The reactionary pontiff has just appointed an Austrian bishop in the mold of the American far right:
"It is surely not an accident that all five of New Orleans’ abortion clinics, as well as nightclubs were destroyed," [Gerhard Maria Wagner] wrote, adding: "It’s not just any old city that has gone under, but the people’s dream city with the ‘best brothels and the most beautiful whores’."
In 2001 he warned children against reading JK Rowling’s novels about the boy wizard Harry Potter, describing them as spreading satanism.
Last weekend, Peter Steinfels asked which American bishops or cardinals would tackle the Pope’s outreach to the even creepier far right of SSPX. But, of course, this Pope and the last one pioneered a hierarchy that renders bishops and cardinals mere bureaucratic extensions of Vatican power. They were selected precisely because they agreed to do as they are told at all times. And so the Second Council’s reforms are left to die on the vine. That’s the point.
The Dish 