Pope Benedict XVI is dead but apparently has left behind a book to be read, highlighting a Church near "collapse," its seminaries' gay "clubs," and plenty of criticism for the man presiding now over it all, Pope Francis.

According to Robert Spencer at PJMedia:

When Pope Benedict XVI died on December 31 at the age of 95, it turns out that he had a completed book ready for publication upon his death. Written in Italian, that book, Che cos'è il Cristianesimo: Quasi un testamento spirituale (What Is Christianity: Almost a Spiritual Testament), is full of explosive revelations and trenchant criticism of his woke successor, Pope Francis. Could Pope Benedict begin a counter-revolution within the Roman Catholic Church from the grave? Stranger things have happened, although it would take any one of us a good while to think of one.

Pope Benedict explains that he did not want the book published while he was still living because of the furious reaction his writings inspired: "For my part, in life, I no longer want to publish anything. The fury of the circles against me in Germany is so strong that the appearance of my every word immediately causes a murderous shouting from them. I want to spare myself and Christendom this."

It's easy to see why this book would inspire "murderous shouting" from some corners of the Roman Catholic Church. Benedict writes that the Church is close to "collapse" and paints a picture of seminaries in the United States as centers of promiscuous homosexuality and perversion. "In various seminaries," the pope explained, "homosexual 'clubs' were formed which acted more or less openly and which clearly transformed the atmosphere in the seminaries." 

All of this has been known for years by the Catholic faithful.  I remember observing how many obviously gay priests there were as a student at the Jesuit University of San Francisco as early as the 1980s.  With gayness came advocacy of the gay lifestyle.  A then-"scandal" I covered for the university newspaper, The Foghorn, as a cub reporter was the leasing of the St. Ignatius cathedral to the Gay Men's Chorus for a concert.  Someone made that decision, and at the time, it drew controversy.  I doubt it would draw controversy now.

Since then, we have seen problems with this bowing to the gay lifestyle.  The first I noticed was that all the straight young men in my circle, who sought to become priests, a heckuva lifetime commitment, were being dismissed from the seminaries as not suited to the priesthood.  Maybe so, but not based on the character of the young men I knew.  There was a growing suspicion that they weren't part of a sort of gay "club."  It was strange how many of the devout they rejected.

When the pedophile scandals broke, there were an inordinate number of gay incidents among the perpetrators.  I personally knew one of the pedo priests, the Rev. Donald McGuire, S.J., who taught at USF.  He was into sodomy with young boys, particularly those who were new to the Church.  Any moves to hose out these kinds of people?  Seems he had been shifted again and again from assignment to assignment every time a scandal broke.  To be fair, there were hetero perverts, too, but the gay component in these scandals was out of proportion to its numbers.

Now we have open advocacy for gay causes, with Pope Francis coming out with sympathetic statements for gay causes, and making that very odd statement that a priest in confession should forgive a sinner who has no intention of ending his sinning.  Andrea Widburg wrote about that in this post here.  What else could that be but a green light to the gay lifestyle?

We also have a synodal message from our cardinal, Robert McElroy, wondering about the "demonic" rejection of parishioners of gay advocacy in the Church.  McElroy is a nice guy, and I hate to single him out, but his stance is one that doesn't seem to be necessary, given that the Church laws are exactly the same for gay and straight people: that sex is for procreation.  As for "rejection," Catholics reject bad acts, not people.  Why the sudden emphasis on this "inclusion" of gays, given that everyone knows that they aren't excluded?  Why the activism?  Most Catholics know a few gay Catholics who have full understanding of Church teaching and do all they can to follow it.  I know one gay Catholic who is a deep devotee of the Latin Mass, now being repressed by the Church under Pope Francis.  He joined the Church to get away from the gay lifestyle.  I haven't talked to him in a while, but I doubt he wants to see it following him in.

The "inclusion" thing, in any case, is kind of a weak argument coming from McElroy, who famously says he would give abortion-promoting Joe Biden Communion, while Joe himself excludes little babies in the womb from a basic right to life and favors of cutting them up and selling them for spare parts at a profit.  If an unrepentant Hitler wanted into the Church, would McElroy let him in, too, in the name of "inclusion"?  The moral disorder here is obvious.

The Gay Men's Chorus in the cathedral was the scandal of the '80s, but now that the lavender mafia has gotten entrenched in the Church, we are seeing scandals like this:

NEWCASTLE, England (ChurchMilitant.com) - The Vatican is investigating a homosexual "sex party" at an English cathedral after its bishop quit and the cathedral dean, who organized the event, killed himself following allegations of abuse. ...

Individuals complained about the party and said "the cathedral had become a laughing stock."

The party, which reportedly featured a drag queen, was held in the presbytery adjoining St. Mary's Cathedral in Newcastle during the COVID-19 lockdown. 

Father Michael McCoy, the cathedral dean abruptly appointed by Bp. Byrne to replace the popular previous incumbent Fr. Dermott Donnelly, is said to have approached several worshippers in the diocese and asked them if they would like to attend the party. 

On April 10, 2021, Canon McCoy's body was found hanging in an apartment on City Road in Newcastle, four days after Northumbria police informed the priest that they were investigating "a non-recent allegation" of child sex abuse against him. 

Open that story with caution; you may feel you need a shower after reading it. 

And this, which I wrote about in 2018:

Was the man who who's widely believed to be the next cardinal for the Washington archdiocese, Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, bunking with a houseboy?

It looks like it, given the reporting of the indefatigable George Neumayr.

Well, where do these events come from, other than a long downhill slide into tolerance for the gay agenda (notice I didn't say "gay people," which is a separate matter) being promoted by activists, and then an embrace of it, slowly, then quickly, by what Pope Benedict called a gay "club" within the Church leadership.

The book is a bombshell for Pope Francis, and it follows from two other books also critical of his papacy.

Some observers call it chaos or civil war within the Church, and there are those who see it coming from a couple of directions — not just the conservatives upset that traditional Church teachings are being replaced by intolerant wokester ideology, but from the far left, too, among the crazed German Church leadership, which seems to be in opposition to all Church teachings.  It may be overcalling it, but Pope Benedict did warn that the Church was looking at a potential collapse.  It's obviously a sign of trouble.  And it may be a sign that the Church needs some new leadership.

Image: Peter Nguyen via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.