How Vatican covered up Archbishop Theodore McCarrick teen sexual assault case

Rome (ANN)-Archbishop of Washington Theodore McCarrick molested a 16-year-old in 1971 and it was covered up.

Instead of being punished, the cardinal was promoted. Pope John Paul-II who was the previous Pope gave him a promotion even when there were persistent complaints against McCarrick.

Pope Francis faces the same charge but, in 2018, he ordered an investigation against McCarrick which was a welcome step but much delayed.

The probe came more than 45 years after the first case of abuse and more than two decades after the first complaint.

“The McCarrick report is remarkable because it points to failings by a succession of Popes, particularly John Paul-II and Benedict XVI, who allowed Mccarrick, along with Vatican officials to rise through the ranks of the church in the United States, despite the fact that there were consistent rumours that he had practised sexual misconduct with adult seminarians,” Philip Pullella, Reuters Vatican correspondent, said.

The Vatican’s dirty linen is being washed in public now. Archbishop Luigi Ventura, former ambassador of the Pope to France has been accused by four men of sexual assault. A trial kicked off in Paris without the accused with the archbishop not present.

A sexual assault trial for the Vatican’s former ambassador to France went ahead without him Tuesday after he produced a doctor’s note saying it was too dangerous for him to travel from Rome to Paris in the midst of France’s resurgent coronavirus epidemic.

Apparently, it’s too dangerous for him to travel from Rome to Paris due to the Wuhan virus. The Archbishop’s lawyers produced a doctor’s note in his defence. The trial has started without him.

Pope Francis spoke out for the first time today but comments were limited to the McCarrick case. Once again he pledged to rid the Catholic church of sexual abuse.

“Yesterday the report on the painful case of ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick was published. I renew my closeness to the victims of all abuse and I renew the efforts of the church to eradicate this evil,” Pope Francis said.

The Pope’s response is far from adequate. Last year, in America alone, it was found that almost 1,700 priests and clergy accused of sex abuse were unsupervised, add the cases from around the world and the number of accused is staggering and the revelations shocking.

These are not men of God, these are predators. They should be tried in public by a court of law and not behind a veil of secrecy in the Vatican.

Source: WION