“Anonimi della Croce”: A Post Mortem

“Anonimi della Croce” turned out to be a big soap bubble.

 

 

“Anonimi della Croce” has ceased operations. If you try to access the site, you find nothing. Not even the archives. 

That was it, then. 

I do not give much credence to the idea that this was a “fake news” site, in the same way as I tend not to give credence to unsubstantiated conspiracy theories. I have read several of their articles in their (and mine) mother tongue: they were well written – in a colloquial, emotional style – and made a very good argument against Francis and for the Church. It seems absurd to me that people who spoke with such obvious zeal for the Church would do that because they bat for Francis. It would be as if the “Pravda” had started to publish the entire collection of speeches of Ronald Reagan before trying to let you believe that he is, say, corrupt. It does not work that way: when the argument of your enemy is presented too well, it will work against you. If, therefore, these people had the intention to sell us a lie by giving us robust doses of truth first, they are stupid indeed. People don’t stop believing in truth because a site turns out to be fake. 

Of course I wasn’t there, and of course we will probably never know the truth. What I think more likely happened is that a couple of priests with a good ear inside the things of the Vatican started to post on things they could not substantiate, and had uncritically collected from everyone willing to plant a rumour around. This can’t end well, because a bit of life experience tells us that most rumours are just that.    

Then there’s the thing with “anonymity”, which might also have been the undoing of the two (I think) blog authors. 

If you publish a post saying what you were told in a certain Roman cafe’ you are not really anonymous: your source knows who you are. And even if you have willingly given fantasy details about the place to protect your anonymity, if your information is detailed your informant will have no big trouble to trace you anyway. This kind of anonymity never goes on for long. Let’s say a prelate has five possible suspects of being “Fra Cristoforo”. The only thing he will have to do is to spread five different rumours to them, and those who publish on the blog are the anonymous bloggers. It really is a game with very short legs. 

It can be that the two (I think) priests have been found and silenced. It can be that they have (wisely) recognised that publishing anonymous letters does not prove anything. It can even be – though I do not think it likely – that these are two people who are on the side of Francis and have been so stupid to attract a couple hundred thousand visitors a month with beautiful arguments against him. 

The site is now gone. It was, in the end, a big soap bubble. 

Beware of anonymous great revelations.

M