Posted on 06/04/2020 7:24:13 AM PDT by ebb tide
VATICAN CITY, June 3, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) ― In the wake of Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Washington harshly criticizing the John Paul II National Shrine for allowing President Donald Trump to make a long-planned visit there, Catholics are wondering when the long-expected report about his disgraced predecessor will be released.
“Regular requests made to the #Vatican asking when the #McCarrickReport will be released have gone unanswered,” Rome-based journalist Edward Pentin tweeted this morning.
“June 20th will be the 2nd anniversary of his removal from public ministry. The investigation was announced in Oct. 2018. Today is the Feast of Sts Charles Lwanga & Companions.”
St. Charles Lwanga and his male companions were Ugandan martyrs put to death on June 3, 1886 after refusing to give up their Christian faith or to submit to the sexual demands of their homosexual king.
The former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Archbishop of Washington from 2000 until his retirement in 2006, was revealed in 2018 to have been a serial sexual predator. McCarrick, now returned to the lay state, had used his status, first as a priest and then as a bishop, to demand carnal gratification from young men and boys, the youngest being only 11.
After revelations that McCarrick had been notorious within clerical circles for his misconduct for decades, American Catholics were promised a full investigation into his case. Of special concern is why McCarrick became both the Archbishop of Washington, a position that carries significant political influence, and a cardinal despite his reputation. Catholics also question why Pope Francis, who had been informed of the cardinal’s character, permitted McCarrick to act as a roving ambassador for the Vatican.
Fr. Dwight Longenecker declared on Twitter today that he finds it “baffling and reprehensible that we still haven't had the report on Mr McCarrick's crimes.” Gregory had said of Trump’s visit to the John Paul II National Shrine that he found it “baffling and reprehensible that any Catholic facility would allow itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated in a fashion that violates our religious principles, which call us to defend the rights of all people even those with whom we might disagree.”
I think they’re arguing about which facts to suppress, Father. Seriously. What can they get away with keeping secret? Can they conceal Francis’s lifting of restrictions on McCarrick, knowing what he’d been up to? https://t.co/LUnve4IR79
— Damian Thompson (@holysmoke) June 3, 2020
Speaking of plans where's your plan to a) reopen the Arch of DC so DC Catholics can again receive the sacraments b) and what happened to investigating your successors McCarrick and Wuerl? What have you been doing during two+ months of lockdown? https://t.co/l4H3bAF8Hr
— Thomas Peters @ �� (@AmericanPapist) June 2, 2020
In February of this year, the Vatican signalled that the McCarrick report would soon be released. The Secretary of State for the Holy See, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said then that it merely waited for the approval of Pope Francis.
“I think it will come out. I can’t tell you exactly when,” Parolin said.
“But the publication depends on the pope, he added.
“The work has been done, but the pope has the last word.”
Catholic author John Zmirak told LifeSiteNews today that he doesn’t believe the report will be released any time soon.
“If that report indeed exists, it will never be released―or not for 500 years,” Zmirak said via social media.
“Its findings will be a lost Vatican secret, like the identity of the forger of the Donation of Constantine. It sits in a vault somewhere, and serves perhaps as leverage in the crabbed, catty power struggles within this Vatican― which likely resemble those depicted in the black comedy ‘The Death of Stalin.’”
Zmirak declared that McCarrick was not only a “monster” but “the spider who wove today's U.S. church, picking its bishops.” He noted that Gregory was one of his proteges, and accused Gregory of collusion with McCarrick in 2002 to protect bishops from sanctions.
The fiery author of the Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism suggested that McCarrick was involved in the Vatican’s concordat with the People’s Republic of China and recalled that the former cardinal had once controlled the Papal Foundation.
"All of that should be of great interest to [U.S.] journalists,” Zmirak said.
“But McCarrick is locked away safely in a monastery, gliding down to Sheol on the golden parachute his silence has bought him,” he continued and suggested that the former cardinal’s life could be in danger.
“If a real investigative reporter were to get anywhere near McCarrick, the old man would suddenly end up like Jeffrey Epstein," Zmirak concluded.
It is unknown where McCarrick, now in his 90th year, is currently residing. From September 2018 until January 2020, he lived in the St. Fidelis Friary in Victoria, Kansas.
LifeSiteNews reached out to the Archdiocese of Washington for comment today, but has not yet received an answer.
Ping
Of the innumerable, seemingly daily, sacrileges committed by the current hierarchy, this makes the list, but is not at the top. I don’t expect honor and virtue from this group - and they never disappoint.
The Vatican needs to first speak out against active homosexual clergy and call for the defrocking of the unrepentant.
My daughter is 21 and has given up on Catholic Church b/c of institutional corruption, as well as her (mis)perception of teachings on homosexuality. I tried to tell her that when popes have been corrupt, saints have arisen among the laity and have helped to carry the Church forward. I have said that the Holy Spirit is still with us. At the same time, I am so deeply discouraged myself that I told her to at least go to some church somewhere. Maybe it’s like a troubled marriage where it is necessary to separate while an errant spouse gets his or her act together.
I agree that this report is not coming out unless somebody leaks it. I will wait to see what the Spirit has in store to refresh our collective Soul.
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