Emiliano Fittipaldi: ‘Para Francisco, a pedofilia é uma questão secundária’

Emiliano Fittipaldi: ‘For Francisco, pedophilia is a secondary issue’
by Journal i October 20, 2017 in Society
Emiliano Fittipaldi: ‘For Francisco, pedophilia is a secondary issue’
The Rotary Investigator of the Catholic Church Emiliano Fittipaldi has a new book. After Corruption , it is dedicated to the Vatican’s lack of action against pedophilia.

The Vatican put him in court because of his latest book Avarice. What about this, do you think they will complain about you again?

I do not think because the Vatican’s choice was a stupid choice, apart from being against press freedom. But what bothered them most was that when they made me risk a prison sentence they turned my book into a worldwide success and this time with Lust they did not make the same mistake again and the political and strategic choice they made was to shut up, the The problem is that, so everything I wrote here, which is much worse than I wrote in Avarice, turns out to be automatically confirmed.

But the Pope should not be very pleased with you?

[laughs] I do not know: the journalist’s job is to see the difference between what power tells through advertising and reality. For me, the Pope is one of the most powerful in this world, I respect the faith and the religious role he has, but as a journalist I have to evaluate his leadership. In Avarice and Lust I try to explain the scandals in the Vatican that he could not or did not want to explain. I am not very interested in what the Pope thinks about me, my interest is for readers to be educated about what the Vatican and the Pope do or do not do to end pedophilia and in this case the Pope was not able to alert the public about what happened.

He portrays him as a person who speaks publicly against pedophilia, but does not do enough or does nothing within the Catholic Church to eradicate this type of behavior.

Yes, I think that Pope Francisco said very important words against pedophilia, he said that pedophiles are like the Black Masses, which are against God and close to the Devil, but it is normal for a Pope to say these things, it would be very strange if he said the contrary. It bothers me, also in our profession, that whatever charismatic, political, or religious leaders say, it is soon thought of as relevant words and undeniable truths. This is propaganda and journalism has to be very careful about advertising.

Then I went to see what he had done beyond words. And the Pope promoted to Cardinal C9, which is the group that runs the Catholic Church, three cardinals who in the past tried to hide the story of pedophile parents. A few months ago Cardinal Müller was removed from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and Cardinal Ladaria was put in his place. In only three days I discovered that this cardinal, two years ago, had dismissed a pedophile priest [Gianni Trotta], but when sent the letter to the Bishop of Foggia to give the news, told him not to tell anyone to avoid a scandal among the faithful. This former priest became coach of a children’s soccer team and raped half of the team.

These raped children are a burden in Ladaria consciousness. This man, who is the most powerful man in the Vatican together with the Pope today, three years ago sent a letter equally bad to a bishop regarding a pedophile priest named Bernard Preynat, my feeling is that even today in the Vatican there are letters that say ‘keep quiet’. This is not only an immoral matter, but a legal and criminal matter, because in these scandals not only will the victims not have their justice, but pedophiles who are still at liberty will have the possibility of making new victims.

There is something in the Church, that silence that reminds us of omertà, the law of silence of the Mafia. Is there such an omertà in the Church?

I do not like scandalous statements, like saying that the Church is like the Mafia, because it is not true. However, even today in the Church with Pope Francis it is necessary to wash the dirty clothes inside the Vatican, without anyone seeing. If it’s a mafia attitude, I do not know, but it’s certainly a disgusting attitude, especially when we’re dealing with children’s lives.

He quotes in the book that in May 2015, the Pope was inadvertently recorded to say that he felt that the denunciations against the new bishop of Osorno, in Chile, that he had appointed had been a montage of the left because they did not like the appointment. He even says that ‘Osorno suffers, that’s right, because he’s stupid.’ Do you think this is what Francis thinks about pedophilia scandals?

What happened in Osorno was something incredible, because the new bishop was one of the students of Father Karadima.  The new bishop is one of the most famous bishops in Santiago de Chile, accused of mishandling multiple cases of pedophilia. This bishop, Barros is his name, knew all that Father Karadima did with the children, and Pope Francis decided to appoint him bishop, even though the whole city was against it. There was almost a revolution against the decision.

Translated from the Portuguese original by Google