The decision comes after allegations arose in which McCarrick was charged with molesting a 16-year-old boy back in 1974.

The surprising twist in the case was based on the argument that McCarrick, now 93, was unfit for trial due to his significantly impaired mental state.

The prosecution pushed for this outcome after psychologist Kerry Nelligan testified that McCarrick is suffering from dementia, impacting his ability to actively remember and participate in his defence.

Detailing her interactions with the former Cardinal, Nelligan mentioned during her testimony, "There were significant deficits in his memory and ability to retain information." This assertion was further evidenced by McCarrick's struggles to recall their June conversation consistently.

The once-powerful archbishop of Washington, D.C., McCarrick was notably stripped of his clerical status by Pope Francis in 2019.

This Massachusetts charge in 2021 added another layer to his already controversial legacy, marking him as the only U.S. Catholic cardinal, past or present, to face child sex abuse allegations legally.

Source

• Reuters

He has again started off the month with a bang by naming Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernández of La Plata (Argentina) as the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF).

Fernández, (pictured) who will be 61 in July, has been one of Francis' most trusted theological advisors and ghostwriters, going back to the days when the pope was still the cardinal-archbishop of Buenos Aires.

He closely collaborated with then-Cardinal Bergoglio in writing the final document at the 2007 conference of Latin American Bishops (CELAM) in Aparecida.

A former president of the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina, "Tucho" - as he is familiarly called - is also understood to have been the principal author of Evangelii gaudium (the Joy of the Gospel), the apostolic exhortation that is the programmatic document of Francis' pontificate.

Traditionalists sure to be angry

Fernández replaces Cardinal Luis Ladaria, the 79-year-old Spanish Jesuit who has been prefect since 2017.

The Argentine theologian also becomes the president of the Pontifical Biblical Commission and head of the International Theological Commission.

By bringing Fernández to Rome, the pope now has another key ally in one of the most important Vatican offices. This should greatly boost the 86-year-old Francis in helping clear internal opposition to his ecclesial reforms.

But the appointment of the new DDF prefect is also certain to infuriate Catholics who are not in agreement with the pope's vision of the Church.

In an interview with the Italian daily Corriere della Sera in May 2015 Archbishop Fernández raised the ire of traditionalists when he said the People of God would not tolerate any attempts by a future pope to reverse the changes Francis has already brought to the Church.

Immediately afterwards, Sandro Magister, a veteran Italian journalist who has been one of the vaticanisti most critical of the current pontificate, belittled Fernández' qualifications as a serious theologian. He egregiously mocked him for stating - correctly, by the way - that the Roman Curia was not an "essential part of the Church's mission" and that "cardinals could disappear", too.

Magister claimed the archbishop had signed his own death warrant by taking on the curia and specifically for criticising Cardinal Gerhard Müller, who was still prefect of the then-Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

It now seems ironic that it was exactly six years ago to the day from Fernández's appointment when Francis dropped another July bombshell by refusing to renew Müller for another five years as prefect.

The German, who was only 69 years old and still six years from retirement, has held no other post since Francis dismissed him in 2017.

"To promote and encourage, not to condemn"

In announcing Fernández's appointment, the Holy See Press Office released an unusually long curriculum vita for the new doctrinal chief.

And even more unusually, it published his full bibliography of books, essays and articles. In addition, it made public a personal letter Pope Francis wrote to his fellow Argentine, in which he urges the new DDF prefect to help promote the faith rather than condemn heresies.

"The dicastery over which you will preside used immoral methods in former times. They were times when, rather than promoting theological knowledge, it persecuted possible doctrinal errors," the pope says.

"What I expect from you is without a doubt something very different," the pope adds, in a letter that quotes Evangelii gaudium extensively.

Francis goes on to praise Fernández for his theological and pastoral experience, saying he's confident the new prefect is "very capable of bringing theological knowledge into dialogue with the life of the holy People of God".

While pointing out that the DDF also has the task dealing with the most serious clergy sex abuse cases, the pope says the main task of the doctrinal office is to "guard the faith" and "become an instrument of evangelization" that helps the Church "enter into conversation with the people of the world in a context that is unprecedented for the history of humanity".

"Hacer lío!": dropping bombshells

Francis urges the new DDF prefect to promote a theology that "convincingly" presents God as "the God who loves, who forgives, who saves, who liberates, who promotes people and summons them to fraternal service".

Pope Francis loves to tell young people: "Hacer lío!", a Spanish phrase that can mean anything from "shake things up" to "make a mess". And the appointment of Victor Manuel Fernández is certainly part of his own penchant for dropping bombshells in the month of July.

It all began in his first months as Bishop of Rome when - on July 1, 2013 - the Holy See Press Office announced he would be flying a week later down to Lampedusa.

Lampedusa is the island off of Sicily that had become emblematic of the unfolding crisis of African migrants and refugees, many who were perishing at sea in an attempt to reach Europe. The July 8th visit would set the tone for the rest of the pontificate.

But three days before leaving on that dramatic day trip, Francis did something else that shocked some Catholics but delighted many others.

He approved the canonization of John Paul II and the beatification of Alvaro de Portillo, the second prelate of Opus Dei.

Halting the Old Latin Mass

Who can forget the surprise announcement on July 4, 2021 that the Jesuit pope had been taken to Gemelli Hospital and that same Sunday afternoon underwent the first of now two abdominal surgeries?

But the real bombshell came a week after he returned from his hospitalization. That's when released his "motu proprio" Traditionis custodes. This effectively overturned Summorum Pontificum, the "motu proprio" Benedict XVI issued in 2007 to allow for an unfettered celebration and promotion of pre-Vatican II Mass.

The following year - on July 13, 2022 - Francis dropped another bombshell by appointing three women to be members - members, not mere consultants - of one of the most important Vatican offices, the Dicastery for Bishops. This was the second shock in as many years for Catholic traditionalists.

Sacking two cardinals

On July 27, 2018 the Vatican announced that the pope had accepted Theodore McCarrick's resignation from the College of Cardinals.

Francis actually forced McCarrick to resign after the former archbishop of Washington had been credibly accused of sexually abusing adolescents and seminarians. The pope also forced him out of active ministry and sentenced him to a life of prayer and penance. McCarrick was eventually removed from the clerical state altogether.

And, of course, there was the previously-mentioned announcement on July 1, 2017 that Francis had decided Cardinal Gerhard Müller would not be extended as the Vatican's doctrinal chief.

It could not be foreseen back then that Francis would eventually give the post to his Argentine friend and theological aide. Yes, this is certainly another bombshell. But don't think for even one moment that it will be the last.

• Robert Mickens is the La Croix International Editor. Each week he publishes the Letter from Rome, unravelling the issues and policies that are alive in the Vatican and within the Church.
• First published in La Croix International. Republished with permission.

McCarrick is a laicised former cardinal,

McCarrick's legal team filed the report on 27 February in Massachusetts' Dedham District Court based on a medical evaluation that found McCarrick, 92, is suffering from impaired cognition.

The court has now impounded that report.

Assistant Norfolk District Attorney Lisa Beatty said the state will now bring in its own expert to evaluate McCarrick to determine if he can go to trial.

The state's evaluation date has yet to be set, but both sides will be back in court in April for a status conference.

As a result, any eventual ruling on McCarrick's motion to be declared incompetent is not likely for months.

McCarrick has been accused of sexually abusing both adult and child victims over decades, a scandal that burst into the public in 2018.

After the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (now a dicastery) found McCarrick guilty of abuse in 2019, he was laicised by Pope Francis.

The three counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over age 14 in Massachusetts are the only criminal counts he currently faces.

McCarrick amassed power and favours

Raising the question of competency years after the fact is a standard legal strategy employed by priests accused of sexual abuse, according to Mitchell Garabedian.

Garabedian is the attorney representing McCarrick's Massachusetts victim in civil lawsuits filed in New York and New Jersey.

"My client is determined and strong and not deterred by McCarrick's antics," Garabedian said.

Robert Hoatson, president of Road to Recovery, which helps victims of priest sex abuse, said McCarrick amassed power and favours for years on his way to becoming a cardinal. That created a form of protection that McCarrick enjoyed and kept him from facing the consequences, Hoatson said.

"One of the reasons why this has been held up so long, he literally charmed the entire world," Hoatson said.

"He was beloved, he could charm anybody."

If McCarrick is ultimately deemed incompetent to stand trial, the charges do not automatically go away.

Instead, the court must first determine if McCarrick can be brought back to competency through medical treatment.

Given his age and reported condition, that scenario is unlikely, raising the possibility McCarrick may never face justice in the criminal courts.

Sources

National Catholic Reporter

ABC News

Reuters

Frail and 91, former cardinal Theodore McCarrick was arraigned last week on charges that he sexually assaulted a 16-year-old boy at Wellesley College in the 1970s.

As startling and historic as that event may be, it's years too late for those he's accused of having abused — and for a church that still struggles to put the clergy sex abuse scandal behind it.

It probably never will, at least under the current generation of church leaders — not until there are no more victims, and no more clerics to hold accountable.

"The Catholic Church has run out of rugs to sweep things under," said Jack Connors, a prominent Catholic and business leader who played a major role in calling out church leaders — specifically the late Cardinal Bernard Law — when the Globe Spotlight team first broke news of a massive cover-up of clergy sex abuse some 20 years ago.

While the church under Pope Francis has tried to address the scandal, the underlying problem, said Connors, persists: "There are still too many people around in power that created their own set of rules."

McCarrick, a former archbishop of Washington, D.C., entered three not-guilty pleas.

As reported by the Globe, the accuser told investigators that McCarrick was a family friend who began molesting him when he was a boy.

On June 8, 1974, the victim, then 16, said he was at his brother's wedding reception when McCarrick led him into a small room, closed the blinds, and fondled his genitals while "saying prayers to make me feel holy."

The victim also told investigators about later incidents of the alleged abuse.

Several other men have also filed civil lawsuits in New York and New Jersey against McCarrick. In 2018, the Vatican removed McCarrick from public ministry, citing credible allegations that he sexually abused an altar boy in the 1970s in New York.

With McCarrick's arraignment, "there's a new face of accountability," said Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, a group that tracks allegations against priests.

But that new accountability, she said, "is mostly coming from outside the church. Prosecutors are more willing to bring charges. Legislators are more willing to pass laws to empower victims. The news media are more willing to talk about predatory behaviour."

The church itself has taken "small steps forward," she said, such as setting up an investigative procedure that's controlled by the hierarchy.

That set-up probably explains why McCarrick is the only US bishop to have lost his clerical status, although she said 45 others have been publicly accused of sexual abuse.

"McCarrick by no means represents a new willingness by the church to be severe.

He is an outlier," said Barrett Doyle.

While he now looks helpless, no one should forget the allegations describe "an insatiable predator," she said. Continue reading

While praising the Vatican for releasing the findings of the McCarrick report, survivors say more must be done.

"In many ways, this is an impressive report—the Vatican's first forthright account of its own cover-up of a sexual predator,"Barrett Doyle, said in a statement.

"Today's presentation of Pope John Paul II's culpability in the McCarrick cover-up is particularly important."

However, Barrett Doyle does not let Pope Francis off.

In the statement, she wrote Pope Francis was "negligent" or even "corrupt" because he failed to investigate the rumours surrounding McCarrick.

"Plausible deniability must end for popes and bishops," she wrote.

"They are responsible for proactively reading the abuse files, and for correcting the negligent or complicit acts of their predecessors."

Though back in 2013 Francis was vaguely aware of rumours of sexual misconduct against former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the Vatican report says Francis believed his two predecessors had properly handled the matter and that there was no need to revisit the claims.

According to the report, Francis was under the impression that the allegations had been "reviewed and rejected by Pope John Paul II," as evidenced by then-Cardinal McCarrick's robust public schedule during the papacy of Benedict XVI.

It was Francis' presumption that John Paul II, a man so morally strict and with such moral rectitude would never have permitted 'a rotten candidate' to proceed so he did not see the need to alter the approach that had been adopted in prior years, the reports says.

Fr Boniface Ramsey was the first person to blow the whistle on McCarrick who at the time was a towering figure in the American Church.

Ramsay does not go as far as Barret Doyle and says he believes he is finally seeing justice in a lengthy report detailing how his former boss was able to climb the ecclesial ladder despite rumours of sexual misconduct.

"In a mild sort of way, I feel vindicated," Ramsey told Crux.

"McCarrick was in and out of my consciousness for more than 30 years. I was outraged by him. He wasn't always at the top of my mind, I wasn't always thinking about McCarrick, he wasn't an obsession for me, but every now and then he would come up and do something that angered me," the priest said.

However, James Grein, a Virginia man who accuses former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of sexually abusing him says the abuse he experienced for two decades beginning as a boy was "incredibly heinous" and will hurt "forever."

"How they could ever repair my damage," he adds, "I don't know."

Grein says he finds some comfort in the report but wants a public apology.

Another survivor, John Bellocchio called the report "a very emotional read."

"It was very emotional because there were so many opportunities to stop him. So many opportunities to stop him. And maybe my life would be different, maybe I wouldn't be a victim if someone had," he said.

Bellocchio sued both McCarrick and the Holy See, alleging the prelate abused him in the 1990s when he was a teenager.

In interviews with The Associated Press, he and others demanded that the Vatican institute changes to ensure nothing like what was described in Tuesday's extraordinary report can happen again.

Pope Francis, Thursday, pledged to rid the Roman Catholic Church of sexual abuse and offered prayers to victims of Theodore McCarrick.

"I renew my closeness to victims of any abuse and commitment of the church to eradicate this evil," Francis said. He then paused silently for a minute in prayer.

Sources

• America
• AP News
• Crux
• LA Times

Priests, lay experts and canon lawyers alike say the Vatican needs to revisit how the church protects its seminarians, nuns and even rank-and-file parishioners from problem bishops and cardinals, who for centuries have wielded power and authority with few — if any — checks or accountability.

McCarrick was only investigated and defrocked by Pope Francis because a former altar boy came forward in 2017 to report the prelate had groped him when he was a teenager in the 1970s. It was the first time someone had claimed to be abused by McCarrick while a minor, a serious crime in the Vatican's in-house legal system.

And yet the bulk of the Vatican's 449-page forensic study into the McCarrick scandal released Tuesday dealt with the cardinal's behaviour with young men: the seminarians whose priestly careers he controlled and who felt powerless to say no when he arranged for them to sleep in his bed.

The report found that three decades of bishops, cardinals and popes dismissed or downplayed reports of McCarrick's misconduct with the young men.

Confidential correspondence showed they repeatedly rejected the information outright as rumour, excused it as an "imprudence" or explained it away as the result of McCarrick having no living relatives.

McCarrick's friends and superiors went to enormous lengths to find ways to claim his behaviour wasn't necessarily sexual, couldn't be proven and would cause a scandal if it ever went public.

Their decades-long reflex to turn a blind eye was evidence of the church's old boys culture of silence, clerical privilege and protection of reputations at all cost.

No one ever thought about the effect of his behaviour on the young men.

The report faulted in particular St. John Paul II, who appointed McCarrick archbishop of Washington and later made him a cardinal despite having commissioned an inquiry that confirmed he bedded his seminarians. The report recommended he not be promoted.

But John Paul gave McCarrick the most influential position in the U.S. church, which, coupled with his role as a major U.S. fundraiser, meant the cardinal wielded enormous power as he hobnobbed with presidents, prime ministers and three popes.

"The reason we had a McCarrick was because he pulled so much power to himself, relatively quickly," said the Rev. Desmond Rossi, a former seminarian under McCarrick who was interviewed for the report.

"I think the church has to look at the authority and power that people are given: How do we guarantee that it's used in a healthy way?"

The question for the church is also a legal one, just as it is in the secular sphere. Vatican and U.S. Catholic leaders had known since the 1990s that McCarrick slept with his seminarians. But that wasn't a firing offence under the church's canon law — then or now.

Since McCarrick's seminary victims weren't minors, they weren't considered victims at all, and in those years even priests who repeatedly raped children had their crimes covered up.

McCarrick rose to the heights of the Catholic hierarchy merely bothered by occasional "rumours" that he had been "imprudent" with the young men.

"It does get down to this idea that somehow when someone turns 18, a) they're no longer vulnerable, and b) that they have the ability to protect themselves," said David Pooler, a professor of social work at Baylor University and an expert in clergy sexual abuse of adults.

"And what I have learned from my research is that that's simply not true: that there's nothing magical about becoming an adult and being able to then protect oneself in a vulnerable place," he said.

Pooler said a seminarian is really in no position to offer meaningful, free consent to any sexual activity with his bishop, since his bishop has all the power in the relationship. A bishop or seminary rector determines whether the seminarian can continue in his studies, is ordained a priest, or is assigned to a good parish.

"Only when there is sort of equal freedom and kind of equal power in the relationship could there ever possibly be consent," Pooler said. "And that's just impossible between a priest and someone who's in seminary, or a priest and someone who's just in their congregation or parish."

The Vatican has long sought to portray any sexual relations between priests and adults as sinful but consensual, focusing in recent years only on protecting minors and "vulnerable adults" from predator priests. The Vatican's legal norms have defined "vulnerable" people as those who are disabled or consistently lack the use of reason.

Only in the past year or so, amid the #MeToo reckoning, has the Vatican even admitted publicly that religious sisters can be sexually abused by priests, bishops or even their own mother superiors. The McCarrick scandal now stands as a case study of how seminarians can be exploited and abused by the men who hold power over them.

"People have the tendency to believe the one who is in power, and not the one who is powerless," said Karlijn Demasure, director of the Centre for Safeguarding Minors and Vulnerable Persons at Saint Paul University in Ottawa, Canada. "

And that's the whole change in culture that has to happen: that one has to listen to the vulnerable and not to the ones who are in power." Continue reading

The report triggered questions about whether John Paul was rushed through the saint-making process, and whether the author of contemporary Catholic teaching on human sexuality didn't understand the complex nature of the topic.

The 450-page report released Tuesday is an unprecedented effort by the church at full transparency, a rare window on internal Vatican decision-making that showed that not only John Paul but also popes Benedict and Francis knew McCarrick had faced multiple accusations.

Each pontiff was aware of different aspects of the accusations against McCarrick, but the initial years of the case came under John Paul's 27-year reign.

John Paul, who died in 2005 and was made a saint in 2014, elevated McCarrick to archbishop of Washington and summarily to cardinal despite the allegations.

Under Benedict, McCarrick was asked to step down as archbishop of Washington when he reached the standard retirement age of 75 and told to keep a lower profile.

Francis assumed his predecessors had already vetted the allegations against McCarrick, but took action once a credible accusation surfaced involving a minor. McCarrick was laicized in 2019.

Reactions to the revelations about John Paul have been emotional and divided.

Some saw a man perhaps naively believing a scheming friend.

The report's authors raised the possibility that John Paul's judgment was heavily coloured by his experience in the Eastern Bloc, where negative propaganda about priests was used to weaken religious organizations. Others felt his decisions were potentially disqualifying for the high moral honour of sainthood.

Vatican's McCarrick report says Pope John Paul II knew of misconduct allegations nearly two decades before cardinal's removal
"Saints are holy, not perfect. There's no chance his canonization would be reversed," said Kathleen Sprows Cummings, head of a centre on U.S. Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame, who has written extensively about saints.

She added that if the report had come out before his canonization was complete, it would have mattered. "We canonize people for [Catholics], not for the person themselves. But what we know about sex abuse, this is not the kind of person — a person who failed on this level — he's not to be imitated."

Others felt the report made the case against John Paul's canonization.

"It's almost a bill of particulars against his sainthood," said Jason Berry, an investigative journalist who wrote a book in 2004 about John Paul's failure to address the sexual abuse scandal of Marcial Maciel, a Mexican church leader who abused youth and adults.

"He was unwilling to confront the phenomenon of priests involved in sex crimes. I don't think he thought of it as criminal. He thought of it as a sin, a failing of celibacy," said Berry.

The report showed that John Paul was among many Catholic clerics in the United States and Rome who had heard different pieces of the McCarrick sexual scandal that critics believe should have triggered further investigation. Instead, time after time, church officials, including John Paul, were often reluctant to probe deeper.

The report showed there was a range of allegations swirling around McCarrick starting in the 1980s, but they primarily remained in the United States, with letters sent to various bishops and priests.

By 1999, New York Cardinal John O'Connor wrote a lengthy letter to the Vatican's ambassador to the United States, Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, describing "grave fears" about what might happen if McCarrick, then the archbishop of Newark, were to receive a promotion.

By the time McCarrick was appointed to lead the D.C. archdiocese, John Paul's assistants had told him that McCarrick would share a bed with seminarians, that anonymous letters accused him of paedophilia with young relatives and that a priest accused him of "attempting to engage in sexual activity," the report said.

The priest was later diagnosed with psychological trauma.

To some readers, those allegations, while serious, didn't add up to a "smoking gun" against McCarrick, who swore on his office to John Paul that the reports were untrue and that he'd never abused or hurt another person. John Paul was guilty only of being too trusting of a man who fooled and charmed Catholics around the globe. Continue reading

They want the USCCB to ask for all the relevant documents and the results of diocesan and archdiocesan investigations about McCarrick to be released.

Both the National Advisory Council to the US Bishops (NAC) and the National Review Board (NRB), a lay advisory group to the US bishops on protecting minors from abuse, urged the bishops to press for the release of the documentation.

The "salvation of souls is the supreme law of the Church," they said.

"Care for your people must be at the forefront when dealing with this issue."

The 13-member NRB was constituted by the USCCB in 2002, after revelations of the sexual abuse of minors by clerics that spanned decades and which occurred around the country.

The board advises the USCCB Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People.

The NAC meets ahead of the bishops' biannual meetings and considers their agenda for the meetings, offering support or criticism of each agenda item.

Besides calling for the publication of the McCarrick documents, both advisory bodies expressed concern over the proposed USCCB directives for implementing Pope Francis's motu proprio Vos estis lux mundi (You are the light of the world) as a response to the abuse crisis.

In particular, the Chair of the NAC said the motu proprio directives encourage the involvement of the laity by metropolitans when investigating sex abuse allegations of bishops, but do not require such involvement of lay experts.

Besides the possibility of leaving out qualified experts from investigations, it would give the "perception of bishops investigating bishops," Raines said.

The Chair of the NRB had similar concerns.

"While the NRB commends the Holy See for taking such a strong step forward in terms of holding all clerics accountable for abuse, the Chair said the board "remains uncomfortable" with the model of metropolitans overseeing the investigations of abuse allegations against other bishops.

"Lay involvement is key to restoring the credibility of the Church," he emphasized. Leaving them out of the investigation process "would signal a continuation of a culture of self-preservation that would suggest complicity."

The NRB also wants the audit process contained in the Dallas Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People (2002) to be improved and expanded.

The Charter was drafted as a response to the national revelations of sexual abuse of minors by clerics.

The annual audit measures compliance with the charter's protective and preventative measures.

"Now is the time to raise the bar on compliance to ensure the mistakes of the past are not completed," the NRB Chair said.

Historically, bishops have expressed concerns about the expansion of the audit process, warning that "audit creep" could pose privacy risks and step on their authority as bishops to oversee the implementation of the charter.

Source

• Catholic Herald
• Image: The Times of Israel

In a series of emails from an undisclosed location, Vigano told the Washington Post that Francis and Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI must come clean about what they knew of McCarrick's alleged decades of abuse.

It is "immensely sad" that Francis was "blatantly lying to the whole world to cover up his wicked deeds" in allegedly protecting McCarrick, Vigano says.

He is firm in his claims that he warned Francis in 2013 about McCarrick.

"How could anybody, especially a pope, forget this?" he said in his emails.

Vigano, who upset the Vatican over years with accusations of corruption and abuse at the highest levels, disappeared last August after publishing an 11-page attack on Francis and Benedict over McCarrick.

In that open letter, he said he warned church leaders in 2006 about allegations that McCarrick engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct and abuse with male seminarians over a period of decades.

It was necessary for him to speak out, he says.

"My silence would make me complicit with the abusers, and lead to yet more victims.

"The results of an honest investigation would be disastrous for the current papacy."

He also said deeply embedded "homosexual networks" ... "are strangling the entire church."

Vigano wants Francis to resign over his alleged silence.

Francis - who has become more vocal in calling for the church to be honest and open about the priest sex scandals, has consistently rejected the criticism, denying he knew McCarrick's transgressions.

Source

• Raw Story
• Image: CBS News

Also known as laicisation and sometimes referred to colloquially as defrocking, a sentence of laicisation would complete a stunning fall from grace for the former cardinal, who at one time wielded immense influence in both Rome and the United States.

Last year, then-Cardinal McCarrick was reported to the Archdiocese of New York, accused of abusing a 16-year-old boy in the 1970s.

Two more allegations of the abuse of minors also surfaced, as did claims that Archbishop McCarrick sexually harassed and assaulted priests and seminarians.

If the Vatican decides to expel Archbishop McCarrick from the priesthood, it would close one chapter of the abuse crisis, but many questions will remain.

What is laicisation?

The term "laicisation" refers to scenarios in which a member of the clergy, through the use of the church's legal apparatus, is no longer permitted to act as a priest.

Sometimes a priest may petition Rome for laicisation, often in order to marry. (A priest who wishes to marry needs, in addition to laicisation, to request being released from his vow of celibacy, which is a separate process.)

In other cases, laicisation is a form of punishment, commonly described as being "dismissed from the clerical state," often because of violations of the commandment barring adultery. (Before the 1983 revision to the code of canon law, priests who were laicised were often referred to as being "reduced" to the lay state.)

A sentence of laicisation would complete a stunning fall from grace for the former cardinal, who at one time wielded immense influence in both Rome and the United States.

This is the portion of canon law used by the church to prosecute priests and bishops accused of sexual abuse of a minor.

Between 2004 and 2014, the Vatican laicised 848 priestsbecause of sexual abuse.

Only the Vatican can laicise priests so accused, which critics say makes the process too cumbersome.

What does laicisation entail? Is it the same as defrocking?

When a priest is laicised, he is no longer permitted to celebrate the sacraments. He cannot preach a homily or hold a post at a seminary..

Nor is he allowed to present himself as a priest, meaning he cannot wear clerical garb.

This is where the slang term "defrocked" originates, referring to the taking away of a priest's attire, though "defrocking" is not a technical term. (It is possible, however, that a priest could be ordered to refrain from wearing clericals in public without being dismissed from the clerical state.) Continue reading

• Image: Italian Insider

The survey results released this week show:

• 30% of American Catholic adults say Francis is doing an "excellent" or a "good" job addressing the issue
• 60% say he is doing an "only fair" or "poor" job handling the sex abuse scandal
• 36% say his efforts on this front have been poor. This is nearly double the share who said he was doing a poor job at the beginning of this year, and triple the share who said this in 2015.

Although US Catholics' confidence has dropped since January's poll, the sex abuse scandal has made the headlines several times in recent months:

• In June, there were widespread allegations against Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, DC, who resigned from the College of Cardinals.
• In August, a Pennsylvania grand jury report said over 300 priests have been accused of sexually abusing minors over the past 70 years
• In late August Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò released a letter alleging Francis and other senior church officials knew about some of the abuses and did nothing. Viganò has suggested Francis should resign because of the scandals.
• Last week, Viganò again wrote to Pope Francis demanding answers in relation to his initial letter.

Although Francis is still rated more positively than negatively for his leadership in spreading the Catholic faith and standing up for traditional moral values, according to the Pew Research results the share of Catholics who say he is doing an excellent or a good job in this work has declined this year.

Source

• Pew Research Centre
• LifeSight News
• Image: The Tablet

This one condemns the Vatican for not responding to his first letter of 22 August.

In that, he claimed Pope Francis and other senior Church leaders covered up allegations of McCarrick's abusive behaviour, and that Francis not only ignored sanctions Pope Benedict allegedly imposed on McCarrick but made him a close advisor.

Viganò's current letter says he wrote his first letter "solely for the good of the Church."

He says he chose to disclose the Church leaders' cover-up "after long reflection and prayer, during months of profound suffering and anguish, during a crescendo of continual news of terrible events …

"The silence of the pastors who could have provided a remedy and prevented new victims became increasingly indefensible, a devastating crime for the Church.

"How can one avoid concluding that the reason they do not provide the documentation is that they know it confirms my testimony?" he wrote.

"Neither the pope nor any of the cardinals in Rome have denied the facts I asserted in my testimony. If they deny my testimony, they have only to say so, and provide documentation to support that denial."

Francis has responded to Viganò's claims, saying to reporters, "I will not say a single word." Instead, he challenged reporters to figure out the truth for themselves.

Source

• Crux Now
• National Review
• Image: Catholic Herald

This would help prevent future sex abuse, says Ouellet the prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.

He also thinks bishops should also be chosen more carefully.

"We are facing a crisis in the life of the church... and also to a certain extent a rebellion," Ouellet says.

"This [the sex abuse scandal] is a very serious matter that has to be dealt with in a spiritual way, not only in a political way."

He also says direct attacks against Pope Francis over the scandals were "unjust."

Ouellet's comments come amid a string of revelations regarding allegations of sexual abuse and cover-up by clergy in several regions of the world.

The pope has met with numerous victims of abuse and many clergy since disclosure of abuse has been brought into the open.

Several senior members of the clergy have resigned as a result.

In late July, Francis accepted the resignation of retired Washington DC Archbishop Theodore McCarrick from the College of Cardinals and suspended him from the exercise of any public ministry, amid allegations of sexual abuse and coercion.

Francis has just met US bishops and cardinals to discuss the Vatican's response after McCarrick was accused of sexually abusing a teenager while working as a priest in New York in the early 1970s.

Source

• Catholic Herald
• GeoTV
• The BC Catholic
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Archbishop Georg Gänswein, who is the prefect of the papal household for Pope Francis, says Pope-emeritus Benedict "has not commented" on an 11-page letter from Viganò, which was released by the press on 25 August.

The letter alleges Benedict placed sanctions on McCarrick in 2008 or 2009 that barred McCarrick from celebrating Mass publicly or traveling, and ordered him to live a life of prayer and penance.

The National Catholic Register (NCR), one of two outlets that originally published Viganò's letter, said in its 25 August article that it had "independently confirmed that the allegations against McCarrick were certainly known to Benedict."

Three days later, the New York Times reported that one of the people Viganò consulted with while writing his statement was US lawyer Timothy Busch.

Busch is on the board of governors of EWTN, which owns NCR.

Busch told the Times that NCR editors "had personally assured him that the former pope, Benedict XVI, had confirmed Archbishop Viganò's account."

Gänswein says any reports that Benedict had confirmed parts of Viganò's statement "lack any foundation."

Claims about Benedict's "sanctions' against McCarrick are also contradicted by historical records.

These include, for example, McCarrick being seen celebrating numerous public Masses throughout Benedict's papacy and continuing to travel around the world until June this year.

That was when the Vatican announced it had ordered his removal from ministry over an accusation of abuse that had been deemed credible.

Since the release of Viganò's statement, numerous photos have emerged of McCarrick at the Vatican after 2009, including one of him greeting Benedict on 28 February 2013, the day he renounced the papacy.

Source

• Die Tagespost
• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: Zimbio

Cardinal Sean O'Malley, who heads the Catholic Church's Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, acknowledged on Monday (July 23) that "a major gap still exists in the church's policies on sexual conduct and sexual abuse."

O'Malley, who is also the archbishop of Boston, noted that while the church has a zero-tolerance policy for the sexual abuse of minors by priests, there is a need for clearer norms and procedures for investigating and judging bishops.

But O'Malley's statement raises further questions.

Who will set the norms for bishops?

Under canon law today, only the pope has authority over bishops and cardinals, although there were examples of bishops being tried by provincial councils in the ancient church.

That is why only priests and deacons are subject to the norms and procedures set by the United States Catholic bishops for dealing with accusations of sexual abuse.

The bishops conference does not have the authority to set norms for their own bishops.

The pope needs to publish norms making clear that there will be zero tolerance for bishops who abuse children or allow abusive priests to continue in ministry.

The McCarrick case also shows the need for zero tolerance for a bishop who has sex with his seminarians or priests.

Any bishop involved in these activities should lose his office.

Any cardinal should lose his red hat.

There is no reason the pope could not publish these norms immediately.

Who will investigate allegations against a bishop?

The church needs better ways of investigating allegations against bishops.

True, Archbishop Charles J. Scicluna of Malta has done an excellent job investigating cases for the Vatican, but there are few other clerics up to the task.

A degree in canon law does not equip a person to handle such cases.

Smart American bishops use laypersons with expertise in investigating sex crimes — for example, detectives and retired police officers.

The Vatican should do likewise.

The local police and courts should, of course, deal with criminal cases, even for bishops.

When Cardinal McCarrick was accused of abusing a minor in New York, it was reported to the police.

Pope Francis also empowered the Archdiocese of New York to conduct its own investigation, treating McCarrick like any other priest.

The archdiocese hired an independent forensic agency, whose findings were given to the archdiocesan review board, which found the accusations "credible and substantiated."

That conclusion was then sent on to the Vatican.

This process worked, however, because Cardinal McCarrick was already retired.

A sitting diocesan bishop would be investigated by his own investigators and reviewed by his own review board, whose findings would not be credible. Someone outside the diocese, normally the Vatican, must do the investigation.

Who will judge an accused bishop? Continue reading

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