The Pope’s Pitiful Reign of Error

The American Spectator

. . . Whatever the future of Islam, at least Muslims have enough regard for God to keep Mecca and Medina from turning into Touristville. Not so for FrancisChurch, which is hastening the death of Catholicism by self-indulgence, if not suicide.

"I arrived in Rome this week in anticipation of another defining liberal moment of this pontificate: the Pan-Amazon Synod, Pope Francis’ latest pretext to fiddle with Catholic discipline and doctrine. I haven’t been to the Vatican in some years. It was hardly a golden age under Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI, but at least back then Vatican City had recognizably Catholic features. Now it looks like the United Nations Plaza.

"As I walked down the hill to the Vatican, from the convent turned inn where I am staying, I noticed graffiti about “comrades” on the walls surrounding it — walls, by the way, far more imposing than Trump’s. One would have to be a criminal with Olympian talents to scale them. Yet what’s the first sculpture one encounters in St. Peter’s Square? A depiction of illegal immigrants, unveiled recently by Pope Francis. The immigrants are huddled together on a kind of ark — certainly not Noah’s, for the sculpture contains almost no religious content, though some interpret a Hasidic Jewish couple on board as Joseph and Mary. The sculpture looks completely out of place, plopped randomly near the arms of Bernini, which now appear more like the forearm of George Soros."
. . . 
"One small example of FrancisChurch’s death wish is the ubiquity of a gay calendar sold in tourist shops throughout the city featuring handsome priests, some in suggestive poses. Women no doubt buy the calendar, but one suspects its primary consumers are the bishops, vocation directors, and clerical colleagues of these priests. I don’t know what is more depressing about the calendar: that the priests would voluntarily pose for it, or that their superiors are likely to buy it. In any case, it is a hideous illustration of a gayed-up religion, screwing around while the Church collapses under the weight of a gay pederasty scandal of epic proportions." . . .

George Neumayr, a contributing editor to The American Spectator, is co-author of No Higher Power: Obama’s War on Religious Freedom.