Proof of God Particle?

Reviews of the discovery last July, of a "Higgs-like" particle, confirm that it is a Higgs boson.

Scientists have now finished going through the entire set of data year and announced the results in a statement and at a physics conference in the Italian Alps.

"To me it is clear that we are dealing with a Higgs boson, though we still have a long way to go to know what kind of Higgs boson it is," said Joe Incandela, a physicist who heads one of the two main teams at CERN that each involve about 3,000 scientists.

Its existence helps confirm the theory that objects gain their size and shape when particles interact in an energy field with a key particle, the Higgs boson. The more they attract, the theory goes, the bigger their mass will be.

But, it remains an "open question," CERN said in a statement, whether this is the Higgs boson that was expected in the original formulation, or possibly the lightest of several predicted in some theories that go beyond that model.

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Anti-Mafia Raid on Papal Frontrunner

Just when you thought the papal drama couldn't get any stranger, the first day of the conclave includes a police raid on the offices of one of the strongest candidates.

But even as preparations for the mass were being made, Cardinal Angelo Scola, the archbishop of Milan – and reportedly the hot favourite to be the next pope – suffered a blow.

Anti-mafia detectives swooped on homes, offices, clinics and hospitals in Lombardy, the region around Milan, and elsewhere. A statement said the dawn raids were part of an investigation into "corruption linked to tenders by, and supplies to, hospitals".

Healthcare in Lombardy is the principal responsibility of the regional administration, which for the past 18 years has been run by Roberto Formigoni, a childhood friend of Scola and the leading political representative of the Communion and Liberation fellowship. Until recently, Scola was seen as the conservative group's most distinguished ecclesiastical spokesman.

Now there's two words you don't want to see linked together at the commencement of a papal election: Cardinal and Mafia. The Vatican has enough skeletons in that particular closet... not to mention its crypt.

Scola began to "distance himself" -- note the political language -- from both his childhood friend and from Communion and Liberation about a year ago.

At least one crony of Formigoni was collared — putting Scola only one degree of separation from an alleged government corruption in the region of Scola’s archdiocese.

Scola and Formigoni have known each other for years and were early supporters of the Communion and Liberation movement, which first became popular in the 1970s as a way of encouraging the virtues of Catholicism in secular environments like the workplace.

But the movement’s proximity to the secular world has led to it often being associated with corruption, as The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

In what is being characterized as an "October surprise," this could compromise one of the best hopes for a speedy resolution to what is shaping up to be a very fractious conclave. Scola is rumored to have had the strongest hand going into the vote and this could weaken it.

It's unclear whether the brewing controversy will sway the direction of the Vatican, scandal-ridden as it is itself, in conclave. But with Scola previously rumored to have about 50 of the 77 votes needed to take the papacy secured, the news will likely make some papal speculators take one giant step back before the white smoke.

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Viking Sunstone Discovered?

Add another reason to love crystals. Scientists now believe that simple calcite is the Viking Sunstone of legend.

Ancient lore has suggested that the Vikings used special crystals to find their way under less-than-sunny skies. Though none of these so-called "sunstones" have ever been found at Viking archaeological sites, a crystal uncovered in a British shipwreck could help prove they did indeed exist.

The crystal was found amongst the wreckage of the Alderney, an Elizabethan warship that sank near the Channel Islands in 1592. The stone was discovered less than 3 feet from a pair of navigation dividers, suggesting it may have been kept with the ship's other navigational tools, according to the research team headed by scientists at the University of Rennes in France.

. . .

Because of the rhombohedral shape of calcite crystals, "they refract or polarize light in such a way to create a double image," Mike Harrison, coordinator of the Alderney Maritime Trust, told LiveScience. This means that if you were to look at someone's face through a clear chunk of Icelandic spar, you would see two faces. But if the crystal is held in just the right position, the double image becomes a single image and you know the crystal is pointing east-west, Harrison said.

These refractive powers remain even in low light when it's foggy or cloudy or when twilight has come. In a previous study, the researchers proved they could use Icelandic spar to orient themselves within a few degrees of the sun, even after the sun had dipped below the horizon.

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Dethroning the Hierophant

Article first published as Dethroning the Hierophant on Blogcritics.

A few years ago, I observed that the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church was hitting a critical point, as a glut of news reports was beginning to directly implicate the Vatican. I suggested then that what was happening in the Catholic Church was an indicator of the dismantling of hierarchical systems more broadly and that in the Motherpeace Tarot, such patriarchal, spiritual authority is represented by the Hierophant.

At its root, the word "hierophant" means bringer to light of sacred things. In the traditional Tarot, the Hierophant represents a priest or Pope, the paternal religious authority.... Representing a hierarchical view of religion, the Hierophant stands on a pedestal, raised up from the earth, above the common person. In the Motherpeace image, he has taken over the robes and skirt of the High Priestess, along with her breasts which symbolize her sacred power, but he has forsaken her "Sophia" or wisdom.... The authority of the Hierophant is based, in large part, on repression of women and the natural instincts that women symbolize.

The The Motherpeace Tarot Playbook explains how to read the card when it comes up in a spread.

The Hierophant represents spiritual authority. He represents ritual and ceremonial magic which manifests as organized religion in this culture. Or he represents the psychic control exercised by mostly male, authority figures in our culture, such as psychiatrists, gurus, doctors and courtroom judges. Since he is also the internalized parent or superego authority, he represents conventional morality.

The text goes on to explain how to read this card when it presents as reversed, or ill-dignified.

The reversal shows a full-scale rebellion. You can no longer tolerate external roles and conventional morality; you have begun to call on your deeper conscience for advice You are able to stop kneeling to the priest or the doctor or the father, choosing instead to take your own advice, heed your own counsel.

Five Bishops Agree: Violence Against Lesbians OK

Read it and weep.

Five key Catholic bishops are opposing the newly authorized Violence Against Women Act for fear it will subvert traditional views of marriage and gender, and compromise the religious freedom of groups that aid victims of human trafficking.

But for the first time since the original act became law in 1994, it spells out that no person may be excluded from the law’s protections because of  “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” — specifically covering lesbian, transgender and bisexual women.

Yes. According to five signing bishops, compassion is conditional. Catholics can't risk their "conscience" by serving the needy if that in any way interferes with their right to discriminate against entire groups of people.

“Conscience protections are needed in this legislation to ensure that these service providers are not required to violate their bona fide religious beliefs as a condition for serving the needy,” reads the statement of the bishops, who have supported previous versions of the act.

Five bishops -- Bishop Stephen E. Blaire, Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone, Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades, Archbishop William E. Lori, and Archbishop Jose H. Gomez -- have a very strange idea of what it means to have a conscience.

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Popeless

"Fight the real enemy." ~ Sinead O'Connor

Remember when Sinead O'Connor ripped up a picture of the pope on Saturday Night Live? Good times, good times.

A priest in Italy has stolen her act... and may have even topped it.

An Italian priest set fire to a photo of Pope Benedict during Sunday Mass in protest against his abdication, telling a shocked congregation that the former pontiff had abandoned his flock.

“It was wonderful,” the Rev. Andrea Maggi from Santo Stefano Protomartire church in the small northern village of Castel Vittorio, told La Repubblica daily, defending his act.

He played to mixed reviews. Half of the congregation walked out before the service was over. The best performance art is always controversial.

The local mayor was quick to point out that it was a "fragile" time for the priest, psychologically speaking. One could argue that it is a fragile time for the Catholic Church as well.

Not everyone is taking the idea of papal resignation well. There are so many questions. What is a former pope called? What will he wear? Will having a recently resigned pope nearby cast a shadow over the election of the next pope? Will having a new pope and a living, breathing, fairly lucid, former pope create tension, or even a rift? Will the resignation from a divine-right, job for life, with so many royal trappings, set a dangerous precedent?

There is something of a circus atmosphere developing in Rome as these incredibly novel proceedings unfold.

A man tried to sneak into secret talks Monday that are being held by the Catholic cardinals who will select the next pope.

Wearing a makeshift bishop costume, he arrived at the Vatican with an entourage of fake clerics, even posing for photos with a real cardinal.

. . .

The impostor was identified by Italian news agency ANSA as Ralph Napierski. He is a German who said he is part of a non-existent Catholic institution called Corpus Dei (a play on "Opus Dei," a real Catholic group). His attempted infiltration prompted the Vatican to hold discussions on improving security that already includes sweeping the Sistine Chapel for listening devices.

. . .

Napierski milled around the area outside the meetings for half an hour with no problems. He told onlookers his name was Basilius and that he was a bishop in the Italian Orthodox Church, which does not exist.

He was passin'... until some clever dick noticed that his cassock was a little too short. I would have thought the black fedora and pinkish-purple, winter scarf as a sash would have been more of a tell, but what do I know.

The woman dressed as a priest was not so lucky. People noticed that right off.

This morning, during the “appointment” with the general congregation, visitors to piazza San Pietro were treated to the following amusing scene: a woman dressed up as a priest went walking around the piazza, surprising the faithful. According to several witnesses, this was only the latest in a series of provocations of a group from the liberal front of the church, initiated in light of the conclave and the election of the new pope, and aimed at supporting the creation of female priests.

The woman, a foreigner of approximately 60 years of age, refused to make any statements. She was wearing a priest’s white collar, black pants and shirt. Several faithful and tourists present in the piazza stated that they were stunned to see “yet another form of protest against the prohibition of women priests, especially now in light of the elections for a new pope.” In 2011 a group of 150 priests signed a petition to support the American priest Roy Burgeois, after he publicly stated that he was in favor of allowing women into the order.

Remember when Sinead O'Connor became a priest?

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Cardinal Mahony Goes to Rome

Cardinal Mahony doesn't understand what all the fuss is about. And neither does the Vatican.

Cardinal Roger Mahony expressed "amazement" at calls that he withdraw from the upcoming papal conclave because of his record on clergy sex abuse and said the Vatican, acting through its ambassador to the United States, had instructed him to take part in the election of the next pope.

. . .

"Without my even having to inquire, the nuncio in Washington phoned me a week or so ago and said, 'I have had word from the highest folks in the Vatican: You are to come to Rome and you are to participate in the conclave,' " the cardinal said.

Mahony has been mystified since his successor Archbishop Jose Gomez benched him a month ago. He doesn't think anything in the recently released files is so damning.

Mahony said he was "amazed" at the controversy over the Los Angeles files, claiming that the salient information about sex abuse in them could be found in a 22-page report available on the archdiocese's website since 2004.

"There are some new things in the files that came out, but as far as I know I don't find anything in there disqualifying," he said.

One wonders, then, why Cardinal Mahony moved heaven and earth and retained an army of lawyers to keep those files from being released.

The settlement process was long, tedious and so byzantine that no one could possibly describe it with any accuracy. All the while, the lawyers retained by the cardinal were doing their utmost to prolong anything resembling a just solution. When the bishops' cheerleaders throughout the country accuse the victims' lawyers of being greedy, they should take another look at the dozens of attorneys who made up Mahony's brigade, all of whom were high-priced and none of whom worked pro bono for even an hour. Whenever the cardinal appeared for a deposition or meeting involving the cases, at least six and often 10 lawyers accompanied him. Who paid the legal fees? The "people of God" of the Los Angeles archdiocese. Who else? [emphasis mine]

. . .

As part of the 2007 settlement, the archdiocese agreed to disclose the files of the perpetrators. The ink was not dry on the settlement before the cardinal launched what would become a seemingly endless series of legal objections and procedural delays that at one point went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

. . .

Shortly thereafter it was discovered that the archdiocese had released only around 12,000 pages and that many of those had the names of church officials blacked out, contrary to the judge's order. The public response was swift. The cardinal's lead counsel, Michael Hennigan, said he had no idea why the documents were missing, and promised more would be forth coming. More spin and roadblock right up to the wire!

Mahony and his many, expensive lawyers spent ten years putting 508 sex abuse survivors through a Kafkaesque nightmare that dragged on for years even after they had settled with them for $660 million in 2007 -- all to prevent what was in those files from ever seeing the light of day. But now that their stomach-turning contents are available for scrutiny, he suddenly thinks it's all just much ado.

Despite his past apologies to the victims of sex abuse that he enabled, he wonders why anyone would have expected anything different?

"People say, 'well, why didn't you call the police?' In those days no one reported these things to the police, usually at the request of families," he said. "What I did in those years was consistent with what everybody did, in the Boy Scouts, in public schools, private schools, across the country."

It was not, however, consistent with the law -- a fact of which he was well aware having conspired with his associate Bishop Thomas Curry to move priests out of state to prevent their prosecution. They deliberately kept abusive priests out of the state, in part, so that their victims and their families wouldn't recognize them and report them. One wonders what common practice he was complying with when they war-gamed ideas to avoid sending pedophiles to therapists who might comply with reporting laws, even going so far as to discuss finding a therapist who was also a lawyer so that they could attach privilege. Mahony knows full well the lengths to which he went to protect abusive priests are graphically described in those files that he now says don't contain anything "disqualifying."

One wonders why Cardinal Mahony would invoke the Boy Scouts, of all organizations, which is currently under court order to turn over their own super secret "perversion files." I guess breaking the law is cool if other "morally straight," hypocritical, homophobic institutions do it.

From the moment Mahony lost the long-fought battle to protect his paper trail from scrutiny, we have heard nothing from him but self-justification and self-pity. As he tells it now, he's a martyr. Why, he's just like Jesus.

Given all of the storms that have surrounded me and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles recently, God's grace finally helped me to understand:  I am not being called to serve Jesus in humility.  Rather, I am being called to something deeper--to be humiliated, disgraced, and rebuffed by many.

. . .

In the past several days, I have experienced many examples of being humiliated.  In recent days, I have been confronted in various places by very unhappy people.  I could understand the depth of their anger and outrage--at me, at the Church, at about injustices that swirl around us.

Thanks to God's special grace, I simply stood there, asking God to bless and forgive them.

"Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do."

His phrasing is telling. He was not unjust. Injustices just "swirl around us."

Note to Cardinal Mahony: People are not angry with you because life is unfair. They are angry with you because you actively and consciously conspired to protect sexually abusive priests from prosecution and they went on to destroy countless lives.

But Cardinal Mahony is constantly amazed at the idea that he should have to face any sort of consequence for that. He was reprimanded by Archbishop Gomez and he wrote a public rebuttal. Thousands of people signed petitions asking him to bow out of the conclave. He remained defiant.

Even in the Vatican, there are rumblings about his participation. Not everyone seems so comfortable.

A senior Vatican official called Cardinal Roger Mahony's participation in the selection of the next pope "troubling," but said there was no formal procedure to stop the retired Los Angeles archbishop from attending the conclave next month.

The remarks by Cardinal Velasio De Paolis added to a growing murmur about the propriety of Mahony's decision to attend the conclave.

. . .

But Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, who worked at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, said Tuesday that “if his presence creates difficulties or embarrassment, then I think it could be opportune to renounce.”

Still, he said, “the decision is up to him and his conscience.”

Not exactly a ringing endorsement. But, in fairness, the Vatican can't act too superior. As Cardinal Mahony learned the hard way, when he did try to the right thing, he got little cooperation from Vatican officials. That is yet another revelation in the trove of documents finally unsealed last month.

In 1993, faced with a horribly prolific abuser, he pleaded with the Vatican to have him quickly defrocked.

In less than eight years, Father Kevin Barmasse had, as one church official put it in newly released files, "left a wake of devastation that is hard to comprehend." Mahony yanked Barmasse out of his parish and wanted to make sure he couldn't return. But Barmasse appealed to the one body that could overrule Mahony: the Vatican.

"The case has been there for many, many months," Mahony wrote to one Vatican office tasked with handling priest misconduct. "The lengthy delay has created serious problems for my own credibility as a Diocesan Bishop."

. . .

Although local leaders had the authority to take troubled clerics out of parishes, only the pope could remove them from the priesthood entirely. And when Mahony turned to the Vatican, the papers show, he ran into a bureaucracy steeped in ritual, mired in delays and reluctant to come to terms with the burgeoning problem.

. . .

Mahony dealt with multiple offices on abuse cases, including the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office that defends church teaching and punishes those who commit delicta graviora — grave offenses. Joseph Ratzinger led the office for more than two decades before becoming Pope Benedict XVI in 2005.

Note that the pressing concern is his "own credibility." I don't know. Maybe that was just an attempt at strategy in an institution far more concerned with appearances than the reality of children's lives torn apart by abuse. But I have to wonder if he became so proactive in this instance because the abuser was known well enough to affect his "credibility," while other cases were more easily buried. Many of the priests he moved out of the state should have been defrocked. In another early '90s case, he removed Rev. Lynn Caffoe from ministry but didn't even attempt to have him defrocked until 2004, after losing track of him for years.

But as the documents they tried to hide for so long clearly show, there's plenty of blame to go around. And Cardinal Mahony is not alone in being stymied by the Vatican's impenetrable bureaucracy, glacial progress, and mixed messaging, when it came to just what bishops should do with abusive priests.

So Cardinal Mahony will go into the conclave to select the next pope. He goes in under a cloud. But in a way that bodes ill for the selection process of the next pope, he'll be in very good company.

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Cardinal O'Brien Comes Clean... ish

I thought it was fairly safe to assume that Cardinal Keith O'Brien was guilty of something when he abruptly resigned and withdrew from the conclave. Accusations by several priests and one former priest of his making sexual advances stood in sharp relief against the backdrop of his notorious anti-gay views. A report last Friday in The Scotsman claimed the Vatican had received a report months ago of yet another incident dating back to 2001.

Yesterday the cardinal publicly announced that he was guilty... of something. We're still not sure exactly what.

"In recent days certain allegations which have been made against me have become public. Initially, their anonymous and non-specific nature led me to contest them," O'Brien said.

"However, I wish to take this opportunity to admit that there have been times that my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal," he said. "To those I have offended, I apologise and ask forgiveness.

So here's my question: What constitutes the "standards" expected of a Catholic priest? Wouldn't that be any sexual conduct at all? It just strikes me as a bizarre and excessively couched statement by a man who is still just refusing to name the love that dare not speak it.

This career ending brouhaha erupted immediately after O'Brien had made dicey statements questioning the wisdom of a celibate priesthood. But it would seem that this is not the first time he has gone afoul of official doctrine.

O'Brien has at times had a rocky tenure as a cardinal.

In 2003, as a condition of assuming that rank, he was forced to issue a public pledge to defend church teaching on homosexuality, celibacy and contraception. He was pressured to make the pledge after he had called for a "full and open discussion" on such matters.

There seems to be little about which the cardinal has been consistent through the years. In addition to wavering on contraception and priestly celibacy, he at one time seemed to extol celibacy... for gay priests.

O'Brien appeared to take an accepting stance toward homosexual priests around the time when he was appointed cardinal in 2003.

"If they are leading a celibate life, God bless the men," he was quoted as saying at the time.

He then became a fire-breathing critic of gay marriage. And while he has wavered on contraception, he appears to have held a very firm line against abortion. But who knows what the man is really thinking? He seems to be a walking, talking embodiment of the conflicts and contradictions within a Church incapable of reconciling its doctrinaire policies with the modern world and the majority of Catholics.

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Retired Pope Rattled

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If I were Pope Emeritus Benedict, I might be feeling a little paranoid right about now.

Various Italian news sources reported Sunday that a mild earthquake had struck Rome and surrounding areas, including Castel Gandolfo, the former pope's temporary home.

According to the Agence France-Presse, the earthquake had a local magnitude of 2.5 and was felt in Rome, Ciapino, Marino and Castel Gandolfo. So far, no reports of injury or serious damage have been relayed to the Italian Department of Civil Protection.

. . .

This latest event comes on the heels of a photo that appeared to show a bolt of lightning striking St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City just hours after Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation on Feb. 11.

Granted, this isn't the first time Castel Gandolfo has been rattled by a quake and there is a lightning rod in the Basilica, but still, it's a little weird.

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FLDS Splinter Group Takes Root in the Desert

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A very long, convoluted, lede-burying set of articles and blog posts in the Salt Lake City Tribune profiles William E. Jessop, the leader of a growing group of FLDS apostates. Not to be confused with Willie Jessop, William E. Jessop was born William E. Timpson but an earlier splintering of FLDS caused him to become a Jessop. I suspect this story would be easier to sort out if FLDS weren't so inbred and didn't keep playing musical chairs with the wives and children.

Apparently William E. Jessop was ordained by Rulon Jeffs, father of the currently incarcerated Warren Jeffs. The ordination is dubious, however, because the elder Jeffs had had a number of strokes which by his own rules disqualified him from ordaining anyone. Even so, Jessop was one of Warren Jeffs's top lieutenants and the bishop of Short Creek. He was often called upon by Jeffs to do his dirty work, like delivering his capricious excommunications. Jessop also acquired the wives of a number of excommunicates.

Jessop acknowledged taking some of those women as his own wives. Records seized by Texas authorities in the 2008 raid of the YFZ Ranch show Jessop had 11 wives as of 2006. Jessop says he has many fewer wives now.

Within his new group, polygamy is still practiced, but Jessop has condemned the practice of compelling young girls to marry. Teenage girls are to be provided with options and if they choose to marry, are to be warned of the implications.

"We do not want to do anything that breaks the law," he said.

On the topic of marriage, he later added: "We’ll encourage [girls] to be of age and learn the qualities of life and to enjoy life and not get into something they regret."

Jessop also advocates work and education as options for women.

Jessop has more to go on than his dodgy ordination by Rulon Jeffs and one-time favor of the jailed prophet. In 2007 Warren Jeffs apparently tried to hand him the leadership role, declaring himself to be too "wicked" to continue as the leader of FLDS. Jeffs was in jail for a different rape related offense than he is currently incarcerated for. When he called Jessop, he confessed to incest and pedophilia, and handed over the reigns.

Okay. I have this message. The lord has intervened and detected me to myself. He has shown me that I have not held priesthood since I was 20 years old, having been immoral with a sister and a daughter. And father pointing his finger to me was father’s test on all of us.

I know of your ordination, that you are the keyholder and I have sent a note with my signature verifying it so that there is no question, according to Section 43, although not valid.

All the ordinance work since father’s passing has to be redone and there’s many men that were sent away that do hold priesthood and their families will need to be put back.

And then to say this to you. I am one of the most wicked men on the face of the earth since the days of Father Adam.

Shortly thereafter, Jeffs thought better of his abdication, and excommunicated Jessop instead, sending him to Wisconsin to repent for unspecified offenses.

Now one might think that such a series of events would have convinced Jessop that Warren Jeffs was not a leader worth following, but one would be wrong. After thirteen months of Wisconsin exile, he was readmitted and directed to readmit some other men who had been previously expelled. He stayed in the fold, despite nagging concerns about Jeffs's paranoid proclamations from prison and the increasingly poor, barren conditions of the flock.

In early 2011, Willie Jessop showed him evidence of Jeffs's crimes, including his sexual abuse of a 12 year old girl.

"The voice that I was hearing was not the voice of God," Jessop explained.  

Jessop attempted to seize the FLDS presidency and assets but Jeffs countered and maintained his legal title. So Jessop started his own congregation in Short Creek and invited the members of FLDS to leave the diseased organization and its pedophile leader. He has attracted a following to his kinder, gentler FLDS Lite. (His new church doesn't have a name yet.) His followers are free to eat things other than beans and water, play games, and one assumes, have sex with their spouses... however many of those they may have. In other words, they can return to a lifestyle prohibited by Jeffs, as he requires his membership to share in his jail cell suffering.

Jessop's following is made up of people who were excommunicated by Jeffs and there is a lot of fear among these apostates, as he continues to exert his influence.

Many of the families in Jessop’s congregation are small for a polygamous community. Few men appear with multiple wives, and no one has more than a handful of children. Several adults even sit alone.

Attendance at the meeting is a testament to the conflicts that have ripped through Short Creek in recent years. After Warren Jeffs took control of the FLDS church in 2002, he unleashed mass purges. Many men were kicked out and their wives and children ordered into new families. Husbands, wives and children were separated. Today, even from a Texas prison, Jeffs reportedly continues to control the church and expel members for any reason, including attending Jessop’s Sunday services.

Many, but not all, members of Jessop’s congregation are consequently secretive. They eschew media attention, and attendance this day may have been smaller due to the presence of Salt Lake Tribune staffers. Several group members pointed to white security cameras on nearby buildings, saying they exist to catch people attending Jessop’s congregation or engaging in other activities barred by Jeffs’ self-described revelations.

FLDS is on an ugly and dangerous path to self-destruction, but it still seems to count thousands as members, at least that's the claim. It will be interesting to see how many of its refugees wind up in the Jeffs-free version of their church and what that will look like down the line.

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Bugging the Vatican

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In the wake of an historic, papal resignation, much of the world's gaze is fixed on the Vatican these days. And the picture ain't pretty. The shroud of secrecy is slipping and exposing rifts, power-plays, mistrust, and even the possibility of wanton, homoerotic debauchery. But what is most surprising in all of it isn't the scandalous intrigue or distinct whiff of criminality. That much is hardly news. It's that they look like the bloody Keystone Cops! When it comes to  managing their internal crises and dealing with the media, they're just incompetent.

There were indications of that in all their buffoonish attempts to tamp down the furor surrounding the sex abuse crisis. As I wrote here, being a former publicist, I have found myself astonished at their ham-fisted ineptitude. They seem to spend a lot of time rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic and castigating the media for noting that they're taking on water.

As I wrote here, Pope Benedict is being subjected to scrutiny and criticism that most outgoing popes aren't... because they usually go out in a body bag and defaming the recently deceased is just bad form. But it's not just his liberal -- and moderate -- critics who are questioning his record. The knives are out in the very fractious Vatican and we're hearing the rumblings about what a poor administrator and ineffectual leader he was.

In the Vatican itself, there was always a subtle current that held that Benedict may be a world-class intellectual but he was out of his depth as a CEO, sometimes leaving the church rudderless. Even his resignation stirred sotto voce resentment, with Vatican insiders grumbling that plans for the timing of the conclave to elect his successor should have been worked out in advance rather than left hanging.

In fairness to Pope Benedict, I don't think the Vatican was made for the high tech era. I doubt Pope John Paul II would have been as popular had he been subjected to 24 hour media scrutiny, social media, bloggers, and everything else that has come with a burgeoning, global internet. The Vatican is a hidebound institution and has long been woefully out of step with the greater society. We shouldn't be shocked to find that it's not ready for prime time.

That said, some of this is just crazy.

Apart from the scandals, the Curia has been blamed for not protecting the pope from several mishaps and bad decisions, not foreseeing negative reaction to some of his pronouncements and not giving him enough information to make the right decision.

In 2006, it failed to predict the fallout from a papal speech in which Benedict quoted a Byzantine emperor equating Islam with violence. That speech led to violent protests among Muslims around the world.

In 2009, the Curia failed to do its homework before the pope let an excommunicated traditionalist bishop, Richard Williamson, be re-admitted to the church. He was a known Holocaust denier and the episode badly damaged ties with Jews around the world.

In a letter to bishops on the fallout of the Williamson affair, the humiliated pope had to admit that his administration did not use the Internet as much as it should.

Let's unpack that, shall we? The Holocaust denier thing was a fiasco, and yes, it could be argued that the fact-checkers dropped the ball. Again, we've established that they're not the most tech savvy bunch. Mistakes were made.

But, the scholar -- the "teaching pope" -- needed to be advised that quoting a Byzantine emperor on the inherent violence of Islam might just be a problem? If he needed to be protected from himself to that degree, maybe he did need to retire.

Now we learn that his much criticized failure to reform the Curia and deal with the entrenched factions throughout the Vatican may have included a "gay lobby" that left the Vatican vulnerable to blackmail. And how does the Vatican deal with these revelations? No comment. And, having acknowledged the existence of the dossier, they announce that no one will ever see it. So if anyone thought it wasn't damning, they might want to reconsider that right about now.

And wiretaps in the Vatican?! No, no, no... Okay, well, yeah... a bit, a bit... But there were only a very few of them and that decision was made well below the Pope's pay-grade, thank you very much. So... ya know...

And anyone who wants to talk about the internal matters of the Vatican, that are nobody's business, is a slanderer, a gossip, and is really just trying to disrupt the very important work of electing a new pope. 

Boy. No one does victimhood like this bunch of stodgy, old, white men, in one of the most powerful institutions in the world.

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