The Pope’s emphasis on mercy uber alles is coming back to bite him:
Pope Francis has quietly reduced sanctions against a handful of pedophile priests, applying his vision of a merciful church even to its worst offenders in ways that survivors of abuse and the pope’s own advisers question.
One case has come back to haunt him: An Italian priest who received the pope’s clemency was later convicted by an Italian criminal court for his sex crimes against children as young as 12. The Rev. Mauro Inzoli is now facing a second church trial after new evidence emerged against him, The Associated Press has learned.
The Inzoli case is one of several in which Francis overruled the advice of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and reduced a sentence that called for the priest to be defrocked, two canon lawyers and a church official told AP. Instead, the priests were sentenced to penalties including a lifetime of penance and prayer and removal from public ministry.
In some cases, the priests or their high-ranking friends appealed to Francis for clemency by citing the pope’s own words about mercy in their petitions, the church official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the proceedings are confidential.
Go here to read the rest. Two points:
-  Mercy, to the exclusion of anything else, often involves a heaping platter of injustice to the people who aren’t receiving the mercy. The Church traditionally understood this. The Pope’s emphasis on mercy alone is an aberration in the history of the Church.
- Note the phrase “high ranking friends”. The Pope understands himself as the leader of the liberal/progressive faction within the Church and some members of that faction have escaped normal Church discipline under this Pope. Like most politicians, and the Pope is an ecclesiastical politicians, he uses his power to punish his enemies and reward his friends.
The innocent priests that we’re falsely accused of pedophilia and subsequently treated like criminals.. where is their justice. Off topic? I guess, but to me that is the true outrageous and unacceptable fact. No due process.
Pope Francis?
Pray hard for him and his soul.
A cynic might think that under this Pope, the canon law is a weapon to be used contra internal adversaries. Nothing more, nothing less.
Ecclesiastical tribunals will make mistakes because they’re working with scanty and dated evidence most of the time.
In the hands of Pope Francis mercy for sinners has become license for sin.
Pope John Paul II said: “One crime and the priest is OUT”