Some quick thoughts on the McCarrick Report [Updated]

Update 11/16/2020 10:01 CST - In the comments section below, Jack refers us to a piece by David Gibson on the Commonweal website.  Gibson has his own original take, informed not only by the contents of the report but also from his background as a journalist.  Gibson has known and covered McCarrick for decades, and is well acquainted with the machinations between the Holy See and the American church.   He sees McCarrick as less important a churchman than many others rate him, but also sees him as a dysfunctional actor who learned to operate in a dysfunctional senior clerical culture.  Definitely worth a read.

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On Tuesday, the Vatican released the report of a two-year investigation into the history of former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.  We have discussed the disgraced and now defrocked McCarrick's case a number of times in the last couple of years: to see a listing of those previous posts sorted by date posted, click here.

What follows are my own reactions to and thoughts about this week's development.

Cardinal McCarrick and verifiable rumors

You probably have heard the news that Cardinal McCarrick, one of the most prominent American church officials over the last few decades, has been removed from ministry.

More on McCarrick: "It can never happen again" - More Updates

Update 7/31/2018 9:24 pm: A few more updates are down at the bottom of the post; please scroll down to see them.

Update 7/30/2018 4:49 pm: Michael J O'Loughlin, writing in America, provides a round-up of American episcopal reaction so far to the allegations against McCarrick and his resignation.  At this point it's a fairly thin round-up, consisting of written statements from three bishops, some comments made in a radio interview by McCarrick's successor in the Washington DC archdiocese, Cardinal Wuehrl, and a couple of statements from others who are not bishops.  We may hope that the list grows in the coming days.  Among the items O'Loughlin highlights is a letter from Bishop Edward Scharfenberger of the Albany (NY) Diocese to his priests.  The letter hits some good notes and is worth a read for those who are interested in the reaction of church leaders.

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Sunday afternoon I returned from a weekend away, removed the shrink wrap from the Sunday edition of my local suburban newspaper, and read the words quoted in the title of this post.  Those words, from Commonweal contributing editor John Gehring, were quoted in that day's front page news article.  Headline: "Cardinal resigns amid sex abuse claims."

McCarrick Fallout

Theodore McCarrick Ex Cleric

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.

 From the Vatican Announcement 

Note: The Congresso is the executive committee of the CDF. This was an administrative trial done when there was clear evidence, rather than a judiciary trial by a subgroup of the CDF. The CDF then gave notice to McCarrick to give him an opportunity to rebut before the final vote of the full CDF which was taken last Wednesday. Pope Francis at the same time reviewed it and did the equivalent of what our Supreme Court does when it says there is no basis for further appeal.

What Rocco notes, is that for the first time the Vatican is including sins against the Six Commandments with adults, with the aggravating factor of abuse of power as a major offense. If this precedent is incorporated into policy it would be a major change, allowing clergy to be protected against sexual abuse by the bishop, and adult laity to be protected against sexual abuse by their pastors.

There appear to be some changes in the wind. Francis in lowering the expectations for the coming summit, also said that bishops need to understand what their roles are, including the role of archbishops and presidents of bishop conferences. That was interesting because right now they have no defined role, but Cupich and others have surfaced the idea of making archbishops responsible for accusations against bishops. It sounds like wheels are turning in the Vatican. Maybe a clearer set of procedures, and clearer definition of sexual abuse linking it to power (e.g. adults over children, bishops over priests, etc.) I doubt anything formal will be adopted at the meeting, but Francis may want to gauge where everyone is on the topic.

McCarrick has private income in the event of laicization 

A pledge of commitment - Updated

Update 8/3/2018 11:01 pm - Cardinal DiNardo, president of the USCCB, has issued a statement on the McCarrick controversy.  Scroll to the bottom of the post for more details.

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Less than two months ago, the American bishops reviewed and revised the documents known collectively as the Dallas Charter.   Those Charter documents include some specific promises by the bishops to hold one another accountable.  Their promises unexpectedly became both pertinent and important when, within a week of the Charter's revision, Cardinal McCarrick's allegedly abusive past was made public.   We hope and pray that the contents of the Charter documents are still fresh in the bishops' minds, because the church now looks to them to keep their promises.

A couple of quick thoughts on the McCarrick scandal

... and they're related to one another:

Francis addresses the sexual abuse of minors - Updated

Update 5/21/2019 10:33 pm: At the bottom of the post I've referenced some views posted by Philip Lawler at First Things.

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On May 9, Francis issued motu proprio (that is, via an executive order) some universal church laws to address critical shortcomings in the church's handling of cases of the sexual abuse of minors.

Vigano meets his match

Vigano has been challenging the Vatican, especially Francis, to respond to his original letter, full text here.  Recently Vigano challenged the prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, to back his story.

On Saturday, the Vatican said that "the Holy Father has decided that information gathered during the preliminary investigation be combined with a further thorough study of the entire documentation present in the Archives of the Dicasteries and Offices of the Holy See regarding the former Cardinal McCarrick, in order to ascertain all the relevant facts, to place them in their historical context and to evaluate them objectively." 

However on Sunday, Cardinal March Ouellet issued his own testimony, full text here.. 

Washington's next bishop

I subscribe to an email newsletter from the WaPo called "Acts of Faith".  As you are all aware, the previous two bishops/cardinals have been found guilty of  abuse (McCarrick) and of failing to act against abusing priests, Wuerl. Wuerl also denied any knowledge of McCarrick's activities, which I found extremely hard to believe when he made the claim. I had heard about McCarrick's beach house and his fondness for seminarians and young priests  while he was still in charge in DC. As it turns out, Wuerl did also - and wrote to the Papal Nuncio about it. Now he claims that he "forgot" he had heard about the abuse.

Investigating Bishops

As Jim noted in his recent post, A Pledge of Commitment-Updated, Cardinal DiNardo, the president of the conference of bishops has started a process to strengthen the "Pledge of Commitment" likely by specifying more exactly what should happen when a bishop is accused. Part of the decision making process should include finding out just what happened (or failed to happen) in the McCarrick case.

For any decisions to be binding upon the bishops, they must pass by a 2/3rds vote and also receive the approval (recognition) of the Holy See. The debate is well underway among the bishops, and at least some of it in public.

Cardinal Wuerl promptly proposed a bishops only review panel in an interview with the National Catholic Reporter. This idea promptly met with objections. The proposal was not helped by the Wuerl saying that the report would go to either to the CDF or the Congregation of Bishops. Wuerl has a seat on both!

Bishop Scharfenberger of Albany promptly said that laity are essential  bishops investigating bishops is not the solution. Rather laity must provide the leadership

What is needed now is an independent commission led by well-respected, faithful lay leaders who are beyond reproach, people whose role on such a panel will not serve to benefit them financially, politically, or personally. These will be people with a deep understanding of the Catholic faith, but without an axe to grind or an agenda to push. It will not be easy, but it will be worth every ounce of effort, energy, and candor we can muster.

Anchorage Archbishop Etienne has proposed a mixed group:

1. The USCCB should immediately convene an ad hoc committee of the most respected leaders of our Conference – no more than seven (7) – to write a protocol to be placed before the body of bishops for review and approval as soon as possible.
2. Part of this protocol would require the development of a National Review Board for accusations of sexual misconduct against bishops. The membership of this body would include the seven bishop members of the ad hoc committee, the Papal Representative to the United States as an ex officio member, and an equal number of lay representatives.
3. This Review Board would examine all accusations against bishops and make their decisions and recommendations to the Holy See.
4. As a means of clear transparency, this Review Board would make its recommendations public within 60 days of submission to the Holy See if no public action or response has been taken by the competent authority.

What might seem a simple question of who belongs on at review group is likely to be complicated by the question of what really happened, not only in McCarrick's case by also in the case of Bishop Nienstedt (read on):

On Right Wing Catholic Media

 Gene Palumbo would like to call our attention to two articles on the Commonweal site by Paul Moses dealing with the role that right wing Catholic media has played.  As always, Paul Moses has some well thought out commentary.  I will link both articles, which are worth reading in their entirety; and will post some excerpts after the break. 

The first article, from January 7, is  The One Missing Fact | Commonweal Magazine. It deals with how EWTN misreported the letter by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano calling for the resignation of Pope Frances over the allegations against Theodore McCarrick. From the article:

Sigh. We're in Re-Run Season Again (Updated)

I'm actually not talking about summer tv programming (though that is a good subject for another day).  I'm speaking about the seeming one-issue obsession of some church leaders.  This article on  NCR, Villanova conference elevates calls for Biden to be denied Communion | National Catholic Reporter (ncronline.org), discusses "Taking Measure of the 'Biden Effect': American Catholics and the President," a virtual conference hosted by the Charles Widger School of Law at Villanova University.

Update:  Check out the article today by Michael Sean Winters, Confusion and canons at Villanova University law school conference | National Catholic Reporter (ncronline.org) on the subject of the Villanova Conference. I have included some excerpts at the end of this post.

Voting for a practitioner of instrumentalized racism

May a Catholic vote for a racist?

Another Vigano letter

Archbishop Vigano fired another shot across Pope Francis's bow yesterday, releasing another letter with one or two new details and some additional charges.  Rod Dreher has provided the text in English.  This letter is considerably shorter than the first one, but if you don't want to read the whole thing, Crux highlights the parts sure to stir controversy.   Among them:

A deacon calls on Cardinal Wuerl to resign - more updates

Update 3 9/13 7:24 am (h/t Gene Palumbo):  Jenkins of RNS has filed an update to clarify that when Wuerl meets with Francis, it will be to request that Francis accept his resignation.  This link provides some details and the text of the Catholic News Service release that is the basis for Jenkins' clarification.

Update 2 9/12 5:20 pm: Jack Jenkins of Religion News Service reports (h/t Jim McCrea) that Cardinal Wuerl will meet with Pope Francis "soon" to determine whether he should remain in place.  Jenkins notes that Wuerl is 77, so had already submitted his resignation to Francis when he turned 75; as frequently is the case, Francis decides whether and when to accept that submission.  Jenkins also reports that Wuerl met with his priests over the Labor Day weekend and some of them urged him to step down.

Update 9/11/2018 12:15 am: I've added some additional material at the bottom of the post.

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A deacon in Washington DC sticks his neck out.

The "S" word

Three articles that take seriously the notion that this may be a moment of schism.

Bishops Behaving Badly

W.Va. Bishop gave powerful cardinals and other priests $350,000 in cash gifts before his ouster, church records show

For people who still wonder how McCarrick could have gotten away with so much for so long, we now have the details of how a W.Va. Bishop abused seminarians, all the while giving gifts to influence as many people as he could.  It is really stunning how many people in the diocese knew about the bishop. And, of course, the bishop was busy buying friends elsewhere in the church just in case one of the those who knew decided to do something about it.

The source of the bishop's power :

The roots of the West Virginia diocese’s unusual wealth date back to the late 1800s, to a friendship struck on a transatlantic cruise ship between a bishop from Wheeling and a New York heiress. When she died in 1904, Sara Catherine Aloysia Tracy left the majority of her estate to the diocese, including a large tract of land in west Texas. Oil was discovered there decades later.

The income from the mineral rights generates annual revenue averaging nearly $15 million in recent years and has funded an endowment now valued at $230 million, according to financial documents. As a result, West Virginia’s parishes are largely supported by the diocese — unlike across the rest of the country, where dioceses must be supported by local parishes.

What has the former Bishop of Wheeling in common with McCarrick and the former head of the Legionnaires?  They were able to thrown money around to pave their way through life.. Money may talk but it also appears to shut people up when it comes to sexual abuse.

Saint for the Abused

This article on the Commonweal site by B.D. McClay is worth reading, in view of our recent discussion of abusers in the Church.
Those of us who grew up Catholic in the 1950s and '60s are well acquainted with the story of St. Maria Goretti, who was canonized in 1950 by Pope Pius XII. As a girl, I had mixed feelings about her.  I respected her piety and virtue. But the main message I got from her story was that it was dangerous to be a girl.  My parents must have picked up on my uneasiness, or maybe they had some uneasiness themselves. I remember my dad saying something like, "I would rather have a living daughter than a dead saint."  And my mother's opinion was that Assunta, Maria's mother, was pretty clueless not to have know that Maria's attacker, Alesandro Serenelli, was up to no good.  "I'd have sorted him out with a 2 -by-4 before it ever got to the point that it did.  And then I would have taken my kids and left."  And she would have, too.  I was comforted by her reaction; but even then I knew that she had never been as disempowered as Maria's mother had been. We had never known life without a safety net, as they had.

Francis accepts Cardinal Wuerl's resignation - Update

Update - I've provide links to a couple of other takes on this development at the bottom of the post.

In a subtle and fairly complex gesture, Pope Francis accepted Cardinal Donald Wuerl's resignation as Archbishop of Washington DC earlier today.  Despite being under fire for allegedly being implicated in a group of sex-abuse and corruption scandals, Wuerl remains a cardinal, and Francis has appointed him as apostolic administrator of the diocese until a successor can be named.

What shall we talk about?

Is it appropriate to preach about the unfolding sex abuse crises about Archbishop McCarrick and the Pennsylvania dioceses?  Is it necessary?