Matt C. Abbott
Vatican's McCarrick, Maciel madness
By Matt C. Abbott
Being one of the very few Catholic commentators to expose 14 years ago then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick's scandalous abuse of power with seminarians, I found ChurchMilitant.com's Jan. 3, 2019 report of interest (excerpted; click here to read the report in its entirety):
On Jan. 5, I plan to attend a mini-conference organized by Stephen Brady of Roman Catholic Faithful. For those who live in the greater Chicagoland area and are interested in attending, click here for details.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.
© Matt C. Abbott
January 3, 2019
Being one of the very few Catholic commentators to expose 14 years ago then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick's scandalous abuse of power with seminarians, I found ChurchMilitant.com's Jan. 3, 2019 report of interest (excerpted; click here to read the report in its entirety):
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Church Militant has learned from extremely reliable sources that the Vatican investigation into disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick appears to have gone into cover-up mode....
The case as laid out to Church Militant is that the then-16-year-old boy went to St. Patrick's Cathedral to seek out McCarrick and serve midnight Mass in 1972 where McCarrick groped and fondled him in the sacristy.
Even though the boy did not go to St. Patrick's with any sexual intentions in mind, investigators for the Vatican are spinning the details in such a way as to say that McCarrick is at least partially exonerated, if not totally, because the boy presented himself to McCarrick and McCarrick did not pursue him.
Additionally, they say that since the boy was 16, a question now arises regarding the age of consent and if this could still be viewed as sexual abuse of a minor....
Those with intimate knowledge of the investigation are saying it's part of a 'cover-up,' claiming the Vatican is trying to recast the molestation as somehow consensual sex – a theme actually brought forward by Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich at the bishops' November meeting in Baltimore – that consensual homosexual sex involving a priest is a different matter.
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In the midst of a weeklong retreat held by American Catholic bishops in northern Illinois at Mundelein Seminary, Pope Francis sent an eight-page letter seeking to address the 'crisis of credibility that you are experiencing as a Church' with regard to historic responses to charges of sexual abuse by clerics and subsequent cover-ups....
'In recent years, the Church in the United States has been shaken by various scandals that have gravely affected its credibility,' he wrote. 'The Church's credibility has been seriously undercut and diminished by these sins and crimes, but even more by the efforts made to deny or conceal them. This has led to a growing sense of uncertainty, distrust and vulnerability among the faithful. As we know, the mentality that would cover things up, far from helping to resolve conflicts, enabled them to fester and cause even greater harm to the network of relationships that today we are called to heal and restore.'
The pope did not mention in his letter that it was his rehabilitation of now ex-Cardinal McCarrick that contributed in no small part to the current American crisis. A key catalyst of that crisis was Archbishop Viganò's testimony that the pope lifted sanctions against the U.S. cardinal despite knowing that he was an abuser of priests and seminarians.
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Cardinal João Bráz de Aviz, the prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, has disclosed that the Vatican had documents on the abusive conduct of the disgraced founder of the Legionaries of Christ, Father Marcial Maciel, from as long ago as 1943....
Father Maciel, who died in 2008, founded the Legionaries of Christ in 1941 but an apostolic visitation of the order was undertaken in 2009 after it emerged he had led a double life of having fathered three children with two mistresses, sexually abused minors, seminarians and even his own children, and embezzled funds. Some of the allegations dated back to the 1940s.
The Mexican-born priest had managed to continue his abuse unchecked in large part because of an institutional and cultish reverence for the Legion's superiors that he himself had fostered.
On Jan. 5, I plan to attend a mini-conference organized by Stephen Brady of Roman Catholic Faithful. For those who live in the greater Chicagoland area and are interested in attending, click here for details.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.
© Matt C. Abbott
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