Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa: Moral Failures in the Catholic Church

After Pope Francis was elect in 2013, I discussed his selection with a friend.  I did not like what I found out about Francis.  I thought he would be more of a leftist than a Catholic.  Ten years later, my worries have been confirmed.  Some examples:  Although he says that he is pro-life and the killing of the innocent unborn is equivalent to hiring an assassin, he does not practice what he preaches.   He considers traditional Catholics as enemies of the Church.  He has even prohibited the Church from celebrating the Latin Mass.  He has fired faithful bishops such as Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, as well as faithful priests such as the leader of Priests for Life, Father Frank Pavone.  He has made a deal with the Devil, China, whereby he has consented to have the atheist communist tyrants that run China select Catholic bishops.  Now, hold on here:  This would be the equivalent of giving Adolf Hitler permission to name German bishops during his reign of terror.   How would that go?  Additionally, the Chinese communists are anti-Catholic, anti-Christian and anti-religion, period.  They are an atheist regime; they are enemies of faith in God.  They have demonstrated this by arresting Catholics and bishops, namely the saintly faithful Catholic, 91-year-old Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong.  Another faithful Catholic jailed by the Chinese tyrants is Jimmy Lai of Hong Kong.  The Chinese regularly demolish catholic and Christian churches.  The pope is in bed with these tyrants.  Francis has chosen to visit such tyrants as Fidel Castro of Cuba, Evo Morales of Bolivia.  He regularly bashes capitalism while leaning more to the bankrupt system of socialism.  He seems to be a follower of Liberation Theology (a Marxist interpretation of the Bible) which had its start in South America in the 1960s.  The President of his native country of Argentina, Javier Milei, accused Francis of promoting communism.

 

There have been many bad popes of the past.   My friend will say, “this too shall pass.” Perhaps, but damage will be done.  Most of you have heard of the church’s failures with the pedophile scandals of the past 100 years and the cover-up by the church.  No one has been able or willing to fix this.  Francis has been eerily silent on this.  When American bishops tried to do something about it a few years ago, he ordered them to stand down.  Francis has failed to denounce Vladimir Putin for his invasion of Ukraine.  Instead, he has called on Ukraine to “negotiate” the end of war.  What?  A country that has been invaded and had its citizens murdered and its country destroyed should be the one to negotiate?  What he really means Ukraine should surrender.  Francis has seen evil and failed to call it out.  The leader of the Russian Orthodox church, Kirill of Moscow, who supports the Ukraine invasion instead is appeased by the pope.  This is a moral failure on the pope’s part and an embarrassment to people of good will.

 

Pope Paul V was the pope during Galileo’s time.  This brilliant middle-ages scientist was persecuted by the church and forced to recant scientific valid positions which were confirmed later.  In 1633 Galileo was arrested and jailed until his death in 1642 for his valid Copernican scientific principle of heliocentrism that states that the earth revolves around the sun.  

 

Pope Clement VIII was pope who persecuted the Italian scientist Giordano Bruno.  Bruno was burned alive at the stake in Rome in 1600 by order of the pope after a religious trial for promoting valid scientific discoveries about the cosmos such as heliocentrism and the infinite universe, as well as religious positions held by Bruno, contrary to church teaching such as the trinity, Mary and others.  The jury that tried him included many of the top cardinals of the day.  Bruno’s famous last words were: “Perhaps your fear in passing judgment on me is greater than mine in receiving it.” 

 

Pope Pius IX in the mid 19^th century was not only pope but the king and tyrant of the Papal States which included about forty percent of today’s Italy.  He ruled these states with an iron fist, persecuting anyone who dared to challenge him.  In 1850 the people of the Papal States had had enough:  they wanted self-rule not the rule of priests and the church; not having the church invade their homes to make sure they were following Catholic practices.  Led by the brilliant military commander of his day, Giuseppe Garibaldi, they revolted and declared independence from the pope and established a Roman Republic. Pius IX was forced into exile and fled to the small town of Gaeta near Naples which was under the rule of the Kingdom of the two Sicilies.  There he asked for help from France which agreed to send a French Army of 30,000 trained troops to win back his kingdom.  The French leveled a good part of Rome and killed more than 2,000 Romans in the process. 

 

After dealing a heavy blow to the French invaders, the rebels, outnumbered and outgunned were defeated in a month. The French Army occupied Rome for the next 20 years, when they had to return to France to fight the Germans in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870.  While in Rome, French authorities begged the pope not to persecute ex-rebels.  Pius IX refused.  He had some ex-rebels executed by firing squad in public, such as in the large Piazza del Popolo in the middle of Rome.  The French even sent the pope two new guillotines as a gift.  With the approval of Pius IX, the French military authorities plastered bills all over Rome stating that anyone found with a weapon would be summarily executed without trial.

 

For more on Pope Pius IX, I have a longer post on this blog called Pius IX, King, Pope and Tyrant.  Click hereto read it. 

Pope Pius IX, Pope, King and Tyrant

As a life-long Catholic, I had no idea who Pope Pius IX was, other than a past pope.  That all changed after reading the fine book, “The Pope who Would be King” by David I. Kertzer (2018).  What follows is mostly taken from this book.  Pio Nono, as he was known in Italy, became Pope in 1846 and reigned until 1878.  His life as Pope was overshadowed by his rule as the temporal leader of the Papal States. The Papal States comprised of about one quarter of Italy.  Click here for a map.  The Papal States had been ruled by the Popes for over a thousand years.  The Pope was the head of state, the law and the judge of all his citizens. He was the all-powerful king of his subjects.  All government jobs were held by the clergy. The Pope’s government advisors were his Cardinals, usually two or three of his most trusted clergymen.  The most important advisor to Pio Nono was Cardinal Giacomo Antonelli.  A shrewd and ambitions man, Antonelli was not a priest, but a Deacon when he was named Cardinal.  Antonelli was no spiritual man; he was a power broker extraordinaire above all else.

Pope Pius IX saw his rule of the Papal States as a mandate from God and ruled that way.  “He believed that God had bestowed on him the right to wield absolute power.” “Parliamentary government and individual freedoms, according to Pio Nono, were not only incompatible with the divinely ordained nature of his own states but inherently evil.  It was a belief that he would hold for the rest of his life.”  When he encountered resistance to his clerical rule, he was dumbfounded to see that his subjects did not see it the same way. The Papal States were bordered on the north by the Kingdom of Lombardy and Venice, which was controlled by the Austrian Hapsburg Empire and Tuscany which was an independent state.  To the South it was bordered by the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, ruled by King Ferdinand II, of the Bourbon Dynasty.

Revolution was in the air for all of the time  Pio Nono reigned.  France had a revolution in 1848 which deposed King Louis Phillipe, creating the Second French Republic headed by Louis Bonaparte, a nephew of Napoleon.  In Italy the entire peninsula was on fire for Italian unification and the removal of foreign armies, especially the Austrian Army which controlled the North East part of Italy.  In the Papal States, the citizens hated the rule of priests and longed for Italian unification. They were tired of the oppression of the clerics.  In the South, the Kingdom of Two Sicilies was in turmoil and revolting against their ruler, King Ferdinand II.  This was the climate Pio Nono found upon being elected pope.

Citizens of the Papal States loved the Pope but hated being ruled by the heavy-handed priestly rule. Clergy were the police commanders, usually a bishop or a monsignor.  The courts were also headed by clergy.  The rule was nothing short of tyrannical.  A priest could barge into a home and inspect it to make sure no religious rules were being violated.  Any dissent or talk critical of the Pope was dealt with severely.  People lived in fear of arrest and torture, even killing for not supporting the Pope and his rule.  In Rome, the Jewish population was kept in a ghetto by law.  Jews could not own property, they could only work in some professions, but not others; they could not testify in court.  The Jews even had to pay a large sum each year to support the House of the Catechumens, the church organization dedicated to their conversion.

Subjects of the Papal States wanted a constitution and rule by civilians.  They wanted a separation between the church and the state.  The Pope refused.  They wanted Italian unification; the Pope refused to consider it. Revolution was in the air and things were getting hot.  When thousands of people besieged the papal residence and killed the Pope’s top government administrator, Pellegrino Rossi, as he was leaving his office, the Pope decided he needed to escape before they got him.  With the help of the Bavarian ambassador, Pio Nono escaped to a small coastal town of Gaeta, near Naples in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, riding in a horse drawn carriage all night.  King Ferdinand II welcomed him with open arms.  After the Pope escaped Rome, the citizens established their own government headed by a triumvirate which called themselves the Roman Republic. Soon after settling down in Gaeta, the pope, meeting with his advisors and foreign dignitaries, plotted to regain his rule by using military force.  He debated whether to ask the Austrian or the French for military help.  He decided the French were more to his liking.  The French agreed to send a military expedition to restore the pope to Rome.  

France sent an expeditionary force of 30,000 troops to help the pope regain his kingdom.  The troops landed in Civitavecchia, a port near Rome and marched into the city.  The French troops underestimated Roman resistance.  Although lacking a unified and trained army, they put together a defense made up of university students, former members of the papal army and local citizens who took up arms.  They did have one ace in the hole; Giuseppe Garibaldi had by this time returned from leading military wars in Brazil and Urugary.  He brought with him about 1200 of his trusted soldiers from South America.  These were seasoned troops.  When the French tried to break into Rome they met heavy resistance and were driven back with heavy losses.  Garibaldi, one of the best military commanders of his day, led his troops aboard his white horse.  His constant companion was a black man and a fierce warrior from Uruguay, the son of a former slave, Andrea Aguyar.  Garibaldi was wounded in the first encounter, shot in the stomach, but survived.  Aguyar, was killed in action on the last day of the battle.  The French commander, General Charles Oudinot, stung by his initial defeat, withdrew to the rear to wait for additional troops which arrived shortly thereafter.  Not only additional troops but additional heavy cannons were brought in to demolish the thick Roman defensive walls. Faced with overpowering odds, the Roman defenders had no chance.  The French troops breached the walls, poured in and occupied Rome.  Over 2,000 Romans were killed defending their city.  Much of Rome lay in ruins, although the French were careful not to destroy many of Rome’s treasures.  Upon the Pope's return, brutal reprisals were meted out to his opponents. Many were shot to death.

Pio Nono was ecstatic at the defeat of his enemies, although he said he lamented the loss of life. After the French occupation of Rome, French representatives, led by the famous Alexis de Tocqueville, and other French and Europeans emissaries begged the Pope to be lenient with his subjects. They all strongly asked him not to arrest the people who supported the new Roman Republic.  Pio Nono would have none of it.  He wanted punishment.  After returning to Rome that is what happened.  All those who had shown support for the Republic were arrested, many of them were tortured or killed.  In Rome, the French placed warnings on Roman walls that anyone found with any weapon would be summarily executed.  The executions were done in public squares.  One man accused of carrying weapons was brought before a firing squad in Piazza del Popolo, one of the biggest Piazzas in Rome where a large crown gathered to watch his execution.  The usual method of execution was by guillotine, but the guillotines were no longer working so they used firing squads.  Later on, a French Archbishop sent the Pope two new guillotines which were later used to execute the Pope’s enemies.

It did not end there.  After the French occupied Rome, many of its defenders managed to escape north. Giuseppe Garibaldi gathered his troops and his pregnant wife, Anita in St. Peter’s Square and they were led out of the city by fellow Romans.  Anita had earlier come to Rome from Nice (Nizza), Garibaldi’s home town, against his wishes.  The 27-year-old Brazilian beauty was also a seasoned warrior in her own right, having fought alongside her husband in Brazil and Uruguay.  Later in their escape north, she fell ill and died in his arms, along with the unborn baby, seven months in gestation. 

 While the French were attacking Rome, the Austrians were occupying Papal State cities Bologna, Ferrara and Ancona with their troops. Upon reaching the tiny principality of San Marino, Garibaldi released many of his troops from their vow to fight to the death with him. The San Marino authorities mediated a compromise for Garibaldi’s released troops.  The Austrian Army promised to let them go home if they would give up their arms; 900 of them did.  They would soon come to regret it. The following day, these same men were marched in chains into Bologna; their fate unknown. Garibaldi continued with 300 of his ardent followers.    

Ugo Bassi, a priest and chaplain serving Garibaldi’s troops, succeeded in reaching the town of Ferrara.  There a local person reported him to the Austrians. The Austrians arrested him and sentenced him to death, without trial, on a bogus charge that he had been carrying arms. He was shot by a firing squad.  Another popular Roman hero and a former supporter of Pio Nono nicknamed Ciceruacchio met even a crueler fate.  He was captured with his two young sons and, without a trial, all three were sentenced to death.  Tied together with his 13-year-old son, he begged the Austrians to spare the boy. All three were shot dead; the younger boy first then Ciceruacchio  and lastly, the older boy.  All for being part of the Roman Republic which opposed the pope. All in the name of Pio Nono.

In looking for current information on Pius IX, I learned that Pope John II, beatified Pius IX in the year 2000; the last step before being named a saint. Pius IX was the pope who first established Papal Infallibility in 1870; the doctrine that the pope, acting on his authority, or ex cathedra (from the chair) cannot err when teaching on faith and morals.  It has been used only once, in 1950 by Pope Pius XII on the assumption of Mary.

I highly recommend the book.  Excellent research and great story telling.  Click on the link at the top of this essay.

Click here for an interview with the author of the book referred to here about Pope Pius IX.