Polish bishops come to defense of John Paul II after report
WARSAW, Poland— Polish bishops defended St. John Paul II against evidence that he rejected reports that ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick slept with his seminarians, seeking to salvage a papal legacy that has been badly tarnished by his inaction on clergy sexual abuse.
The head of the Polish bishops conference, Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki, said in a statement Friday that John Paul had been “cynically deceived” by McCarrick aswell as other U.S. bishops.
Itwas the Polish bishops’ first response to the publication this week of the Vatican’s two-year investigation into McCarrick, which implicated John Paul and his secretary in covering up McCarrick’s sexual abuse.
The criticism of John Paul’s legacy has hit a nerve in overwhelmingly Catholic Poland, whose most famous native son has long been held up as model for his role in bringing about the fall of communism and for keeping the faith and Polish values alive. But John Paul’s 1978-2005 papacy has come under increasing scrutiny in Poland and abroad, amid a growing scandal over abusive priests and bishops who covered up for them.
Pope Francis defrocked McCarrick, 90, last year after a separate Vatican inquest determined he sexually abused children and adults, including during confession, and abused his power over seminarians. Francis authorized the more in-depth study into McCarrick’s rise and fall in the church amid evidence that the Vatican and U.S. bishops knew of his abuses but turned a blind eye.
The 449-page report determined that John Paul had received credible reports about McCarrick’s misconduct from authoritative prelates in the late 1990s. Yet even after commissioning an inquiry that recommended against a promotion, John Paul in 2000 named McCarrick archbishop of Washington D.C., and later a cardinal.
The report said John Paul apparently was swayed by a last-minute, handwritten letter from McCarrick addressed to the pope’s trusted secretary, then-Bishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, insisting he never had “sexual relations” with anyone. Dziwisz’s role in the coverup has also drawn scrutiny, and he has said he welcomes proposals for a commission to look into his own tenure.
Gadecki’s statement came on the day the U.S. Catholic newspaper, the National Catholic Reporter, called for the “suppression” of the devotional cult of John Paul as a response to the Vatican report.
Census case:
A month after the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to end the 2020 head count of every U.S. resident, the case that propelled the ruling was back in a district court Friday, with advocacy groups and the Trump administration at odds over how to proceed.
A coalition of local governments and advocacy groups that sued the Trump administration for trying to end the once-a-decade head count a month early is asking U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, to make the Census Bureau revert to a previous plan pushing back until next April the deadline for turning in numbers used for divvying up congressional seats among the states.
The plaintiffs said in court papers that the Census Bureau’s rush to finish the count in order to meet the shortened deadline violated its duties under the Constitution and forced census takers to cut corners, jeopardizing the accuracy of the count and leading to an undercount of Black, Latino and Native American communities.
More time is needed to crunch the numbers and correct for any errors, they said.
The coalition says the count was shortened to make sure the numberscrunching takes place while President Donald Trump is still in office so that his administration can enforce his desire to exclude people in the country illegally from the numbers used for determining how many congressional seats each state gets for a decade to come. Three separate federal courts have ruled Trump’s order unlawful, but his administration is appealing.
Belarus opposition:
Thousands of people rallied in Belarus on Friday following the death of a 31-yearold opposition supporter who reportedly was beaten by security forces, and the European Union condemned the violent crackdown Belarusian authorities have continued against peaceful protesters.
The man’s death Thursday came after more than three months of mass antigovernment protests that were sparked by official election results that gave authoritarian President Alexander Lukas henkoa sixth term in office.
Opposition leaders and some poll workers say the results were manipulated, and protesters have been calling for Lukashenko’s resignation.
More than 17,000 people have been detained— thousands of them brutally beaten — since the Aug. 9 presidential election, human rights advocates have reported.
Ahmaud Arbery case:
A Georgia judge denied bond Friday for the father and son charged with murder in the slaying of Ahmaud Arbery, saying he’s concerned the white men took the law into their own hands and endangered neighbors when they pursued and shot the Black man on a residential street.
Travis McMichael and his father, Gregory McMichael, have been jailed since their arrests in May, more than two months after Arbery was slain. The McMichaels armed themselves and chased the 25year-old Arbery in a truck after they spotted him running in their neighborhood.
Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley heard conflicting accounts of the Feb. 23 shooting just outside Brunswick, about 70 miles south of Savannah.
Defense attorneys for the McMichaels argued that theywere legally justified to go after Arbery because they suspected he was a burglar. They also contended Travis McMichael was defending himself when he blasted Arbery three times with a shotgun.
Serial killer dead:
The British serial killer known as the “Yorkshire Ripper” died Friday. Hewas 74.
Peter Sutcliffe was serving a life sentence for the killings of 13 women in Yorkshire and northwest England between 1975 and 1980. British media reported that he had refused treatment after testing positive for COVID-19 and was suffering from a number of underlying health conditions.
Peru’s ex-president:
A judge barred former Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra from leaving the nation for 18 months Friday while prosecutors investigate bribery allegations that Congress used to oust him, plunging the nation into a political crisis.
Judge Maria de los Angeles Alvarez agreed that Vizcarra could present a flight risk, given the seriousness of the accusations, though he move freely within the country.