Report on disgraced cardinal puts most blame on Pope John Paul II
A Vatican investigation into disgraced ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick lashed out at bishops, cardinals and a pope-turned-saint who downplayed ominous reports about the Catholic kingmaker’s sexual abuse of children and seminarians.
But the 400-page internal investigation released Tuesday by the Vatican goes easy on Pope Francis, saying the pontiff accepted his predecessors’ naive belief in McCarrick’s impassioned denials.
Francis defrocked McCarrick, 90, last year after the investigation confirmed decades of allegations that he had sexually molested children and adults. The Vatican had reports from authoritative figures dating back more than two decades yet allowed the prelate’s rise in the church to continue unchecked.
“Today’s report paints a picture of fraternal lenience and silence,” Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of Bishopaccountability.org, told USA TODAY.
Barrett Doyle described the report as the Vatican’s “first forthright account” of its own cover-up of a sexual predator. But, she says, Francis is treated too gently. “It lets Pope Francis take no responsibility for not stopping McCarrick sooner,” she said. “Nobody gave him the files, he knew only that there had been rumors, etc. ... Wasn’t the pope curious to see if those rumors had substance? Any concerned person with access to Google could have discovered they did.”
Jim Bretzke, a priest and professor of theology at John Carroll University in Ohio, says the release of the McCarrick report provides a glimpse of the deeply entrenched culture of clerical cover-up as well as a significant change in how the culture operates.
“‘Never apologize, never explain, never admit’ may have been the bureaucratic guidelines in the Church for decades, but clearly the release of this report shows that this clerical culture is beginning to change – slowly but surely,” Bretzke told USA TODAY.
James Grein says he is glad the report was released. Grein says he was 11 when McCarrick, then a New York priest, began abusing him in the late 1960s. Grein says McCarrick was a family friend and that years later, when Grein told Pope John Paul II of the abuse, the pope simply said he would pray for him. Nothing was done.
“There are so many people suffering out there because of one man,” Grein said. “And he thinks that he’s more important than the rest of us. He’s destroyed me and he’s destroyed thousands of other lives. ... It’s time that the Catholic Church comes clean with all of its destruction.”
The report targets John Paul, who appointed McCarrick archbishop of Washington, D.C., in 2000, despite having commissioned an inquiry that confirmed he slept with seminarians. The pope died in 2005.
The report says John Paul was fooled by McCarrick’s denial. “In the 70 years of my life, I have never had sexual relations with any person, male or female, young or old, cleric or lay, nor have I ever abused another person or treated them with disrespect,” McCarrick wrote.
Bretzke emphasized that the report makes clear John Paul had been apprised of very serious allegations but nevertheless appointed him archbishop and elevated him to cardinal.
“Regrettably, Pope John Paul II’s attitude toward reports of clerical sexual abuse has been confirmed in many other instances,” Bretzke said. “True or not, this neglect does not reflect well on the deceased pope.”