Cocooning
(or Blast from the Past/Back to the Future)

The Vatican and Pope Benedict are cocooning hard these day, but I'd like to think a group of wronged people have hired a 21st Century Robin Hood team, like the one from the cable show Leverage, to subvert "Popery"* from within.

First you had the Pope rehabilitating extreme right wing bishops and in some cases Holocaust-deniers. They backpedaled after an uproar but the damage was done.

Also, the church is bringing back the sale of indulgences which is a good way to raise money, but also a potentially alienating move.

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*Popery and Papist were slurs common in the 18th and 19th centuries. JFK's election symbolized a more tolerant attitude in the 20th. Who might have hired possible agent provocateurs who are advising Benedict? Could be disgruntled scientists, feminists, gay rights advocates or perhaps some men who were molested in their youth by priests have funneled their legal reward money back into attacking the church.