Pope Francis pledged today that the Catholic Church is committed to eradicating the “evil” of sex abuse.
Speaking at the end of his weekly general audience in Rome, Pope Francis said: “Yesterday the report on the painful case of the former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was published. I renew my closeness to the victims of every abuse and the Church's commitment to eradicate this evil.”
The Pope's remarks came as further details emerged from the report. The exhaustive 449-page text reveals that the first person to raise alarm about McCarrick's behaviour with children was a woman during the mid-1980s, known as “Mother 1”.
McCarrick became a friend of her family in the 1970s when he was in New York but Mother 1 told the report investigators that she became concerned about McCarrick's interests in her sons. At one point she saw McCarrick “massaging the inner thighs” of two of her boys.
“It was more than strange. It was abnormal. I almost dropped the casserole dish I was holding in my hands,” she explained.
Mother 1 would later write anonymously to each cardinal in the United States and the papal ambassador to Washington DC about McCarrick.
“I wrote those letters feeling pure anger. I was enraged. That is exactly what I felt.” she said.
The report explained: “She recalled that she ‘used the word children’ and mentioned something about 13- or 14-year-old boys.” Mother 1 stated that she was trying to explain that McCarrick had an attraction to boys.”
The McCarrick inquiry, however, was unable to locate “originals or copies of the letters” in any Church archive in the US or in the Holy See. The report also found that other anonymous allegations were levelled against McCarrick, but were never followed up.
Pope Francis has sought to ensure that Church leaders no longer dismiss anonymous allegations. A new Vatican guidebook, issued this summer, requires bishops and religious superiors to investigate anonymous allegations made by third parties.
Following the McCarrick report's publication, Fr Hans Zollner, the Church's leading child protection expert, praised those who reported McCarrick's abuse.
“Without the courage and determination of victims, the report would not have come about,” he told The Tablet. “In my eyes, this is an attempt by the Holy See to acknowledge and remedy the dismay and distrust many in the US Church have felt due to the McCarrick case.”
He added: “It is also an implementation of the principles of transparency and accountability from the February 2019 summit. The report is an unprecedented step but I can't imagine it will be the last.”
Meanwhile, the McCarrick report has put pressure on Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former papal diplomat who called on the Pope to resign over McCarrick. In an explosive 2018 dossier, Viganò accused Francis of ignoring sanctions placed on McCarrick by Benedict XVI due to allegations of sexual misconduct. Viganò wrote that “from the time of Pope Francis...McCarrick was free from all constraints”.
But the new report publishes a letter from Viganò in 2012, before Francis’ election, describing the sanctions on McCarrick as a “dead letter”. Although Benedict XVI had asked McCarrick to maintain a low profile and reduce his travel, the US Churchman ignored the directive.
Furthermore, the report also finds that Viganò ignored Vatican instructions to investigate a sexual misconduct allegation made by “Priest 3”. The former diplomat – who was then the Holy See's ambassador to Washington DC – did nothing to investigate the allegation which Priest 3 said left him feeling “disappointed”, and that Viganò was not paying attention to the problem.
Priest 3 explained: “I was always waiting and thinking that [Viganò] was going to contact me. But he never contacted me. I had written the letter so I knew that I had provided him the information. But he never contacted me back. I felt that he should have responded to me because I explained that I had been mistreated.”
Professor Kurt Martens, a Canon Lawyer at the Catholic University of America, says that Viganò could now face disciplinary action. This could be done, he said, by using the 2019 law, Vos Estis Lux Mundi, which sets out how bishops can be investigated for cover-ups of abuse cases.
“Clearly, Viganò did not do his job,” Professor Martens told the National Catholic Reporter.
Loading ...
