SOUL-DAMN-O
Credit to Evil Grimace for the pun, and you can’t spell “Sodano” without “sod”…
26 May was a sad triple whammy in celebrity death, with Ray Liotta, Andy Fletcher, and Alan White all having sound pop cultural legacies in Goodfellas, Depeche Mode, and Yes, respectively. A day later, balance has already been restored with COVID finishing off the Vatican’s chief paedophile shielder, aged 94. Angelo Sodano first came to notice as the Vatican’s diplomat to Chile, where he handpicked many of its (scandal-clad) bishops and his ardent support of Pinochet portended what he’d be like as a Holy See power player. He reached his apex of Vatican power as Pope John Paul II’s Secretary of State (essentially the Vatican’s prime minister) in the 90s, where he exerted his influence to block investigations into paedo priests such as Hans Hermann Groër, Marcial Maciel, and Theodore McCarrick.
Upon the 2005 election of Pope Benedict XVI, Sodano took up the esteemed elder statesman-ish position of Dean of the College of Cardinals. During these years, he laughed off victims coming forward with their abuse as “petty gossip” until finally resigning in 2019. His resignation was officially cited by the Vatican as due to age, but those with reading comprehension would note that it occurred on the same day that his full role in covering up the hundreds of instances of minor sexual abuse within Maciel’s Legion of Christ organisation – an order that wouldn’t have had the reach it did to traumatise so many without Sodano’s early, unwavering support – was revealed. Fully knowing for decades that some of the Catholic Church’s most odious monsters were sexually abusing minors, and using that knowledge to protect the bishops and cardinals rather than their victims, will forever be Angelo Sodano’s legacy. Waiting for the Hearse gains the points with this welcome hit.
Angelo Sodano
23 November 1927 – 27 May 2022, aged 94
💀💀💀💀💀 + 👻 = 9 POINTS