(ANALYSIS) The more I read about Pope Francis and President Joe Biden, the more I realize that they are similar.

I mean, both are Catholic, and that’s where the similarities end, right?

That may be the case to most, but they are also quite similar in how they are covered by the mainstream press.

READ: Pope Francis Open To Church Blessing Same-Sex Unions

Let me explain. Without getting too much into the weeds here, Biden has been dogged by multiple scandals involving his troubled son Hunter. You wouldn’t know that, however, from much of the mainstream press coverage of this presidency. Journalists remain too concerned with former President Donald Trump — how could they not? — and the recently averted government shutdown.

Conservative media have covered Hunter Biden’s alleged wrongdoings and shady business practices since the 2020 presidential election. That was when the public was told by the mainstream press that Hunter’s woes were based on Russian misinformation. Here we are nearly three years later, and yes, it turns out that there is a there there.

This brings us to Pope Francis and scandals swirling around him.

Wait! What scandals, you ask? Hold that thought.

The mainstream press has been fond of this pope, and media consumers can see that whenever he says something that matches progressive left-wing political ideology. When it comes to scandal, however, there’s little to no coverage. Case in point: the Rupnik case.

Like Hunter Biden’s laptop, you may not have heard of the Rupnik case. Most mainstream news organizations chose not to cover the latest developments to come out of Rome just last month.

Thus, here’s a recap: Marko Rupnik, a Jesuit priest, became the focus of an investigation late last year when multiple allegations of sexual misconduct against him were reported in the Italian press. They mostly concerned sexual abuse of nuns who were part of Rupnik’s religious community and artistic studio in Rome.

When the extent of the allegations, over a period of many years, became evident, suspicions were raised that one of the most famous Jesuit priest in the world might have been given lenient treatment from the three most powerful Jesuits in the church. That would be Pope Francis; Cardinal Luis Ladaria, then prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith; and Arturo Sosa, who served as superior general of the Jesuits.

Making matters worse, at least doctrinally, Rupnik had been convicted in 2015 of attempting to grant absolution of a partner in sexual sin, when hearing this person’s confession. Under canonical law, the penalty for this act is automatic excommunication. Rupnik was excommunicated, but the penalty was soon repealed. Instead, he was placed under some restrictions — this may sound familiar to those who recall the scandal surrounding the disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick. Rupnik was ordered not to hear confessions or give spiritual direction to women.

Last week, the Rupnik affair was back in the news — at least in conservative Catholic media — when the Diocese of Rome issued a report exonerating Rupnik’s artistic community. This is what The Pillar reported:

The report also appeared to defend Rupnik, who was expelled from the Society of Jesus earlier this year, and it called into question the Vatican’s decision to briefly excommunicate him for a crime against the sacrament of confession.

To some critics, the Diocese of Rome’s Sept. 18 assessment appeared to back the famous artist, despite dozens of what the Society of Jesus’ own investigator called “highly credible” accusations of sexual abuse.

But apart from those issues, the report raises another serious question. The diocesan investigator’s report seemed to draw from the files of a sealed canonical criminal investigation, in which the Diocese of Rome played no apparent part.

So how did the investigator access that paperwork? There are three most obvious possible answers to that question.

Those answers point either to serious lapses in the handling of confidential materials, or to a concerted effort to undermine Rupnik’s conviction and defend his reputation.

The case against Rupnik has been chaotic from the start. The Jesuit order issued statements to the press in which superiors acknowledge details and historic allegations only after they were reported. They often also appeared to contradict their own previous accounts of what was known and when.

All this put the Vatican, and Francis, in a bad light. Why? Let’s return to a long, but crucial, chunk of The Pillar report:

The investigation into Centro Aletti was handled by Msgr. Giacomo Incitti, a professor of canon law given the job by the pope’s diocesan vicar, Cardinal Angelo De Donatis.

Incitti’s summary, included in the Sept. 18 report, noted that the canonist had reviewed a “copious” number of documents related to Rupnik.

Incitti said those documents pointed to a problem with the way that Rupnik had been investigated.

“Based on the copious documentary material studied, the visitor was able to find, and therefore reported, seriously anomalous procedures whose examination also generated well-founded doubts about the request for excommunication itself.”

Incitti was talking about a 2019 investigation into the charge that in 2015, Rupnik attempted to sacramentally absolve a sexual partner. That attempted absolution is a major crime in canon law, which must be handled by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Officials in the Society of Jesus say the order forwarded details of the accusation to the dicastery in 2019, when officials say first learned of it.

The dicastery delegated the Jesuit to investigate, and to proceed with a criminal penal process
against Rupnik, in which he was convicted of the crime.

The penalty of excommunication — provided by the law — was declared by the dicastery, imposed at the conclusion of the process, and lifted some months later, because Rupnik was reportedly contrite.

But the files related to that case are sealed by the highest kind of confidentiality in the Church — the pontifical secret. That level of confidentiality is applied with special rigor in cases which involve the confessional, as this one did.

But as part of his visitation of the Aletti Center, Incitti seemingly had sufficient access to the case files to draw his own conclusions about how the process was handled. In fact, according to the vicariate’s statement, Incitti had enough information to dispute the Vatican dicastery’s declaration of the penalty.

In other words, as journalist and author Christopher Altieri put it, “What do you call a whitewash that is also a coverup that is also a snow job?”

Despite credible accusations against Rupnik, the Vatican reversed course on punishing the Jesuit; then a report was issued by officials with the Diocese of Rome — who had no business conducting a probe to begin with and no jurisdiction — totally exonerating the clergyman, who is no longer a Jesuit but remains a priest.

Phil Lawler, writing for Catholic Culture, said the muted fallout from all this is fresh evidence of journalists in the the mainstream press seeing themselves as guardians tasked with safeguarding Francis’ legacy. Think “Team Francis,” as in the famous “Team Ted”? Lawlor wrote:

American Catholics will naturally think of “Uncle Ted” McCarrick, and the Vatican’s ham-handed intervention to shut down the American bishops’ bid to investigate how that disgraced prelate acquired and retained his outsized influence.

Yet to this day, the media credit Pope Francis for putting teeth in the Vatican’s campaign against abuse — even though it was Pope Benedict XVI who launched the campaign; even though Pope Francis has frequently defanged the procedures; even though the Pontifical Commission which he created to handle the abuse crisis has a history marred by inadequate support, thwarted plans, and the resignations of its frustrated members. On those infrequent occasions when a mainstream outlet questions the Vatican’s commitment to eradicating abuse, the questions for Pope Francis are gentle and respectful; the lack of progress is attributed to resistance that the Pope has encountered, from unnamed “conservatives” in the hierarchy.

The McCarrick case isn’t the only one in which a serial abuser is protected by Pope Francis. in 2018, Bishop Juan Barros of Osorno was accused of covering up the acts of a notorious abuser, but the pope appointed Barros bishop just three years earlier despite those accusations.

A year later, Pope Francis defrocked Mauro Inzoli, a priest who had been previously defrocked in 2012 after he was first accused of pedophilia. That decision was reversed in 2014, when Pope Francis ordered him to stay away from minors and retire to “a life of prayer and humble discretion.”

Last year, an Argentine court sentenced Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta to over four years in prison for sexual abuse of two former seminarians, a major blow to Pope Francis, who had defended him when the allegations were made public.

Lawlor, referencing another Altieri post published in Catholic World Report about the whole Rupnik mess and Francis’ legacy, added the following:

Of course it has not been “conservatives” who championed the causes of Barros and Inzoli and Zanchetta and McCarrick and now Rupnik. All these cases can be traced to the doorway of the St. Martha Residence. If reporters followed them there, they would undoubtedly change public perceptions of this pontificate. Will they? Not unless they radically alter their approach.

In his Catholic World Report column, Altieri cites two veteran Catholic journalists, representing opposite sides of the spectrum, who have remarked that Pope Francis appears to be the ultimate source of Vatican support for Rupnik. (Altieri adds that Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, the vicar for Rome, has dropped a few very broad hints to the same effect.) But these voices do not reach far beyond the relatively small coterie of Vatican specialists. Most ordinary Catholics rely on secular outlets for their news about the Church, and those outlets have not dipped into the Rupnik affair.

Moreover, there is a reason for the disinterest of the secular media. Judging the Catholic Church
by secular standards, the media assesses Vatican affairs in political terms. And they generally applaud the political stands that Pope Francis takes, they want to see him as a reformer. (Thus their assumption that the Pope’s opponents are “conservatives,” motivated by the same sort of political loyalties that drive the reporters).

That’s the key line: “The media assesses Vatican affairs in political terms.” There is that GetReligion journalism theme once again: Politics are real. Religion? Not so much.

That’s what drives news coverage of religious matters. What emerges is a funhouse mirror depiction of reality. That’s how the elite press images of Biden and Pope Francis are so similar.

Noted Vatican observer John L. Allen Jr., in a recent Crux podcast episode, made a similar comment in what he called the news media’s “conspiracy of silence” on these matters.

Lawlor, meanwhile, concluded with this:

Five years ago, in my book The Lost Shepherd, I quoted a reporter for one prominent secular news outlet, who agreed with me that the coverage of Pope Francis had been remarkably favorable. “I can’t imagine what it would take” to turn the media against the Pontiff, he said. Since then the Barros, Zanchetta, and McCarrick scandals have tumbled out of the Vatican closets, testing the limits of the media’s disinterest. Will the Rupnik affair do the trick? I doubt it.

I have to agree with Lawlor’s pessimistic assessment. There’s nothing pointing in the direction that the mainstream news media will change how they see this pope and covers his actions. The public legacy of Pope Francis is secured by elite journalists who shape much of what appears in the mainstream news media. Catholics, however, may have a different view — if they read coverage in alternative news sources — given earlier scandals of the Francis era and now the Rupnik case.

This post was originally published at GetReligion.

Clemente Lisi is the executive editor at Religion Unplugged. He is the author of “The FIFA World Cup: A History of the Planet’s Biggest Sporting Event” and previously served as deputy head of news at the New York Daily News and a longtime reporter at The New York Post. Follow him on Twitter @ClementeLisi.