The “mafia” in question being the cabal of cardinals who met at St. Gallen, Switzerland before the election of Benedict. It’s a term one of them used jokingly for themselves.

They are described as having engineered the election of Francis, with a goal of remaking the church, in which they were thwarted by Benedict but are being helped by Francis.

They include . . . 

. . . ominously scandal-ridden figures like Cardinal Danneels, Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor, and Cardinal Theodore McCarrick—the timeline was estimated at just four or five years to “make the Church over again.”

At this point,

October’s youth synod is about finishing the old business of the St. Gallen mafia. It will mark four years since Archbishop Bruno Forte crafted a manipulated synodal report on the “precious support” found in same-sex relationships—released the very day that two Italian political parties backed homosexual unions.

Pope Francis approved the text before it was published, and his homily that day excoriated “doctors of the law”—an “evil generation”—for resisting the “God of surprises.” Archbishop Forte, meanwhile, declared to the media that “describ[ing] the rights of people living in same-sex unions” is a matter of “being civilized.”

More here via Crisis Magazine.

. . . in a long article extremely well done, full of links to sources.

Just keep in mind, the church has survived worse. Though mostly from outside enemies, however.

One Jesuit to another: there’s something you left out.

So in a trenchant First Things review of the Martin book, Father Paul Mankowski, SJ, asks it:

Is sodomy a sin? Perplexed readers of Fr. James Martin, SJ’s latest book will want to put the question to him, if only to understand why he felt it important to write at all.

Remember, please, there are Jesuits and there are Jesuits. In this corner . . .

via Catholic Culture

Judge Raymond Kethledge an originalist, as in this recent opinion “with a direct invocation of originalism.”

“Faithful adherence to the Constitution and its amendments requires us to examine their terms as they were commonly understood when the text was adopted and ratified, rather than applying meaning derived years later that may weaken constitutional rights,” the opinion reads.

Which is to distinguish things that change from those that don’t. Key to our survival as the nation we have become.

via  The Daily Caller