By Tim Rohr
It's funny. The big question around here immediately after Leo14 was elected wasn't whether the new pope was "Catholic" or not (an inference to the Francis confusion), but whether he was "Neo" or not.
We can be sure that the Neocat Brass was pulling out all the stops to get one of their own into Peter's chair, and that they were doing it long before Francis breathed his last.
We can assume that the Neocat Brass was hoping to resurrect their "Red Pope" (Filoni). I say "resurrect" because, for whatever reason, Filoni fell out of favor with Francis and was banished to the Vatican hinterlands.
Filoni History
For those who don't remember, Filoni played a direct role in propping up the Neocats here in Guam and specifically the now-closed Neocat seminary.
In September 2016, the Laity Forward Movement (LFM) led my Mrs. Lou Klitzkie, attempted to visit what was then the Redemptoris Mater Seminary in Yona. After all, for years, Apuron had raised millions of dollars for the seminary from local Catholics under the banner "A Seminary for Guam!"
So the LFM reasoned, if it's a seminary for Guam, then let's pay it a visit.
The LFM was turned away at the door. In response to the attempted visit, the now-missing Msgr. David C. Quitugua and then-acting rector of the seminary, wrote Fr. Jeff San Nicolas, who at the time was the delegate to the Apostolic Administrator, Archbishop Hon.
Msgr. David wrote:
Cardinal Filoni’s instruction is that no such “visit can be made to the Seminary.
In response, Fr. Jeff did a press release stating:
The intent of Msgr. David’s letter was now clear to me. Neither I nor Archbishop Hon is the church authority over decision making regarding the Redemptoris Mater Seminary, even over simple matters such as who can visit. Cardinal Filoni is in charge.
(The letters can be read in full here.)
This was big news at the time because for years we knew the Neocats were running Apuron, and then after Hon took over, because he was Filoni's secretary, we figured the Neocats, through Filoni, were running Hon, AND with the specific aim to stomp out the opposition to Apuron, including discrediting Apuron's accusers.
Hon, trying to thread the needle of pretending to be in charge but really taking orders from Filoni and the Neocats, got himself in trouble when the legislation to lift the civil statute of limitations on sex abuse against minors became law on his watch, particularly because the legislation had been amended to include institutional liability, which enabled Apuron's accusers (and many others) to sue the archdiocese.
This was a recipe for bankruptcy and Hon's action had precipitated the whole environment which gave public momentum for the law.
This may have ultimately been the reason why both Filoni and Hon were kicked out of their very powerful positions in Rome and we haven't heard much if anything from them since.
Back to the present
Things start to make sense when we remind ourselves that the Cardinal who took Filoni's place as Prefect for the powerful Congregation once headed by Filoni was Cardinal Tagle - once the darling of the Neocats until he dissed them as I set out in this recent post.
The Neocats have pretty much had their way with Rome for decades. Paul VI thought they were nice guys. JP2, in the spirit of New Evangelization, gave them a lot of room. Ben16 tried to rein them in, but they ran over him. Francis was too busy bashing "rigid" Catholics and making "a mess" (his words) to do much about Kiko's tribes who used the camera and microphone happy pope for constant photo ops.
The mess in Guam was the first stumbling block for Kiko et. al, and they badly needed a pope, post-Francis, who would preserve their avenues of power in Rome, and maybe even restore Apuron - which is why Apuron's "I'm innocent" speech on the first day of the conclave is suspicious for its timing.
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