Win One, Lose Some

Father Federico Lombardi, spokesman for the Vatican, announced the Holy See had won a moral victory, defending the Pope's image through legal means.  Italian fashion company Benetton, has agreed to make a donation to a Catholic charity to end a legal dispute with the Vatican over one of its naughty and rather spicy advertisements.

This one highlighted the unlikely event of Pope Benedict kissing an imam on the lips.  Rather droll, to say the least.  The advertisement was rather brilliant, in fact, albeit shocking as well to the sensibilities of the onlooker, to say nothing of the reaction of the Holy See.  It represented part of a shock advertising campaign, so that much is logical.

The UNHATE campaign also featured other world figures in similar states of kindliness toward others whom it could logically be said there exists severe antipathy.  As, for example, U.S. President Barack Obama, bussing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.  Actually that could be imagined, but the reverse? Unlikely.

Now, balance that against the decidedly illegal, criminal abduction of a 15-year-old girl, the daughter of a Vatican lay employee, whose disappearance in 1983 has never been solved.  Although it has been bruited about that a criminal member of Rome's Magliana mob kidnapped the girl.  And there are hints of possible involvement of Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, the U.S. prelate who had been involved in a Vatican bank scandal.

In the interests of discovering what had become of the young girl, the body of the gangster, Enrico De Pedis, was exhumed to determine whether rumours circulating that the girl had been buried in his tomb alongside him could be verified.  And questions remain how it is that a mobster could be buried within a Roman basilica, adjacent the Opus Dei-operated Pontifical Holy Cross University.


That relates to possible unsavoury skulduggery in the holy orders.  But wait, there's more, there always is.

The Legionaries of Christ Roman Catholic religious order's Father Thomas Williams admitted to having fathered a child with a woman in Rome.  He is now judged to have been a sexual abuser who had two secret families.  The public face of the order, he explained church teachings, writing over a dozen books, including Knowing Right From Wrong: A Christian Guide to Conscience.


The Vatican now has said it was investigating seven Legionaries on suspicion of having sexually abused children.