Pope Shocks With Homily, Attacks ‘Great Accuser’ Satan for Exposing Bishops’ Sins in Church Scandal

In a strange and almost tone-deaf homily delivered Tuesday morning, Pope Francis implored the hierarchy of the Catholic Church to pray and resist the “Great Accuser,” Satan, who seeks to expose sin in order to divide the faithful.

“In these times, it seems like the ‘Great Accuser’ has been unchained and is attacking bishops. True, we are all sinners, we bishops. He tries to uncover the sins, so they are visible in order to scandalize the people. The ‘Great Accuser,’ as he himself says to God in the first chapter of the Book of Job, ‘roams the earth looking for someone to accuse,’” Pope Francis said, according to an official report in Vatican news. . .

The “Great Accuser” is a reference to Satan first seen in the book of Job, in the Old Testament. Satan is there attempting to sow division by making false accusations of sin. Many faithful Catholics took the Pope’s word, however, as an attack on lay people seeking transparency from the Vatican, which is accused of covering for Bishops, Cardinals, and other clerics accused of sexual abuse over the course of at least four decades.

Concluding, it appears the Pope suggested Bishops consider the real victims of the sexual abuse scandals currently roiling the Church: the Bishops. The Devil, he said, “roams the world seeking how to blame. The strength of the bishop against the great accuser is prayer — his own and Jesus’, the humility to feel chosen and staying close to the people of God without heading toward an aristocratic life.”

There are, no doubt, concerns that some accusations being leveled at the Vatican hierarchy — particularly some of those contained in a letter from Archibishop Maria Vigano, which often veers into the ad hominem — are unfair. But ultimately, so much evidence exists that the Vatican, and particularly Bishops and clerics in the United States, silenced victims of sexual abuse for decades and protected and even hid their abusers, that a full and fair investigation is warranted in the name of justice. (Read more from “Pope Shocks With Homily, Attacks ‘Great Accuser’ Satan for Exposing Bishops’ Sins in Church Scandal” HERE)

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