Gutman, The man who would be pope

TEGUCIGALPA --- When Padre Antonio Quetglas, vicar of Tegucigalpa's Archdiocese, attributed the investigation of parish priest Enrique Vásquez Vargas, a self-confessed child molester, to a "worldwide Jewish conspiracy to deflect attention from Israeli atrocities against Palestinians," was he speaking his mind or echoing the voice of his master --- Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga? Or were the embers of anti-Semitism being stirred by the Church to deflect attention from yet another sex scandal?

Cardinal Rodríguez, a fast-rising star in the Roman Catholic hierarchy and a candidate for the papacy, put Reverend Vásquez to work in two remote Honduran parishes. He also shielded Vásquez, who had spent time at two "clergy treatment centers" and is now an international fugitive, from prosecution. The 44-year-old priest, who fled his native Costa Rica in 1998, served in at least two US dioceses before absconding to Honduras. He worked in El Paraiso and, later, in the village of Guinope. He vanished from Guinope last March, days ahead of police after Casa Alianza, a child advocacy organization operating in Central America and Mexico, pressured the government of Costa Rica to revive what had since become a moribund criminal investigation. Vásquez has since reportedly fled Honduras and is now in Nicaragua.

Vásquez's bishop in Costa Rica, Angel San Casimiro, insists that Cardinal Rodríguez did not check with him before putting the wanted man to work. Bruce Harris, director of Casa Alianza, who recently received telephone death threats, had been pressing San Casimiro and Rodríguez to reveal what they know about Vásquez.

"Neither has been forthcoming," Harris asserts, even though San Casimiro acknowledged that he had freed Vásquez to work abroad after the priest confessed that he had molested a 10-year-old altar boy.

"The Catholic Church in Latin America is still in denial and continues to cover things up," Harris added.

For his part, Cardinal Rodríguez has steadfastly kept the police at bay, claiming he'd rather "go to jail than harm one of my priests."

The prelate also had harsh words for newsmen covering the widening world scandal. He likened them to Hitler, called them "fixated" and accused them of "morbid fascination."

So much for the Byzantine world of Church politics. But is Monsignor Rodríguez's bellicose rhetoric the product of circumstantial frustration, or does it reflect his personal convictions as well?

Rodríguez first drew fire in the US last year when he characterized the American media covering the priest child-abuse scandal as "protagonists of a persecution against the church." This sinister perspective --- that the victims were priests, not children --- turned pugnacious and ugly when Honduras's "Prince of the Church" issued the following statement:

"At a moment when the mass media were focused on the Middle East and the injustices [by Israel] against Palestinians, the print and electronic media in the US became obsessed with sexual scandals that happened 40, 30 years ago. Why? Which is the church that has received [Yasser] Arafat the most times and has most often confirmed the necessity of the creation of a Palestinian state? What is the church that does not accept that Jerusalem should be the indivisible capital of the State of Israel, but that it should be the capital of the three great monotheistic religions?"

What Cardinal Rodríguez's words convey is that priestly sex abuse is old news and of such triviality that some other dynamic must account for the media's fascination for deviant clerics --- namely that Jews hate the Catholic Church. In other words, when the Church has problems --- blame the Jews. That such a crackpot viewpoint could be articulated by one of the most influential figures in world Catholicism is as shocking as it is repulsive.

But a larger question looms. Why has Rodríguez's hideous proclivity to blame Jews remained unchallenged? There is something grotesque and foul when a man of the cloth seeks to steady his own insecurities (or conceal his spiritual infirmities) by leaning on age-old anti-Semitic impulses. And from one considered worthy to be pope?

Speaking on condition of anonymity, an eminent Honduran journalist offered this laconic assessment: "Cardinal Rodríguez is ambitious and arrogant. He hobnobs with the rich and famous. He disdains the poor. His sermons are more political than pastoral and his private conversations are peppered with anti-Jewish remarks."

The "rich and famous" include the political elite and high-ranking military officers, many of whom committed atrocities during the "dirty war" of the 80s. While three brave and incorruptible archbishops were murdered --- two in Guatemala, the third in El Salvador --- for blowing the whistle on military human rights violators, Rodríguez maintained a cozy relationship with caudillos and the generals. He continues to do so.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

W. E. Gutman is a veteran journalist on regular assignment in Central America since 1991. He lives in southern California.

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Special legislative session on the constitution
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Scandal and anti-Semitism in Honduran church