Free Republic

[Catholic Caucus] That Ratzinger Note McCarrick Wanted to Keep Secret. Germane As EverMore and more each day, the "Report" on the case of former cardinal Theodore McCarrick published on November 10 by the secretariat of state looks like an unprecedented innovation, with a powerful impact on the present but also on the future of Vatican communication:> History-making report sets a precedent the Vatican can’t walk backNever before in clarifying a hot-button issue in Church life at the highest levels - and largely involving figures still living and active - had the Holy See lifted the veil on such an imposing...

Was Uncle Ted a Russian Spy?“There is no place where espionage is not used. Offer the enemy bait to lure him.” — Sun TzuSexual predators, like spies, are masters of deception and deceit. Both operate in secrecy, perpetuate a cover story, manipulate their victims through lies, and maintain a facade of respectability. Often, sexual predators become prime and easy targets for espionage since they are so vulnerable to blackmail. Prominent sexual predators can become prominent spies. Spies trade in secret information and influence peddling—the more prominent the asset, the more valuable the information.A well-worn espionage tactic is the dead drop,...

[Catholic Caucus] McCarrick Legacy and Abuse ContinuesProtégés promoted, whistleblowers punishedThe results of the much-awaited McCarrick Report came as no surprise. The results were similar to what former President Bill Clinton's lawyers might have prepared had they been tasked with investigating allegations that their boss was having an affair with a White House intern. Julio César Grassi, Battista Ricca and Gustavo Zanchetta From the very beginning, people were naïve to believe that Vatican investigators who report to Pope Francis would find him guilty of covering up for McCarrick. One only has to look at how Francis has handled sexual abuse and...

The McCarrick report is a shameful whitewashIt would take hours to list the evasions, half-truths and omissions in the reportOn Tuesday the Vatican published its long-delayed report on the subject of ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the insatiable sexual predator who served as archbishop of Washington from 2001 to 2006 but continued to wield huge influence in the Catholic Church until 2018, when he was finally exposed by the media and forced to resign as a cardinal. Less than a week later, it’s becoming clear that the document is a laborious but clumsy whitewash. Let me explain why. The ostensible purpose of...

McCarrick’s ‘Nephews’ Still Run the ChurchThe Vatican’s report on his scandal is monumentally misleading.Anybody who bothers to slog through the Vatican’s mountainous report on the McCarrick scandal will not emerge from the experience enlightened. The report’s revelations, to the extent they exist, are inadvertent. The chief one, evident in the feckless epistolary back-and-forth documented in the report, is that McCarrick would remain an honored cardinal to this day were it not for credible accusations against him involving underage teens. Take those charges away, and he would still be popping up at the Vatican for meetings with the pope. That McCarrick...

Bizarre Information in the McCarrick Report The November 10 McCarrick report contains in side- and footnotes the following assessments: • When McCarrick was considered to become a bishop, a recommendation said: “Monsignor McCarrick would not be a cause of scandal of any kind.” • In the early 1980s, McCarrick’s rising profile drew the attention of the FBI and the KGB. A KGB agent tried to befriend him but the FBI asked him to serve as a counterintelligence asset. McCarrick declined, but the FBI persisted. McCarrick asked Nuncio Laghi who said that McCarrick should “not be negative” about the proposal. It...

McCarrick Report Contradicts Francis' "I Knew Nothing" The McCarrick report claims that until 2017 nobody - including Parolin, Ouellet, Becciu or Archbishop Viganò - provided Francis with any "documentation" regarding allegations against McCarrick "Francis had heard only that there had been allegations and rumours related to immoral conduct with adults occurring prior to McCarrick’s appointment to Washington." And, "Believing that the allegations had already been reviewed and rejected by Pope John Paul II, and well aware that McCarrick was active during the papacy of Benedict XVI, Pope Francis did not see the need to alter the approach that had been...

Exclusive: EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo Interviews Archbishop Viganò About McCarrick Report More than any other person except for Theodore McCarrick himself, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò is responsible for triggering the 449-page Vatican report released this week that details what other Church leaders knew about the disgraced ex-cardinal’s decades-long pattern of sexual misconduct, and the actions they took or failed to take with respect to what they had learned.As the report itself documents, the archbishop was the first senior Vatican figure to call concretely for action to be undertaken against McCarrick, at a time when Archbishop Viganò was serving as a...

Viganò skewers McCarrick Report on EWTN: ‘Bergoglio is to the deep church as Biden is to the deep state’ Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò responded to the Vatican’s recently released McCarrick Report which tries to pin the lack of adequate response to McCarrick on Viganò himself November 12, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – In an interview with EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo this evening, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former papal representative to the United States, responded to the Vatican’s recently released McCarrick Report which tries to pin the lack of adequate response to McCarrick on Viganò himself.  Asked by Arroyo about the report claiming Viganò “did...

Vatican’s ‘McCarrick report’ details ex-cardinal’s intimate friendship with Joe Biden, Obama One letter in particular details the great intimacy of the relationship between McCarrick and Biden UNITED STATES, November 11, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – The Vatican’s newly released McCarrick report, offering details about ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick sexual abuse, rise to power, and high-ranking cover-up of the matter, contains letters which evidence the close relationship between McCarrick and then Vice-President Joe Biden as well as President Obama. In 2006 Cardinal Re, then Prefect for the Congregation of Bishops, had asked Nuncio Sambi to convey to McCarrick that he was to lead a...

McCarrick report confirms Pope Francis knew about rumors of ex-Cardinal’s sex abuse and did nothing This confirms an essential argument made by Viganò, namely, that Francis knew and chose to collaborate with McCarrick November 11, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – The newly released, long-awaited November 10 “McCarrick report” indicates that Pope Francis was not to be blamed for the fact that he did not restrain then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick in his activities in international affairs and church politics. The report points out that he merely followed the path chosen by Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI with regard to McCarrick. Francis...

Inside the Vatican Slams McCarrick Report as Exercise in ‘Cover-Up, Evasion, and Scapegoating’ ROME — Veteran Vatican journalist Robert Moynihan blasted the Vatican’s long-awaited “McCarrick Report,” writing Tuesday that the text brings injury and obfuscation rather than healing and clarity.In his scathing review, Moynihan — founder and president of Inside the Vatican — declares that after two years of careful investigations, the 460-page report on former cardinal Theodore McCarrick and his serial homosexual abuse “leaves us still in the ecclesial swamp of cover-up, evasion, and scapegoating of others.”Instead of exploring the true causes of the disgraced former cardinal’s meteoric rise...

McCarrick report will seek to lay blame on John Paul, Benedict while minimizing Francis’ fault The report is set to be released tomorrow, Tuesday, November 10. November 9, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — Tomorrow, the long-awaited McCarrick report will be released. The report itself, which is more than 600 pages long and will have tons of footnotes, has taken years to compile. Early indications are that it’s going to lay the blame for former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s abuse on John Paul II and Pope Benedict instead of on Pope Francis.  But given that Pope Francis is complicit in the McCarrick scandal, an independent...

[Catholic Caucus] Vatican set for November release of long-awaited McCarrick report. Will it be honest? Whether the upcoming report will reveal the full truth remains to be seen November 5, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Reuters reports today that, according to its own sources within the Vatican, the long-awaited McCarrick report on the history of Theodore McCarrick's misbehavior and the high-ranking cover-up or tolerance of it will be published before the Fall Meeting of the USCCB, November 15-19. LifeSite was told the same by several sources. According to Reuters, this report is to be published ahead of the USCCB meeting and is...

Analysis: Two Years After McCarrick Investigation Began, Report Not Yet in Sight As we approach two years since the investigation into the former archbishop of Washington, D.C., many Catholics are waiting for the report to be released. DENVER, Colo. — On October 6, 2018, the Holy See announced a review of its files and archives pertaining to Theodore McCarrick, the former Archbishop of Washington, D.C, who is now laicized and living in disgrace, a known sexual abuser who has offered no public words of repentance. Since the Vatican’s investigation began: —The longest government shutdown in U.S. history began and...

US bishops’ stand on Communion for pro-abortion politicians came from Theodore McCarrick Laying out the battle between McCarrick and Joseph Ratzinger over whether to give the Eucharist to politicians persisting in grave public sin. Theodore McCarrick August 18, 2020 (CatholicCulture.org) — After I posted yesterday on the Biden-Communion controversy, a few friendly readers asked me to explain how the American bishops settled on their current policy. I’m happy to oblige. The chief architect of the US bishops’ current policy is: Theodore McCarrick. Do I have your full attention now? The debate over whether pro-abortion politicians should be barred from Communion, which...

Catholic Church was warned about McCarrick decades ago, yet promotions, honors kept coming

Cover-Up Culture Gave McCarrick License New investigation sheds light on old crimes NEWARK, N.J. (ChurchMilitant.com) - New details are emerging regarding the Church hierarchy's cover-up of notorious homosexual pederast Theodore McCarrick, freeing the former cardinal to continue with his crimes unabated. Mark Crawford and Fr. Kenneth Martin An investigative analysis published on Monday reveals that Vatican officials and other prelates ignored or overlooked reports on McCarrick's misdeeds and odd sleeping arrangements with seminarians at his infamous beach house in Sea Girt, New Jersey. Now working for the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), Mark Crawford met with McCarrick in...

[Catholic Caucus] Lawsuit Claims McCarrick Headed Abusive ‘Sex Ring,’ Names Alleged ‘Procurer’ A lawsuit filed Tuesday charges that former cardinal Theodore McCarrick sexually abused a boy and aided his abuse by several other priests, and claims that a principal at a Christian Brothers high school helped procure the victim for McCarrick and the other clergy abusers in the early 1980s. The plaintiff’s controversial lawyer, Jeff Anderson characterized McCarrick as leading a “sex ring.” He claimed papal power is to blame, including Pope Francis, and cites unproven claims by the controversial Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano about the Holy See’s response to...

New accusation surfaces against former U.S. prelate McCarrick Then-Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, retired archbishop of Washington, arrives in procession for a Mass of thanksgiving for Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl of Washington in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican Nov. 22, 2010. A new lawsuit against McCarrick, who was laicized in 2019, accuses him of managing a sex ring among seminarians, altar boys and priests at a New Jersey beach house. (CNS/Paul Haring) Washington — A firm that has filed previous legal complaints against former Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick and church entities added another complainant July 21 against the defrocked prelate,...