Vatican Communique on McCarrick

…from the Ongoing Soul-Crushing Scandal Desk…

Today the Holy See issued a long-awaited statement regarding Theodore McCarrick. If you don’t mind it when fork-tongued liars patronize you with obfuscations couched in pop-morality, click the link and read it.

In the statement, we learn…

In September 2017, the Archdiocese of New York notified the Holy See that a man had accused former Cardinal McCarrick of having abused him in the 1970s. The Holy Father ordered a thorough preliminary investigation into this, which was carried out by the Archdiocese of New York, at the conclusion of which the relative documentation was forwarded to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

If the Vatican had given us all this information back in June, it would have inspired a great deal more confidence than it does now.

We can only laugh at the communique’s insistence that “the Holy Father ordered a thorough preliminary investigation,” since this particular instance of abuse came to light under the auspices of an on-going program in New York. The accuser had a forum in which to speak because McCarrick was, at the time of the abuse, a New York diocesan priest. Not because of any action on the part of McCarrick’s current ecclesiastical superior, Pope Francis.

The statement then goes on to say:

In the meantime, because grave indications emerged during the course of the investigation, the Holy Father accepted the resignation of Archbishop McCarrick from the College of Cardinals, prohibiting him by order from exercising public ministry, and obliging him to lead a life of prayer and penance.

This sentence misrepresents the course of events. The most charitable way to put it: It elides the facts in a self-serving manner. Another way to put it: They lie.

The actual chronology:

On June 20, Pope Francis suspended McCarrick from ministry, owing to the accusation lodged in New York. At that time, the Holy See made no public comment.

On July 19, the New York Times published the allegations of a man named James. He accused McCarrick of long-term abuse, beginning at age 11. This allegation came to light because of the work of journalists, not because of any church-initiated investigation.

On July 27, McCarrick resigned from the College of Cardinals. The Vatican issued a statement the following day, indicating that the Holy Father had sentenced McCarrick to a life of prayer and penance. Without bothering to conduct a trial.

So today’s communique conflates a sequence of events, gilding the lily at every turn, so as to make the Holy Father look decisive.

But, in fact, if James had never come forward, and if journalists had not publicized his story, McCarrick would likely still be a Cardinal, and we would never have received today’s communique from the Vatican.

We can also be sure that if Archbishop Viganò had never published his testimony, we would have never received a communique from the Vatican today.

Without crusading journalists and whistle-blowers forcing their hands, the mafiosi prefer to leave us in uninformed darkness. Since they consider us to have the intelligence of dogs.

Today’s Vatican statement then goes on to say that the Holy Father has ordered a “thorough study of the entire documentation present in the Archives of the Dicasteries and Offices of the Holy See regarding the former Cardinal McCarrick, in order to ascertain all the relevant facts, to place them in their historical context and to evaluate them objectively.”

They could have completed such a study long ago. You could read all the pertinent documents in one afternoon. By the Vatican’s own admission today, the Archdiocese of New York informed the pope thirteen months ago of the accusation for which McCarrick was removed from ministry in June. If the Vatican had any real intention of coming clean re: Theodore McCarrick, they could have come clean a year ago. They have no such intention; they only want to dance around the truth until this problem goes away. But it won’t go away.

The most damning part of today’s communique–the part that spells certain doom–is this sentence:

The Holy See is conscious that, from the examination of the facts and of the circumstances, it may emerge that choices were taken that would not be consonant with a contemporary approach to such issues.

The PA Grand-Jury Report contains the story of a father who threatened to beat up a priest who had molested his child. The police had to restrain the father. This happened in the 1950’s.

Reasonable, decent people have never had any doubt: Child sexual abuse demands swift and decisive punishment.

In August, Donald Card. Wuerl attempted to use the that-was-then, this-is-now line of reasoning. In the course of that interview, he lost whatever shred of credibility he had.

We saw when he did his last press conference that Pope Francis intends to try to hide behind this canard. ‘Now we know better, but back then people thought differently….’

Holiness, we knew better then. This damage-control strategy will not work. Face the obvious fact. Please. You have no choice but to resign. There’s no other way to get this ship turned around.