While critics of Pope Francis are gratified by this course of action (finally), some remain concerned that this may be primarily a face-saving initiative on the part of a Vatican immersed in a public relations nightmare.
Still, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith pulled no punches:
Dated February 16, 2019, the Comunicato reads as follows:
On 11 January 2019, the Congresso of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, at the conclusion of a penal process, issued a decree finding Theodore Edgar McCarrick, archbishop emeritus of Washington, D.C., guilty of the following delicts while a cleric: solicitation in the Sacrament of Confession, and sins against the Sixth Commandment with minors and with adults, with the aggravating factor of the abuse of power. The Congresso imposed on him the penalty of dismissal from the clerical state. On 13 February 2019, the Ordinary Session (Feria IV) of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith considered the recourse he presented against this decision. Having examined the arguments in the recourse, the Ordinary Session confirmed the decree of the Congresso. This decision was notified to Theodore McCarrick on 15 February 2019. The Holy Father has recognized the definitive nature of this decision made in accord with law, rendering it a res iudicata (i.e., admitting of no further recourse). [00272-EN.01] [Original text: Italian]
Elevated to Cardinal in 2001 by Pope John Paul II, Cardinal McCarrick’s reputation as a predator on youths, seminarians and young priests was such the Pope Benedict XVI had attempted to rein in the Cardinal back in 2006, only to see Pope Francis rehabilitate him a few years later for reasons known only to the Pontiff.
The decades-long McCarrick scandal came to a head in 2018 when Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano brought its sordid details to the world’s attention in three letters, the first of which called for Pope Francis’s resignation, while the third urged McCarrick to publicly repent of what he’d done for the sake of the Church and his immortal soul.
While some attempted to discredit Vigano for going public with the scandal, those voices have now been silenced even by the Vatican itself, while offering clear proof of the effectiveness of “going public” in the face a decades-long ecclesial coverup of abuse and homosexuality in the priesthood—which the late Bishop Robert Morlino called a “culture of homosexuality” in the Church.
Next week’s Vatican summit meeting on the clerical “sexual abuse of minors” between Pope Francis and the heads of the world’s bishops’ conferences was called as a direct result of the Vigano allegations involving McCarrick although to date Francis has refused to “say one word” about that, preferring instead to issue a letter back in August citing “clericalism” and the “abuse of power”—not homosexuality—as the root cause of the clerical sexual scandal.
Having finally been left with no alternative but to laicize McCarrick, it remains to be seen how the Vatican can continue to ignore the Vigano case while sticking to the false narrative that pedophilia and not homosexuality in the priesthood is to blame for this the most serious moral crisis in the Catholic Church in modern times.
Stay tuned.
Preview the February 15th Remnant Newspaper!
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