Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò. Photo: Edward Pentin |
Apparently, following his ignominious dressing down by Leo Varadkar, the Pope is reported to have met some of the abuse victims and described those who facilitated and covered up the abuses what was widely reported in the respectable press as 'filth' or 'excrement'. However, the adjective he actually used was rather more succinct and, shall we say, earthy.
Speaking in his native Argentinian Spanish tongue he called them 'caca' which directly translates into English as 'shits'.
This is a rather unfortunate piece of timing because the whole expanding coverup crisis currently engulfing the Catholic Church just encircled Pope Francis himself! The caca has just hit the fan big time.
In a written testimony a former apostolic nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, claims Pope Francis knew the reasons for them but still withdrew the sanctions against Archbishop Theodore McCarrick which had been imposed by his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI. McCarrick, a former high-profile Cardinal in the USA recently resigned amid accusations that he had abused children and adults.
According to Viganò, Pope Benedict XVI originally imposed sanctions on McCarrick in the late 2000s similar to those Pope Francis has now reimposed. He also claims he personally told Pope Francis about those sanctions in 2013. In his written statement, Viganò says that not only did Pope Francis "continued to cover" for McCarrick and not only did “not take into account the sanctions that Pope Benedict had imposed on him” but also made McCarrick “his trusted counselor.”
Archbishop Viganò also catalogues a history of obstruction and delay on the part of both Pope John Paul II's and Pope Benedict XVI's regimes in taking allegations against McCarrick seriously and imposing sanctions in the first place. As reported in the Catholic Register:
But Viganò wrote that Benedict much earlier had imposed sanctions on McCarrick “similar” to those handed down by Cardinal Parolin. “The cardinal was to leave the seminary where he was living,” Viganò said, “he was also forbidden to celebrate [Mass] in public, to participate in public meetings, to give lectures, to travel, with the obligation of dedicating himself to a life of prayer and penance.” Viganò did not document the exact date but recollected the sanction to have been applied as far back 2009 or 2010.
Benedict’s measures came years after Archbishop Viganò’s predecessors at the nunciature — Archbishops Gabriel Montalvo and Pietro Sambi — had “immediately” informed the Holy See as soon as they had learned of Archbishop McCarrick’s “gravely immoral behavior with seminarians and priests,” the retired Italian Vatican diplomat wrote.
He said Archbishop Montalvo first alerted the Vatican in 2000, requesting that Dominican Father Boniface Ramsey write to Rome confirming the allegations. In 2006, Archbishop Viganò said that, as delegate for pontifical representations in the Secretariat of State, he personally wrote a memo to his superior, then Archbishop (later Cardinal) Leonardo Sandri, proposing an “exemplary measure” be taken against McCarrick that could have a “medicinal function” to prevent future abuses and alleviate a “very serious scandal for the faithful.”
He drew on an indictment memorandum, communicated by Archbishop Sambi to Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, then Secretary of State, in which an abusive priest had made claims against McCarrick of “such gravity and vileness” including “depraved acts” and “sacrilegious celebration of the Eucharist.”
But, according to Viganò, his memo was ignored and no action was taken until the late 2000s — a delay which Archbishop Viganò claims is owed to complicity of John Paul II’s and Benedict XVI’s respective Secretaries of State, Cardinals Angelo Sodano and Tarcisio Bertone.
In 2008, Archbishop Viganò claims he wrote a second memo, this time to Cardinal Sandri’s successor as sostituto at the Secretariat of State, then Archbishop (later Cardinal) Fernando Filoni. He included a summary of research carried out by Richard Sipe, a psychotherapist and specialist in clerical sexual abuse, which Sipe had sent Benedict in the form of a statement. Viganò said he ended the memo by “repeating to my superiors that I thought it was necessary to intervene as soon as possible by removing the cardinal’s hat from Cardinal McCarrick.”
Again, according the Viganò, his request fell on deaf ears and he writes he was “greatly dismayed” that both memos were ignored until Sipe’s “courageous and meritorious” statement had “the desired result.”
“Benedict did what he had to do,” Archbishop Viganò told the Register Aug. 25, “but his collaborators — the Secretary of State and all the others — didn’t enforce it as they should have done, which led to the delay.”
“What is certain,” Viganò writes in his testimony, “is that Pope Benedict imposed the above canonical sanctions on McCarrick and that they were communicated to him by the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, Pietro Sambi.”
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò's testimony can be read in full here:
On wonders now how Pope Francis will react to this revelation that he to has been complicit in the coverup of a know child-abusing cardinal and not only removed the sanctions he had been under but the regarded him as his trusted advisor in the USA, even allowing him to de facto appoint bishops on his behalf.
The caca has truly hit the fan!
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