Why Have The Media Not 'Done the Dirty' on Pope Francis?

Photo doctored to show Fr Joseph Ratzinger giving Nazi salute

Happy Christmastide, everyone. We live in interesting times, no? Christmastide has permitted me to take a break from blogging and to do some much needed reflection. I won't bore you with my personal reflections on life - or my life (it's a disaster as usual!) - but the pontificate of Pope Francis continues to confuse me utterly. One large reason is his continued popularity with the media and this will be the focus of this blog post.


A New York Times columnist has today written the following concerning the papacy and the sexual abuse crisis that dominated coverage of the Church under Benedict XVI.

'...it’s troubling, and telling, that the media would give a more liberal-seeming pope a pass on an issue they hammered his predecessor on at every opportunity.' 

I am deeply disconcerted by our Pope's continued popularity with media organs usually emphatically opposed to the Catholic Church. His continued popularity with the Press is just weird and unprecedented in its scale. I do not wish to spread gossip, nor pile suspicion on the current Successor of St Peter, but to make known my apprehensions concerning the continued popular media relationship enjoyed by a Pope during times which are objectively dark and in which the sanctity of human life, marriage, the family, the Priesthood and the Church's Magisterium are under diabolical attack. I do not wish to accuse Pope Francis of anything, but only to elaborate on my personal fears concerning a honeymoon period with the media which shows no signs of abating.

More great press for Benedict XVI

The honeymoon period that never ends...

Since it is not just the Pope's loquacious interviews, nor the astonishing attack on the FFI or other matters pertaining to the papacy - these are all side matters that remain confusing and at times harrowing. What continues to perplex me is the continued 'love-in' with the mass media that the Successor of St Peter enjoys to this day.

For a time I have read blog posts from Catholic commentators suggesting that 'any day now' the thin ice sheet that protects Pope Francis from the icy, predator-infested waters of media character assassination is going to break. Since those commentators have made those prophetic statements, the Supreme Pontiff has won not just Time Magazine's Person of the Year, but that of The Times as well. The Nobel Peace Prize perhaps awaits him next year and His Holiness has even been awarded Person of the Year by a militantly homosexual publication. More plaudits surely await.

Doctored photo of Fr Ratzinger blessing a congregation

Over Christmas, my own parents called me a 'subversive' as I discussed Pope Francis with them in Arundel in a pub on Boxing Day. In reply, I asked my mum whether Pope Francis made her want to become a Catholic. She replied that nothing would make her become a Catholic but that Pope Francis seemed like a good thing and that if she were to become anything, she would become a Quaker.

Therefore, to those who assert that Pope Francis is the Evangelist extraordinaire, 'I rest my case'. Pope Francis has many notable personal qualities and virtues but it must be noted that His Holiness is content to leave everyone exactly where they are, thereby neutralizing the once great spiritual and moral force that was the Papacy and, with it, the Catholic Church's mission of Salvation on Earth.

Why I am waiting for the media to turn on Pope Francis...

If I say I am waiting for the media to turn on Pope Francis, it is not because I want him to stop being the great 'bridge-builder', but rather because I desire him to be Pope, Shepherd and Pastor to me, rather than that of the World and the media, since I am a Catholic and the World and the media are not. The first people the Pope should be feeding is the sheep of Christ and as a baptised Catholic, no matter what my personal failings are ("self-absorbtion", "neo-prometheanism"), I fall into that category. The media and the World do not.

What has happened to the Fourth Estate?

Exactly what has happened to the once fiercely anti-Catholic media? The media's extensive portrayal of Pope Benedict XVI as a Nazi sympathiser, despite his being pressed into Nazi Youth at a young age and leaving it, only to recant publicly of his involvement and to denounce the hideous ideologies of the 20th century was rarely left (though in shortened form) from the reports on any stage of his papacy from various media organs. Nor, indeed, was the supposed 'cover up' of criminal paedophiles by Pope Benedict XVI who had proclaimed not too long after his inauguration that he was determined to clean up the 'filth' that had infiltrated the Church.

And yet, with what can only be seen as mass media Absolution, the pontificate of Pope Francis has enjoyed the complete erasing of this prelate's 'murky' past in the Argentinian 'Dirty War'. I assume, therefore that the mass media have been politely instructed to ignore the alleged crimes and misdemeanours of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio under the military Junta even though people have come forward to implicate him personally in the 'disappearing' of both priests and lay people during the military rule of Argentina in the aftermath of the Peronist Government. Why, I simply ask, is this credible accusation never appended to every comment or article concerning the 'new world Pope'? With Benedict XVI everything - even things that could not be attributed to his culpability - fell upon him. So why the change?

Friends in High Places

What baffles me is not whether or not Pope Francis did or did not assist in the arrest and subsequent torture of Catholics who disappeared in the Argentine Dirty War, since the jury still appears to be out on that charge. I am happy to believe that he is perfectly innocent of all charges and acted to save as many lives as possible. I am happy even to believe that he may have acted heroically. What baffles me is that suddenly, after a few days of his election, the media were 'called off' this potentially explosive line of anti-Catholic and anti-papal enquiry.

The simple fact of the matter is that if the media wanted to 'go for' this Pope, there is ample 'ammunition' flung across the world wide web, yet, either by a masterstroke of public relations from an unassailable, untouchable popularist Pope of the people, or by a wilful collective decision to remain silent, on Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio's past, we hear nothing. I say this only to contrast it with the experience of his predecessor whose reputation was kicked from pillar to post by the mass media.

Let's be plain about this. Pope Benedict XVI's history was one of youthful experience, which we can safely assume was under an element of coercion, with Hitler Youth. He himself was honest about his time during Hitler's regime as a boy. Despite what the media threw at him, there really was a great element of transparency about Benedict XVI.

Yet at no point was Pope Benedict XVI implicated in the 'disappearance' of those in his own care as an adult, nor of handing others over to an oppressive regime to be punished. Yet this is precisely the accusation that the media could level at Pope Francis, if they wanted to, but they do not. The media never wanted the real story on the Benedictine removal of serious sex offenders from the priesthood. They only ever wanted their own narrative from the beginning.

Why the change with Pope Francis? Media silence on the issue in the wake of his election is made all the more confusing in a mass media predominately populated by 'leftists' who hated the suppression of socialists and communists during the Dirty War. Yet the charge that Fr Jorge Bergolio handed over 'leftist' members of the clergy and/or laity in Argentina to the military junta to experience a helicopter flight from Hell goes unmentioned after the first day of Bergoglio's pontificate. I only ask the question: why? It is not as if the allegations - however unproven - have not been made.

Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio's cordial 'connections' with General Jorge Videla are perhaps what we can expect of any South American prelate working towards the discouragement of communism and extreme forms of socialism in an ideologically torn Argentina. Yet it has been noted by others, and I know not whether the charge is fair or not, that in Chile, the Catholic Church refused to co-operate with General Pinochet's draconian clampdown on socialists and according to the reports noted here, saved thousands of lives in the process. In contrast, in Argentina, whatever you think of socialists (and I personally dislike them) 30,000 men and women were 'disappeared'.

The 'fog of war' is one thing, but it seems to me to be a very strange anomaly that the election of one prelate with a track record of alleged complicity or silence in the 'disappearing' of human beings and their subsequent torture and even death has been whitewashed from public discourse concerning this 'People's Pope' since such an allegation could amount to some form of stain on a prelate's 'pro-life' record. In fact, one could readily ask the question: after the muck thrown at Benedict XVI, what bright sparks had the idea of electing to the Chair of St Peter someone allegedly implicated in providing intelligence and even wanted persons to Argentina's military junta during the Dirty War in that land? To my mind, the election of such an individual to the Papacy only makes sense if that individual enjoys special protection of a first-class kind from the start. Like I say, it doesn't matter whether the allegations are all false. With Benedict XVI, all the media needed were false allegations and they employed them to a tee until no non-Catholic and even some Catholics could think of Pope Benedict XVI without thinking of child abuse and Nazis.

General Jorge Videla and P2 Masonic Infiltration of Argentinian Government

Of course, the media could really 'go to town' on the deeply masonic aspect to the Military Junta regime with which Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio is alleged to have had dealings in Argentina, but, then again, the mass media tend to steer clear of the dark secrets of Freemasonry nowadays and who can blame them, what with Freemasonry being in charge of the vast majority of media organs. What with masonry being rife in public life, most especially in the Establishment of Great Britain and the Americas, as well as Europe and a particularly virulent form in Italy, it is no wonder that Time Magazine, for one, does not wish to delve deeper into the acquaintances of the then Fr Jorge Bergoglio to become Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio and then Pope Francis. Again, I stand not as His Holiness's accuser, but simply ask the questions that a figure like Pope Benedict XVI most probably would have been asked by the media.

For instance, General Jorge Videla is known to have been a member of the masonic Propaganda Due lodge in Italy that worked in parts of Latin America. The scandal of the P2 lodge broke in Italy in the 1980s, shocking the Italian public, sending shockwaves too around the World concerning the subversive nature of this lodge in terms of Italy's political, economic and social life. Wikipedia makes the connections between the P2 lodge and the military regime in Latin America startlingly clear.

Of course, nothing in all of this implicates the then Fr Jorge Bergoglio in the atrocious P2 lodge, even if the Propaganda Due team of Freemasons were working at the behest of the fatally ambitious Licio Gelli in Buenos Aires at the time of his headship of the Order of Jesuits in Argentina, but then, neither was Pope Benedict XVI ever a SS storm-trooper and nor did he ever endorse acts of murder or genocide as a 14-year-old boy. Neither is the charge that he was complicit in the taking of life levelled at him despite his public vilification in the world's press.

The Vatican at War: From Blackfriars Bridge to Buenos Aires

Yet, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio seems to have enjoyed cordial and even co-operative relationships with high ranking P2 lodge Freemasons carrying out the 'dirty work' of the CIA in the 1970s. It just so happened that these men were on a list of around 1,000 members of the Propaganda Due masonic lodge in Italy that was smashed by Roman investigators. Stunningly, even membership of this masonic lodge never hurt Silvio Berlusconi of 'bunga-bunga' infamy and monopoly Italian media ownership notoriety. He went on to become very successful.

Just as Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio seems to have enjoyed friendly and co-operative relationships with these nefarious Kissinger-Rockefeller supported individuals, well known for dumping their enemies in the sea after a helicopter ride, now Pope Francis enjoys a 'get out of jail free card' from the mass media, in complete contrast from his venerable predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, who was daily accused of being not just a Nazi, but a 'protector of paedophiles' from more or less day one of his time as Supreme Pontiff.

Despite the media circus, I still feel like I do not know Pope Francis at all

In all my online investigations, amateurish as they may be, I'm just really trying to get to know, 'Who is the real Jorge Bergoglio?'

Am I simply to accept the media version? Despite the whirlwind of media reports concerning the great virtue of our beloved Pontiff, I still feel like I do not him, who he is, or what he stands for, other than some photographic opportunities that make him look like a Saint and an exhortation that tells us to put the poor first while persecuting a successful Franciscan Order.

I, like many, continue to be fascinated by not only the person of this Pope, but the media's reaction to him, at a time when the media represent dark and incredibly powerful forces working against the interests of the Catholic Church in its message of Salvation and its moral stature around the World, in terms of preaching not just tolerance and love, but repentance and the Teachings of Christ guarded by the Successor of St Peter in the Deposit of Faith. Meanwhile, as media reports of his greatness continue to resound around the World, from mainstream news publication to mainstream news publication, I hear of the mission of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate being thrown out of various helicopters and dumped into the sea.

'Please, what is the number of Pope Francis's PR man?'

The Guardian: Hurried 'Re-writing' of the Story of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio

Particularly eerie is The Guardian's revision of their own article on the date of 13 March 2013, the precise date of Pope Francis's election to the Chair of St Peter. The article itself, written in 2011, laments the silence and complicity of the Catholic Church in Argentina during the Dirty War. At the foot of the article now appears an amendment to the original, with anything that implicates the then Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio removed, as follows...

'This article was amended on 14 March 2013. The original article, published in 2011, wrongly suggested that Argentinian journalist Horacio Verbitsky claimed that Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio connived with the Argentinian navy to hide political prisoners on an island called El Silencio during an inspection by human rights monitors. Although Verbitsky makes other allegations about Bergoglio's complicity in human rights abuses, he does not make this claim. The original article also wrongly described El Silencio as Bergoglio's "holiday home". This has been corrected.'

So, The Guardian saw fit to amend their original article on the Church and the disappeared just one day after the election of Pope Francis, having never seen fit to be accurate in their reporting between publication of the 2011 article and the election of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio to the papacy? The removed piece can be found here.

A new book claims Fr Bergoglio saved 1,000 lives in the Dirty War

New book claims Fr Jorge Bergoglio saved a thousand lives in the Dirty War

Having allegedly refused to appear in court to face the various charges levelled against him by a human rights lawyer, Pope Francis, as Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio dismissed the allegations brought against him as 'slander' and the media have, since his election to the papacy, accepted this with seemingly little further investigation.

I, too, am happy to accept that this is pure slander and slander is evil. Since his election, a book has been released documenting a completely different narrative of the Dirty War, in which the then Fr Jorge Bergoglio is heralded as an heroic Saint saving lives in a clandestine manner. He may well have, but speaking out against the excesses of the regime is something the head of the Jesuit Order in Argentina certainly never did - others did and paid with their lives for doing so. If only Pope Pius XII and Pope Benedict XVI had a PR team like that of Pope Francis, as well as a receptive Fourth Estate such as that we see today in love with Pope Francis, then one would never have been labelled 'Hitler's Pope' and the other a 'Nazi Youth' Hitler supporter.

I am not judging Pope Francis and I have no knowledge as to whether he is a Freemason, has ties to Freemasons or was guilty of any crime or assistance in disappearances during the CIA sponsored Dirty War. He certainly didn't choose to be head of the Jesuit Order in Argentina while Freemasons operating on behalf of the CIA were running the country and killing 30,000 people, but then neither was Benedict XVI ever ideologically or in any other capacity a Nazi storm-trooper rounding up Jews for extermination. Like the vast majority of German youngsters at the time, he was drafted into Hitler Youth.

It has to be said that the vast majority of the mass media is in the hands of elite men for whom the Catholic Church is a sworn enemy. Its subversion and its destruction is goal #1 for them, since they have their own agenda. I only ask the question once again: Why is there such a marked difference in the Press's treatment of Pope Francis and that of Pope Benedict XVI and his Predecessors? Whatever it is that media owners know about Pope Francis, that we do not, I, as a Catholic, would like to be informed. Until the day the powerful media owners of this World turn on him, I will most likely remain deeply perturbed because the favourable media reports just keep on a-comin'. 

The media mystery of Pope Francis is that we went from this to this, very quickly, to this Every...single...day.

Happy Christmastide, one and all.