Dear editor:
So the Roman Catholic Church, and the Vatican more specifically, are apparently exorcised (pun intended) about a McDonald's restaurant opening in close proximity to the Holy City. To be more precise, and to quote Cardinal Elio Sgreccia, "Selling mega sandwiches (near the Vatican) is a disgrace."
Now let me get this straight: This is the same institution that in 2003 in Boston agreed, through the archdiocese, to pay $85 million for 552 cases of alleged (and many proven) cases of sexual abuse to children by their own priests, bishops and other clergy members. An epidemic that it was later proven was endemic throughout the parishes of the Catholic Church worldwide, and they had gone to great lengths to cover up. Watch the movie "Spotlight" or read the Pulitzer-winning exposes by The Boston Globe for further, sickening details. Sexual abuse of children? OK, but no Happy Meals.
This same institution has been alleged, beginning in 1942, in a multimillion-dollar fraud to have allegedly financed insurance companies on life insurance policies for European Jews, then never paid their beneficiaries. Because they created a bank within the Vatican Bank, called the Institute for Religious Works, they consider themselves exempt to this day from turning over those financial records and transactions. Read Gerald Posner's book "God's Bank." But don't do it at breakfast while eating a Sausage McMuffin.
In 1973, an 18-month FBI investigation revealed a Vatican cardinal attempted to buy $900 million in counterfeit bonds in an attempt to use them as collateral to obtain various financing and loans through the Vatican Bank, as revealed in Richard Hammer's "The Vatican Connection;" $900 million, that's a lot of value menu meals.
In short, the height of hypocrisy by the Catholic Church. I could quote any number of biblical parables in light of their condemnation of McDonald's which has included the terms "perversion" and "aberrant," but I think I'll stick with an good ol'' fashioned nonbiblical saying -- "People who live in glass Vaticans shouldn't throw Big Macs."
Anthony Lloyd
Hot Springs
Editorial on 01/23/2017