To be clear, this ‘stained image’ was not linked to the Nicene Creed and the Filioque clause. Nor to the doctrine of the Assumption. The encyclical Humanae Vitae. The evident scandal of Vatican financial mismanagement. The infiltration of homosexuals in the Vatican. Rather was it the scandal of clerical sexual abuse of children, boys mainly, which brought the Catholic Church to its knees in the west.

Not only has Pope Francis failed to make any progress whatsoever in cleaning that Augean stable, quite unbelievably he has achieved the contrary. He has made it infinitely worse. The chasm between his constant assertions of zero-tolerance of clerical sexual abuse and the sick reality that he personally has, via multiple decisions from Bishop Zanchetta to fr Rupnik, ensconced the vile practice in Casa Santa Marta is evident to Catholics the world over. This despite the fact that, for reasons best known to itself, the MSM has to date chosen to treat the matter of papal hypocrisy with a discretion which was properly absent from its earlier noble role in uncovering these vile practices in the Church.

In reader comments after the previous article on this blog, 2 people wrote essentially the same message; ‘Our God is a God of surprises’ and ‘His ways are not our ways,’ which does at least in the second case, have the virtue of being biblically based; an issue which has increasingly been marginalised by Pope Francis himself over the last 10-11 years. He routinely prefers to cite previous papal pronouncement, mainly by the incumbent, to such old fashioned concepts as biblical authority.

( As an example, in the Encyclical Fratelli tutti published 3 years ago this month, and we are told now due to be supplemented by FT-bis, approximately 80% of the first 50 citations are Pope Francis quoting the words of Pope Francis. Precisely none are from the Bible.)

But is the ‘God of surprises’ argument, which might be characterised as the religious equivalent of the secular ‘It’s all good’ syndrome valid? Is it truly the case that the more outrageous the impromptu obiter dicta of Pope Francis, the more sure we can be that the Holy Spirit has taken physical control of his tongue, as now Cardinal Tucho Fernandez so recently insinuated? A cardinal who, incidentally, has already admitted his own unsuitability for his duties given his incapacity to discharge central elements of the role assigned to him by Pope Francis; specifically the previously mentioned topic of cleaning the Augean stables of clerical sexual abusers.

Does the Holy Spirit really want Fr Rupnik to continue his priestly ministry as Pope Francis so evidently does, despite the multiple proven cases of sexual abuse of nuns? Supplemented by then abusing the Sacrament of Penance in such a fundamental way as to merit automatic excommunication. Which was lifted in a matter of weeks, if not days, by nobody knows whom.

Does the Holy Spirit want Fr Rupnik’s disquieting paintings to play a continued prominent role as to all intents and purposes the official Synod on Synods’s artist? A Synod where Pope Francis repeatedly stresses the question of walking together whilst blithely ignoring the correct historic definition of a Synod both amongst our eastern Churches as well as in the Orthodox tradition, viz ‘walking with Christ.’ That without even mentioning the vexed question of participation.

Does the Holy Spirit really want Pope Francis to treat the TLM with an iron fist whilst applying a velvet glove caress to the German Way?

Is the Holy Spirit really inspiring Pope Francis who famously uttered a four-letter bespattered tirade against the Sacrament of Penance to seminarians from Barcelona to redefine the Sacrament of Matrimony; though Pope Francis himself claims not to be so doing[*]?

A redefintion which might readily be characterised as ‘It’s all good.’

I, for one, do not for a moment believe so.

[*] As Ms Mandy Rice-Davies once observed:

‘Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?”