The verdict casts doubt on the church’s ability to cleanse itself
TWICE IN LESS than two weeks, news has emerged of a once-mighty prince of the Catholic church facing severe retribution for the sexual abuse of children. The first punishment was imposed by the church itself, on ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick, a former archbishop of Washington, DC, who was stripped of his priestly status because of misdeeds involving adults and minors.
The guilty verdict was delivered by a jury in Melbourne on December 11th but was immediately subjected to a gagging order. Only this week was the media allowed to report on the four-week hearing, in which a former chorister described how he and a fellow singer had sneaked off from an end-of-mass procession in December 1996, found their way to the archbishop’s sacristy, or dressing-room, and drunk some wine.
Pope Francis removed cardinal Pell from his list of close advisers in December without giving a reason. The prelate had taken indefinite leave of absence from his job as chief financial adviser to the Vatican in order to fight his legal case. He faces sentencing later this week. In between the two sensational news reports from America and Australia, an event took place in Rome that was billed as a turning point in the Vatican’s attitude to clerical sex-abuse: a four-day gathering of bishops from around the world.
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