to that various Popes had been bleating since 1870 that they were “prisoners of the Vatican”, a precedent set by the male hysteric otherwise known as Pius IX.
The fact that the Papal States had existed in one form or another since the 8th century is irrelevant.

Andrew D
Andrew D
2 years ago

Is the twenty-first century worth being worthy of?

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
2 years ago
Reply to  Andrew D

Not yet.

Clare Knight
Clare Knight
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew D

Good one!

Clare Knight
Clare Knight
1 year ago

Here, here!