Then-Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick kisses Pope John Paul II after receiving his biretta, the four-cornered red cardinal s hat, during a consistory ceremony in St. Peter s Square in Vatican City Feb. 21, 2001. The pope named the now- disgraced former cardinal to head the Washington Archdiocese Nov. 22, 2000. (CNS photo/Vincenzo Pinto, Reuters) Dec. 13, 2020 Catholic News Service WASHINGTON One month to the day that the Vatican released its report on since-laicized cardinal Theodore McCarrick, a panel of academics took a close look at what one called a hyperclerical culture that allowed McCarrick s sexual misconduct to go unchecked. Silence is dangerous, said John Carr, director of the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University, a co-sponsor of the Dec 10 dialogue, The McCarrick Report: Findings, Lessons and Directions, and who himself had been subject to sexual abuse when he was a seminarian. Hyperclerical culture can be horrific
By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Dec 09, 2020
What’s wrong with this picture?
Last month the Vatican released the long-awaited McCarrick Report, providing some (but not all) details about the clerical culture that protected the former cardinal, and serial abuser, Theodore McCarrick.
Last week Pope Francis named Bishop Michael Fisher, an auxiliary of the Washington, DC archdiocese, to head the Diocese of Buffalo.
The Buffalo diocese has been battered for months by legal charges involving cover-ups of sexual abuse.
Bishop Fisher comes from the archdiocese that McCarrick once headed, and served on the chancery staff under the disgraced former cardinal. He was ordained as a bishop by Cardinal Donald Wuerl, who resigned after accusations that he had covered up for McCarrick and covered up for other clerics during a previous assignment as Bishop of Pittsburgh.