You know what? I have become smitten, utterly enraptured,
with this disease, this chikungunya, because whatever responsibilities I might
have had before? Gone! Vanished! My house resembles London immediately after
the blitz—actually, London looked better; I have no sink but I do have a
bucket—which happens to be blue, my favorite color, so I’m immediately cheered
walking into the kitchen. Normally, of course, I might occasionally change the
kitty litter—but if I can’t carry two bottles of wine and a package of chicken
thighs home, what hope do I have for a 16-pound bag of kitty litter. So sorry,
cats!
What have I discovered? Ah, the joys of illness, which
provides me a perfect excuse not to do anything I don’t want to do! Damn, wish
I had gotten this disease decades ago.
As a responsible blogger, read and feared in the most
Olympian circles, I should really be telling you the story—ah, the old, old
story—of Jozef
Wesolowski, that 66-year old Papal Nuncio… Wait, former Papal Nuncio to the
Dominican Republic, since he got defrocked and is now—horror of horrors!—under
house arrest in Vatican City. So this is major news: yes indeed, our new pope
is going to be a veritable lion, roaring his way through the naves and
confessionals and parish houses of his church, seeking whom he may devour.
As they might say in the Vatican, merda taurorum.
Wesolowski was shuffled out of the country—one of two
priests, both Polish, who were screwing (right, due to a howl from the legal
department, I will add the word “allegedly” up there) young boys. Gentlemen—have
you no imagination?
So one priest—who was going by the name of Alberto
Gil, since his Polish name was completely daunting to Spanish tongues—ended
up in Poland, where he sat around for months until the Poles, whose Spanish may
be a bit rusty, decided they really should arrest him. What have they done with
him since? Well, using my last ion of bloggerly energy, I looked him up on
Google. And there’s nothing recent. So presumably, he is still “awaiting
trial,” but who am I to say? In those distant days of salubrity—lump it,
computer—I used to Google the Polish articles, and get wonderful, contorted but
quite informative news on the gentleman. Oh, and I learned a lot about Polish
syntax!
All of this is relatively out there—but what isn’t being
said? Well—according to one report from, I believe, the Dominican journalist Nuria Piera—one or both
of the guys may have slid out of the country on fake IDs.
The second thing? Wesolowski was Papal Nuncio to the
Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, and according to one report—again by
Piera—he spent at least some time in Puerto Rico, where he stayed in a diocese
currently being investigated by U.S. federal officials for sexual abuse of
minors and the subsequent cover-up. (see below for a video—in Spanish—about his
activities here.) So why is that a big deal?
Well, I just walked out to Plaza de Armas in Old San Juan, and peered up at the three flags
that adorn the city hall. And here’s what I saw:
I wanted to make sure, you see, that that star-spangled
banner was still waving over the land…OK, I’ll stop being cute. What am I
saying? That I’ll bet anyone a good bottle of whiskey that Wesolowski committed
crimes in US territory. So why aren’t we hauling Wesolowski over here for
trial? Don’t think it can’t be done,
because—ah my dear Google!:
The
Vatican said Monday it had cooperated with U.S. law enforcement officials
working to extradite an Indian priest charged with sexually assaulting a
14-year-old girl in Minnesota.
Given that Wesolowski is defrocked, how much of a problem
would that be?
Right, so what else are we not being told? Well, we have one
now-ex-priest under house arrest in Vatican City, we have another priest in
protective custody in Poland, and is that all?
Nope, since absolutely nobody is mentioning a deacon called
Francisco Javier Occi Reyes. Wait—Google again came through!:
SANTO
DOMINGO, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC - The
Justice Ministry of the Dominican Republic on Sunday said it has evidence
of pederasty against nuncio Józef Wesolowski, while a deacon has confessed
to "pimping" minors for the senior prelate as well as of being his
sexual partner, the website dominicantoday.com has reported.
Oh, and where is this guy? From the same website:
Mr
Sanchez also said that a deacon, Francisco Javier Occi Reyes, who
is being held in a Dominican jail on charges of paedophilia, said at the time
of his arrest he was "pimping" a youngster for Wesolowski.
My final point? Good student that I was, I was trained—in
every essay exam I took—to “compare and contrast” two or more elements. But
here, I have to say that I’d fail miserably at contrasting the conditions of a
Dominican Republic jail with a Vatican apartment. OK—the “contrast” I could do.
But the “compare?”
I told myself at the beginning of this post that I didn’t
have to do it, and that really, really, the charming alpha virus that has
brought me this delicious disease has utterly freed me from tidying up the
massive hypocrisy of the Catholic Church. And indeed, what I really was
going to tell you about was that the last of the famous Mitford girls, who
ended up as Duchess
of Devonshire is dead. And since Deborah Cavendish (nee Mitford) had saved
Chatsworth, shouldn’t I take an hour to watch a documentary about the house? So
I did, and then promptly started out my post about the fascinating history of
the family and the home!
Don’t bother—I know….
I’m outta control….
