Pope's Praise of Complicit Cardinal Is Criminal

Pope Francis Is Still Equivocating on the Sex-Abuse Crisis

He stands by those to whom he’s loyal but, when faced with new evidence, is also willing to change his mind.

RACHEL DONADIO
5:00 AM ET

"...if Francis had wanted to send a message that bishops should be held accountable, then praising Wuerl and asking him to stay on until his successor had been chosen—as well as keeping him on a powerful Vatican congregation that chooses future bishops—was not a move entirely commensurate with that goal. In a letter from Francis to Wuerl made public by the Archdiocese of Washington, the pope wrote, “You have sufficient elements to ‘justify’ your actions and distinguish between what it means to cover up crimes or not to deal with problems, and to commit some mistakes,” Francis wrote Wuerl. “However, your nobility has led you not to choose that way of defense. Of this, I am proud and thank you.”

This message will no doubt infuriate many sex-abuse victims. So why is the pope sounding so equivocal? In part, it’s because this time the sex-abuse crisis came back into the headlines in August under some unusual circumstances, when a renegade archbishop with a dossier of information, a grudge to bear against Francis for demoting him, and access to a variety of activist Catholic websites, published an open letter calling on Francis to resign. The archbishop, Carlo Maria Viganò, alleged that Francis had lifted sanctions placed by Benedict against former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, an archbishop emeritus of Washington, D.C. The pope had stripped McCarrick of his title in July, following reports that McCarrick had had decades of dalliances with seminarians and had abused an underage altar boy."

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