Dear Jorge,

I hope you don’t mind me saying that you seem to be getting nuttier by the month. Just recently, for instance, you instructed your Bishops to not tell the police when children are raped by priests. Now this week, you’ve announced plans to investigate those same Bishops if they follow your instructions.

So which is it?

Apparently inspired by the success of Canada’s own recent cover up of its in-house slaughter of native children, you’re now setting up your own “Tribunal” (gee, that sounds so impressive) to pretend to investigate yourself for your institutionalized crimes against children. But in the process, you are creating such a muddle of contradiction that none of it makes any sense – even to a catholic.

This “Tribunal” you envision aims to expose catholic child abuse while not actually doing anything to stop it, besides employing the usual bromide of shifting the criminal to some other bailiwick. Nor under your plan can any of the church victims actually confront or hold their abusers legally accountable, since you guys conveniently operate under your own laws, and courts.

That’s kind of like the wolf saying to all the docile sheep, Hey, trust me now!

Of course, not being one – catholic, that is – I am not party to the suspension of reason and personal judgement required by any loyal member of your sheeply “flock”. So who knows? Maybe your absurdity makes sense to the same billion or so of you who somehow believe that “God” deals in cash and credit, and along with other invisible genies and “saints”, can be influenced to usher you guys into that thing called heaven.

But Jorge, there is a limit, I can only hope, to human credulity and downright dumbness. When Al Capone – who was after all a loyal dues-paying papist - once told reporters that he planned to “clean up all the crime” in Chicago, it’s not like most folks actually believed him. It’s just that Big Al owned all the money, politicians and muscle in town. Just like you do.

That said, despite your crafted image of a sterling reformer, I haven’t noticed you doing much reforming. You haven’t nullified your standing Vatican policy known as Crimen Sollictationas, whereby everyone in your church, from Cardinals on down, must cover up child abuse and not tell the police about it, or face excommunication. God hates a snitch, right? In fact, you’ve recently told your own Italian Bishops that the police should never be included in any investigation of child abuse. And who can forget your silly lie, made last year, that only “about two percent” of your clergy were child rapists?

Let me explain the real law to you, Jorge: covering up child abuse is as criminal an act as perpetrating it. So the figure isn’t two percent. Try 100%. And, worse the luck for you, you’re the head fiduciary officer of a syndicate that officially subverts justice and abets a crime against humanity. That makes you, well, shit out of luck, amigo.

Of course, I’m no dummy. This is Chicago, after all, so I don’t expect the cops to nab you. But that doesn’t mean you’re not on the defensive and prone to exposing yourself. Like, how blatantly you’re doing everything possible to hide all your after-hour pederasts, as well as the corpses of those other children who routinely die or are trafficked at the hands of the Vatican, Incorporated. And child trafficking is something you personally know all about, eh senor?

But here’s the thing, Jorge: in your rashness to whitewash everything and cover your own ass for your love affair with the Argentinian dictatorship, you are forgetting the basic rules of warfare: Never give contradictory orders to your subordinates, and never disown your own actions, otherwise, you’ll only sow confusion in your ranks.

It’s surprising that a top Jesuit like you seems to be disregarding such basics, schooled as you all are in the art of deception. Maybe you’re just getting old. But I do give you points for trying to steal our thunder by not only co-opting any investigation into Vatican crimes, but using our lingo, like the label “Tribunal”. Your buddies in Canada have tried the same thing with some success, because, sadly, your average Canadian is about as street wise as your run of the mill catholic pew sitter.

But here’s the thing, cabron: when you open a dung heap, you can’t control the stench. And everyone knows that in-house inquiries of oneself are as genuine as a trip to Lourdes.

I’ll leave that question to the theologians. And to the lawyers.

Regardless, Jorge, your performance is starting to wear thin. That knee jerk Jesuit in you keeps creeping out, like when you recently declared your plan to “beatify” (is that like "beautify"?) an 18^th century catholic missionary in California who just happened to terrorize and enslave lots of Indians. So I’d go easy on that particular saint-making plan if I were you, especially since you’re going to be in America this fall, dummy, where all the protestors are!

Anyway, forgetting about the Indians, as you so easily do, your image is fine, what with your kindly grandfather look, and all those verbal gymnastics you perform to convince us that things are so different now on the Seven Hills. But good looks alone guarantee nothing. Ask Elvis. And there is the little matter of the financial insolvency of your whole institution, and your frantic efforts to bail out the tottering Vatican Bank with a little help from your Russian and Chinese friends. Maybe that’s why you’re acting so befuddled. Who wouldn’t be distracted, in your shoes?

But ultimately, I wouldn’t worry too much. A good 85% of the human race seems to need a beneficent fatherly figure who can do no wrong, regardless of the blood on his hands. As George Carlin says, there’s no better bullshit operation in history than religion, and sadly, the flock haven’t woken up to that truth, yet. On the other hand, another good friend of mine named Honest Abe Lincoln, who was knocked off by you guys actually, once said that you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

I’d take that to heart, Jorge.

I’ll catch you at the next exorcism.

Divinely yours,