By Yoichi Shimatsu
Exclusive to Rense
5-9-25

That a Vatican conference of bishops would select an American priest as the Catholic Church’s new pontiff should seem improbable, indeed impossible. Especially since the name of Robert Prevost - a cardinal who served as an obscure missionary based in Peru - was not among the leading or minor candidates at the closed-door gathering of cardinals inside the Vatican’s gallery of Renaissance artist Michael Angelo’s depiction of Heaven and Hell. Of course, sighs of disappointment are not audible from inside the Vatican, the fortress of faith - which is sometimes quite different from reason.

To the complete surprise of 1 billion-plus Catholic faithful - after 2 nights of watching plumes of black smoke - the new pontiff stood on the papal loggia to deliver his blessing in Italian and Latin - but notably not the national language of this birthplace of Chicago (which by these latter days is the most widely spoken tongue on Earth). His insider candidacy - a ramrod “selection process” - could well confirm every lingering suspicion of an insider rig among the Protestant congregation. In contrast to their namesake cardinal birds that trill and whistle, the red coats in the Vatican sanctuary filed out of Sistine Chapel in abject silence.

The U.S. media coverage has been effusive, repetitive of sparse facts about their new man’s biography, totally unrevealing of any criticism of his missionary work in Peru. (How different from U.S. presidents who have been routinely blasted by the press and suffer minute inspection of his personal affairs!)

Disclosure of his personal background - thus far - has been limited to his collegial education at Villanova (Pennsylvania) and the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. As yet no mention of his participation in high school sports, former girlfriends and other personal background, other than his past as a math whiz.

Peru, Cocaina capital of the Andes

The Vatican propaganda machine has been effusive in cranking out news releases to unsuspecting media reporters that his cathedral in Chiclayo has been a refugee for Peru’s poor people - presumably of which there are too many in a class-bound, ethnically divided Latin American nation. To set the record straight, Chiclayo (bounded by the towns of Zana and Lambayeyue) has that nation’s second-largest urban population and is a major Pacific seaport in northern Peru (near the border with Ecuador). It is also a tourist destination with several attractions: daily fresh-caught seafood, ancient Moche culture ruins with royal gravesites with untold treasures in nearby Pomalca, and also massive cocaine production on the opposite side of the Andes range in the upper reaches of the Amazon basin. The low estimate for total area of illicit cocaine-growing in Peru is 367 square miles.

As in the marketing slogan “Things go better with Coke”, the national economy has been uplifted by cocaine production, refining and shipments to Mexico and daringly to the U.S. West Coast aboard scrapyard freighters and fishing craft. Coke - obviously - keeps a tourist town like Chiclayo afloat in Americano dollars. Now are we speaking turkey instead of Latin? Oh, and the other attraction - but visit before snorting - is the Chicayo Cathedral of Bishop Robert Prevost - an astounding structure designed by Gustave Eiffel - yes, the architect who raised that tourist attraction in Paris. Be sure to leave a few dollars in the church till for the poor and so that the brothers can afford a beer.

In the Bad Old Days of Sendero

The other great unmentionable of Papal politics is: Sendero Luminosa, the notorious coke-growing army of terrorists that paralyzed Peru in the 1980s during the repressive regime of President Alberto Fujimori, a Peru-born son of Japanese immigrants. After imprisoning thousands of radical Marxist fanatics, the anti-Fujimori liberals began releasing many of the “repentant” assassins - presumably transferred into jungle employment with the cocaine bosses. Prevost was a young priest on his first overseas mission - in a violence-wracked Peru - starting in the mid-1990s, at the very height of the Sendero Luminosa threat. As a foreign observer, it is highly questionable why he did not track, discuss or write about the horrors of that era and attempt to define the difference (often a fine line for victims of the prison system) between righteous resistance to unjust authority and deliberate criminal destruction of the social order. There are troubled times when silence is not golden but is more of a rusty cop-out from moral responsibility - especially if it’s at the risk of one’s own life by assassination. Courage is an absolutely necessary component of holiness, at least according to the New Testament.

In Chicago, Fr. Prevost failed to act upon two cases of sexual abuse involving a priest who had assaulted a church-going boy and later cases of girls who had suffered similar assaults by priests. The gory details are partially disclosed in the Chicago Sun-Times. Inaction when confronted with victimized children is inexcusable for a lowly school janitor much less a Christian priest - who after all is God’s representative on Earth.

Which brings up a rather unpleasant and therefore unspeakable Vatican concern - financing an organization with a billion-plus member - now that the Mafia-related gold reserves from the Blackfriar Bridge Mafia scandal has gone to government vaults in Fort Knox and similar safekeeping in Britain and Western Europe (presumably). As a substitute for the ingots in the Vatican basement, is the “new gold” from Peru and Colombia now keeping the Vatican enterprise afloat? Si, senors, “thar’s gold in them hills! Just the follow the scent of cocaina!”

Hypocrisy or Responsibility?

These questions are not taunting from a church-hating atheist. I raise these obvious matters as one who was raised in super-devout Catholic schools (Irish runs and later Spanish-Basque monks). My old-school values, however, have not been able to wrap around the Vatican II reforms, much less the queer church in San Francisco’s golden days of AIDS. Hopelessly conservative - to which I plead guilty - with all the ancient faults of hypocrisy in terms of near-mortal sins.

Without - hopefully - seemingly high-brow or hypocritical (the same, eh?), I must point out the new pope’s human fallibility is his criticism of J.D. Vance’s mention on Fox of the term “Ordo Amoris”, which translates as the order of love. Admittedly love is something difficult, nearly impossible to rate or compare, given the mysterious nature of the heart. The German philosopher Max Scheler in the early 20th century defined a scale from commonplace affection to love beyond scholarly dissection, from lower to higher: Love that is based on - the senses (pleasure-pain), vital (living - health or weakness); spiritual (the beautiful, truth); and above all holy (spiritual).

This hierarchy of human emotion was understood by Saint Augustine of Hippo as discussed in his more formal history “The City of God” but more personally on the sad human condition in his “Confessions”. His astoundingly candid confessions of a wayward youth, a sexual affair with a “fallen” woman, and gradual movement away from corrupt pagan pleasures toward the tradition of Christian faith is nothing less than a masterpiece on the hard road of life. During his teen years, the great thinker performed in a male theater show that tantalized crowds with nudity and suggestiveness. How’s that for a start for the greatest philosopher of the West?

As a literary stylist, Augustine’s personal experiences with the temptations and moral cost of sin were in sync with the wider scenario of a nominally Christian Rome overwhelmed by pagan beliefs from the East, blatant corruption of government and failure to defend civilization from the advancing barbarian hordes. In defense of the far-flung Roman Christian outpost, Augustine himself died valiantly during the Vandals’ siege of Hippo (near the ruins of Carthage in North Africa) - which set the ethical basis for defense of a righteous civilization against nihilistic destruction. That is the underlying reason for Ordo Amoris - God’s love of humanity - some things are of greater worth than our lesser whims. Very few things are worth dying for - and those we must cherish and protect.