The Vatican’s former U.S. ambassador has dropped a bombshell letter that says Pope Francis should resign for his alleged role in covering up sexual abuse allegations against Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.
What happened?
McCarrick resigned from the College of Cardinals in June amid sexual abuse allegations. The College advises the pope on the governance of the Catholic Church and elects a successor if a pope dies or resigns.
In an 11-page statement dated August 22, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò writes that Pope Benedict had imposed “canonical sanctions” on Cardinal McCarrick between 2009 to 2010 that forbid him from traveling, celebrating Mass in public, or participating in public meetings. McCarrick was relegated to a life of prayer and penance, according to the statement. Viganò added that Pope Francis later lifted these sanctions and made McCarrick a close personal adviser.
Viganò states that he came forward because bishops “must have the courage to tear down the culture of secrecy and publicly confess the truths we have kept hidden.”
His letter concludes with a call for Pope Francis’ resignation.
Viganò wrote: “…Now that “the corruption has reached the very top of the Church’s hierarchy, my conscience dictates that I reveal those truths regarding the heart-breaking case of the Archbishop Emeritus of Washington, D.C., Theodore McCarrick, which I came to know in the course of the duties.”
Cardinal McCarrick had a long friendship with Cardinal Bergoglio and played and “important part” in his recent election, according to Viganò. That led to the pope to continue using McCarrick as a trusted aide in the naming of bishops even after learning of his misdeeds.
Viganò alleges that he informed the pope of McCarrick’s abuse on June 23, 2013, but Francis “continued to cover for him.”
Francis still “did not take into account the sanctions that Pope Benedict had imposed on him,” Viganò stated in the letter, which was published Sunday by The National Catholic Register, LifeSiteNews, and other outlets.
Viganò claims that Pope Francis only took action against Cardinal McCarrick when he was forced to do so by the public report of the cardinal’s abuse of a minor. He also believes he did so “to save his image in the media.”
Viganò joins other bishops and priests who have recently linked together the abuse crisis and the cover-up of an extensive “homosexual network” in the Catholic Church.
“These homosexual networks, which are now widespread in many dioceses, seminaries, religious orders, etc., act under the concealment of secrecy and lies,” he wrote, “and strangle innocent victims and priestly vocations, and are strangling the entire Church.”
Did he call the Pope ‘evil’?
Viganò concludes his report by calling the pope “evil.”
“I want to recall this indefectible truth of the Church’s holiness to the many people who have been so deeply scandalized by the abominable and sacrilegious behavior of the former Archbishop of Washington, Theodore McCarrick; by the grave, disconcerting and sinful conduct of Pope Francis and by the conspiracy of silence of so many pastors, and who are tempted to abandon the Church, disfigured by so many ignominies,” he said.
He continued:
We need to intervene where evil is spreading; for evil spreads where daring Christians who oppose evil with good are lacking. If this is rightly to be considered a serious moral responsibility for every believer, how much graver is it for the Church’s supreme pastor, who in the case of McCarrick not only did not oppose evil but associated himself in doing evil with someone he knew to be deeply corrupt. He followed the advice of someone he knew well to be a pervert, thus multiplying exponentially with his supreme authority the evil done by McCarrick. And how many other evil pastors is Francis still continuing to prop up in their active destruction of the Church!
Viganò also calls for the the pope and anyone else involved in cover-ups to resign.
via TheBlaze.com – Stories
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