[Catholic Caucus] Globe-trotting Cardinal Theodore McCarrick [snip] working harder than ever

The Washington Post ^ | une 16, 2014 | David Gibson

[Jeff Chandler]

[snip] McCarrick assured Francis that he was doing fine. “I guess the Lord isn’t done with me yet,” he told the pope. “Or the devil doesn’t have your accommodations ready!” Francis shot back with a laugh.

[snip]But the exchange also says a lot about the improbable renaissance that McCarrick is enjoying as he prepares to celebrate his 84th birthday in July.

McCarrick is one of a number of senior churchmen who were more or less put out to pasture during the eight-year pontificate of Benedict XVI. But now Francis is pope, and prelates like Cardinal Walter Kasper (another old friend of McCarrick’s) and McCarrick himself are back in the mix, and busier than ever.

[snip] “The bad ones, they never die!” the pope teased McCarrick again when he saw him. In classic McCarrick style, the cardinal returned to Washington at 2 p.m. a few days later and at 4:30 that same afternoon he was on Capitol Hill buttonholing House Speaker John Boehner in yet another effort to urge the Republican leader — and fellow Catholic — to get moving on immigration reform.

“Every time I see him he gets closer,” McCarrick says with a twinkle in his eye. “I tell him, ‘John, you could be a great hero!’”

[snip] He retired in 2006 and was sort of spinning his wheels under Benedict. Then Francis was elected, and everything changed.

“Pope Benedict is a wonderful man, and was a good friend of mine before he became pope,” McCarrick said. “But he was anxious to bring the church back to where he thought it should be, and I guess I wasn’t one of those who he thought would help him on that. I would have obviously done what he asked.”

[Jeff Chandler]

A little backstory: a fawning hagiography in the Post from 2014.

Full title:

Globe-trotting Cardinal Theodore McCarrick is almost 84, and working harder than ever

[Claud]

McCarrick is one of a number of senior churchmen who were more or less put out to pasture during the eight-year pontificate of Benedict XVI. But now Francis is pope, and prelates like Cardinal Walter Kasper (another old friend of McCarrick’s) and McCarrick himself are back in the mix, and busier than ever.

Well, well, well! The Sodomists are casting doubt on whether there even was disciplinary action against McCarrick. Sounds like something was sure in place, wasn't it?

Prayer for the Extirpation of the Sodomist Heresy

[ebb tide]