It is one thing to be told, and another to see it. I have been saddened by this truth in recent days. Some Roman friends often tell me in and out of confidence about what goes on inside the Vatican walls, and Specola also gives us this kind of news on a daily basis, and he knows a lot about it. But another thing is to personally verify the facts and confirm the conclusion that we all know: Pope Francis is not liked by anyone; neither by bishops, nor by priests nor by the faithful, wherever they may be. And beyond the fact that we do not particularly like the Roman Pontiff, it is very sad to see the profound rejection of his figure. Whether we like it or not, he is the Vicar of Christ.
I have been able to speak in recent weeks with priests from all walks of life. There is no need to pour out here the views of conservatives and traditionalists. Everyone knows them. What has struck me is that the most progressive priests, who are generally also the oldest, have the same dislike for Bergoglio as their younger colleagues. It is no longer a doctrinal question of traditionalists versus progressives; it is something more basic and has to do with the human and the institutional. They cannot understand, for example, the Pope’s permanent aggressiveness towards them; they claim on both sides that they are astonished that whenever he refers to priests it is always in strongly negative terms: they are careerists, greedy, grumpy, proselytisers, criminals, look at pornography, have psychiatric problems, etc. Never a word of encouragement. Never a word of encouragement; never closeness. It is as if the enemy is speaking, and not the father who should be confirming them in the faith. Someone more wicked and sharp, commented to me that this is a typical case of projection: Bergoglio projects onto priests – and he himself is one – the characteristics that he unconsciously knows he possesses and detests. In other words, he rejects others because it is he himself who is reflected in them.
In the Vatican Curia, they live in terror. “Il cretino gloriosamente regnante”, is an expression that is heard with some frequency within the sacred walls. But the most repeated word is terror. It is the regime that the Argentinian pope has installed there. Nobody knows how long he will be in office and, worse still, nobody knows who is spying on whom, for that is another of Bergoglio’s methods: spying, to find out what each of the priests and religious who walk around the Sacred Palace are thinking and saying. It is the same method he applied in Argentina when he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires and kept spies in all the dioceses and religious congregations. But in Rome, moreover, he trusts absolutely what his procurators tell him, and so there are several curial figures who have received the message: “The Holy Father wants to talk to you”, and half an hour later they were in the street.
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