SEX SCANDAL CONFERENCE
Pope gathers church leaders as advocates push zero-tolerance
The shadow of a disgraced U.S. cardinal is looming large over a historic Vatican conference where Catholic church leaders from around the world have gathered to discuss sexual abuse by clergy.
Days after defrocking former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, 88, who served as the archbishop of Washington, D.C., from 2001 to 2006, Pope Francis is presiding over the summit, which is aimed at developing guidelines to prevent sexual abuse by priests.
McCarrick was the highest ranking Catholic figure to be laicized, or dismissed from the clerical state. A canonical investigation found that he was guilty of soliciting sex while hearing confession and sexual crimes against minors and adults.
Two U.S. cardinals said on Friday they hope there will be a new air of accountability in the church.
“The situation of Theodore McCarrick is a very, very sad moment in history. It’s a shameful moment,” Blase Cardinal Cupich, Chicago’s archbishop, told reporters. “And yet, at the same time, it causes each one of us to make sure we live our lives authentically before the people of God that we serve.”
Boston’s archbishop, Sean Cardinal O’Malley, said he hoped the summit would lead to zero tolerance and no cover-ups by clergy.
“I would hope that any bishop who is aware of this kind of misbehavior would certainly make that known to the Holy See, and not feel that they in any way should try to cover up or turn a blind eye to this,” O’Malley said.
“Transparency is what the way forward is about. We have to be able to confront our sinfulness and deal with the conflict and not sweep it under the carpet,” he said.
McCarrick was publicly accused of sexual abuse and misconduct last summer, amid a worldwide sexual abuse scandal rattling the Catholic church. He was suspended from ministry in June after a sexual abuse allegation involving a teen altar boy nearly 50 years ago in New York was deemed credible.
McCarrick denied the claim, saying he had “no recollection of this reported abuse.”
A month later, he became the first cardinal in nearly a century to resign his position. Pope Francis accepted and ordered him to a life of “prayer and penance.”
O’Malley said he expected the Vatican and the four U.S. dioceses investigating McCarrick would soon release the results of their investigations, according to the Associated Press.
The Holy See refused a request from the U.S. bishops conference to conduct a fullscale Vatican investigation into who knew what and when about McCarrick’s rise through the church’s ranks, agreeing instead to a limited review of the Holy See’s own archives.
The Vatican has said it would release the results, though no time frame has been given. Separately, the four U.S. dioceses where McCarrick worked — New York City; Metuchen, N.J.; Newark, N.J., and Washington — are conducting their own reviews.