On Sunday, we attended mass, took communion and enjoyed coffee and donuts with fellow parishioners afterwards.
It didn’t feel right. There was tension in the air and everyone knew that our church is in crisis.
The latest bomb goes right to the top or to Pope Francis himself:
In an extraordinary 11-page written testament, a former apostolic nuncio to the United States has accused several senior prelates of complicity in covering up Archbishop Theodore McCarrick’s allegations of sexual abuse, and has claimed that Pope Francis knew about sanctions imposed on then-Cardinal McCarrick by Pope Benedict XVI but chose to repeal them.Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, 77, who served as apostolic nuncio in Washington D.C. from 2011 to 2016, said that in the late 2000s, Benedict had “imposed on Cardinal McCarrick sanctions similar to those now imposed on him by Pope Francis” and that Viganò personally told Pope Francis about those sanctions in 2013.Archbishop Viganò said in his written statement… that Pope Francis “continued to cover” for McCarrick and not only did he “not take into account the sanctions that Pope Benedict had imposed on him” but also made McCarrick “his trusted counselor.” Viganò said that the former archbishop of Washington advised the Pope to appoint a number of bishops in the United States, including Cardinals Blase Cupich of Chicago and Joseph Tobin of Newark.Archbishop Viganò, who said his “conscience dictates” that the truth be known as “the corruption has reached the very top of the Church’s hierarchy,” ended his testimony by calling on Pope Francis and all of those implicated in the cover up of Archbishop McCarrick’s abuse to resign.
We call that allegation the Catholic version of a bombshell!
Pope Francis is not helping by remaining silent. I understand that you don’t want the Pope getting into a media battle of words with a nuncio but a little statement would be nice. Maybe a “tweet” denying everything would help!
As I mentioned to a friend after mass, our Church faces two challenges:
1) We don’t understand how social media can take an allegation around the world in seconds. Millions saw the Drudge links on Sunday and the church did not answer any of them. We need the equivalent of Clinton’s “war room” to counter every attack as soon as they are made.
2) Despite previous scandals, we did not implement “zero tolerance” policies everywhere. To be fair, our archdiocese did and a priest was recently put on leave for inappropriate behavior (not with kids thankfully).
Where does this go? The Vatican needs to come clean and put everything on the table. Unlock the files and admit everything. At this point, covering up behavior will only sink the Vatican further in the hole.
So come clean, Pope Francis. Clean house and show the faithfull that you are in charge.
This is a lot worse than climate change and income distribution.
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