L All is not well at the Vatican

MSGR. Dario Vigano, head of the new Vatican Secretariat for Social Communication, came under fire last week after his office was found to have altered a photograph of a letter written by Pope Emeritus Benedict 16th about the publication of an 11- volume theological work by successor Pope Francis.

The monsignor “now deserves the title Doctor of the Church,” one Twitter user quipped, posting a report that said the altered photo made it appear the retired pontiff had completely endorsed the theology of the current Pope.

Not exactly, according to news outlets, which had wondered why the last two lines of Benedict’s letter were blurred. It turns out the emeritus pope, busy with his own writing projects, never read Francis’ 11- volume treatise.

While Benedict said the newly published booklets belied the “foolish prejudice” that Francis was all practical know- how and no theory ( the reverse applied, supposedly, to Benedict), he wrote: “I don’t feel like writing a short and dense theological passage on them because throughout my life it has always been clear that I would write and express myself only on books I had read really well.”

The Vatican had yet to fully recover from the very public dissent two years ago of four cardinals to Francis’ alleged watering down of the Church’s teaching on marriage, and it seemed Vigano wanted to quash questions on the Jesuit Pontiff’s orthodoxy by obtaining validation from no less than the doctrinaire Benedict.

For years, Benedict, as Cardinal Ratzinger, led what used to be the Holy Office of the Inquisition, safeguarding the “deposit of faith” from novelties such as liberation theology and moral relativism.

Francis, in 2016, issued a document that drew criticism for easing the restrictions on divorced and remarried couples who seek to receive communion.

Vigano’s doctored photo betrays an insecurity on Pope Francis’ doctrinal footing at the highest levels of the Vatican, even if the official narrative has always been that there was really no need to square Francis’ more pastoral approach with the official catechism. He is the Pope, after all.

But there are serious questions even on matters temporal. In January, the Vatican rebuked the bishop emeritus of Hong Kong, Cardinal Joseph Zen, for criticizing diplomatic efforts to normalize ties between Beijing and the Holy See.

Zen particularly lashed out at the Vatican’s unprecedented decision to ask underground bishops to step aside in favor of pro- Beijing prelates who have been excommunicated.

The Vatican- China deal, the outspoken cardinal claimed, was tantamount to “suicide,” and, as temporal matters are ultimately matters of faith and morals, a “betrayal of the faith.”

And if the Vatican statement rebuking Zen is true – that the Pope and his advisers were of the same mind on the issue of the Chinese church – then Francis is about to sell out to Beijing and sink millions of faithful, albeit underground, Catholics further underground.

This looming tragedy of the Catholic Church in China will be something Vigano and his graphics editors won’t be able to airbrush.