Francis talked the talk but never walked the walk on sexual abuse. Declining years of a failed Pontificate.

Francis came to the pontificate with an unspoken mandate to cleanse the Augean stables of sexual abuse in the Church, and he soon trumpeted his 'zero tolerance' policy. Ten years on and the cases of McCarrick, Barros, Zanchetta and now Rupnik seem to indicate that the policy in question was little more than a rhetorical slogan.

"In the face of Marko Rupnik's repeated refusal to obey this mandate, we are unfortunately left with only one solution: resignation from the Society of Jesus," wrote Father Johan Verschueren SJ in a statement. Marko Rupnik has been expelled from the Society of Jesus, and the question is why.

Cathcon: The Jesuits could never, ever control him because he had a Jesuit patron masquerading as a Franciscan beyond their immediate jurisdiction.  

That is to say, why was it necessary to come to this. After all, the Jesuit artist was found guilty of a very serious canonical crime involving latae sententia excommunication, a penalty Francis has personally blockd without explanation. 

Cathcon: A Jesuit patron who himself was never properly accepted by the Jesuit order not because of his orthodoxy or otherwise but because of his psycho-pathology. Any other Pope would have been deposed and languishing in a monastery by now just for the Rupnik case not to mention the Pope's behaviour with these cases in Argentina.  Zanchetta, thy name is legion.

But it would have been simple to suspend him from priestly ministry from Rome, instead of leaving the decision to expel him in the hands of the Jesuits in the face of pontifical passivity. Why?

Because the truth is that, since the scandal broke, Rupnik has behaved as he has done up to now, blithely ignoring all the restrictions imposed by the order, acting, in short, convinced that he has the Pope's backing. And, as we say, Santa Marta could have stopped this scandalous behaviour with the stroke of a pen, with the dismissal from the clerical state. But Santa Marta gave him an absolute veto.

In the last few days before his admission to hospital, the Pope sent out signals that can only be described as disconcerting, such as the video sent to the opening of the XVI Mariological Congress, in which the Holy Father drew the audience's attention to an icon made by the condemned Jesuit, despite the fact that the Pope knows that Rupnik used his works of art to manipulate and seduce his victims.

Moreover, the Vatican's official online organ, Vatican News, continues to use Rupnik's work to illustrate its texts, as it did in the announcement of the Feast of Pentecost. Are there no images by other artists in Rome with which to illustrate the themes? Do we still have to pay royalties to Rupnik?

In this puzzling affair there is a worrying pattern that is difficult to ignore in this pontificate, between what is said and what is done, which only adds to a confusion that is reaching its paroxysm.

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Cathcon:  Bergoglio came to the Throne of Saint Peter with the idea of finally implementing Vatican II.  This was the last chance of this occurring and it has beyond measure failed.  If the cardinals want to elect a Francis II at the next Conclave, they will reap the whirlwind.