A Column by Gerald Archibald, Edmonton

As many of the readers of Island Catholic News likely know, there have been rumours for years about the sexual improprieties of Cardinal McCarrick. I have read significant material about these rumours, but never really knew what to do with them. They were rumours after all. Pleas were made to Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI calling for a thorough investigation, without avail. But Pope Francis decided to act.

The result was a 449 page report issued in early November, 2020. Cardinal McCarrick is no longer a cardinal or a priest as a result of his past unconscionable behaviour. The final straw was a credible claim from one underaged boy, besides several claims from seminarians who said he slept with them.

One of the most informative articles and summaries of the McCarrick report was written by Robert Mickens in the November 14, 2020 edition of LaCroix Interna- tional. To begin his review, he uses a title which is a little surprising in a way: Profiles in Clericalism – The real flaw of the McCarrick Report.

Hopefully more light will be shed on this aspect of the report in the paragraphs below. I quote liberally from Micken’s article. As well, David Gibson wrote an article in Common- weal about McCarrick, on November 17, 2020 called The Double Agent. The Tablet, in its November 21 edition, also covers the McCarrick affair in several articles.

Mickens starts out saying “The exceedingly long and long awaited report on the history of Theodore McCarrick’s rise to the (highest) rung on the Catholic hierarchy is now out…but, in fact, the report has revealed very little that many people inside the Church did not know or suspect.

“Up until two years ago when the Archdiocese of New York finally determined that the former cardinal had abused a minor in the 1970s, there were longstanding rumors about McCarrick’s habit of sleeping with adult seminarians. But in the newly released report, the Vatican wrings its hands, regretting that for all these years it was simply the case that no one could actually verify that ‘Uncle Ted’ (p.1) was sharing his bed with these young candidates for the priesthood whom he called his ‘nephews’ (p.1).

Further in Micken’s article he says “Countless priests, bishops and cardinals even claimed that, gosh, they’d never even heard about any of that. Those that had heard about it, including a few popes, simply didn’t want to believe that such talk was anything more than just petty gossip.

Or they rationalized it by claiming that, well, at least the seminarians were adults. McCarrick wasn’t diddling kids.”(p.1)

Mickens goes on to say “Negli- gence, gullibility, willful blindness, refusal to listen to accusations, attempts to discredit accusers, and lies of various magnitudes…are part of the potpourri of excuses the McCarrick Report furnishes, some- times in numbing detail, to explain how a classic Church careerist climbed the ecclesiastical ladder to become the Cardinal Archbishop of Washington.

“But nothing was more determina- tive to Uncle Ted’s rise in the clerical Church, the report assures us, than his own skills of deception. My Lord, he was even able to dupe John Paul II…as for poor Benedict XVI, after he had pretty solid proof that McCarrick was sleeping with seminarians, he opted for the discreet and merciful measures of quietly retiring the cardinal and instructing (though never forcing) him to keep a low profile.

“Then came Pope Francis. He didn’t seem to be too concerned about what the ageing American was up to and figured he’d just let things be as his Bavarian predecessor (Pope Benedict XVI) left them.”(p.2)

“And then, finally, a witness came forward with the pedophilia claim. The wheels of Church justice went into overdrive and, within a little over a year, Francis removed McCarrick from the College of Cardinals and then from the priesthood. When there was rock solid proof, the pope immedi- ately took decisive action”.

But Mickens goes into some history of how Francis was attacked by clergy for not taking action right away. This history is not in the McCarrick report, but was covered two years earlier by Mickens when he describes Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, (a former papal nuncio to the

U.S.) as a voice demanding action. His plea was backed by several American bishops who also vouched for Vigano’s credibility and integrity. This eventually led to the investiga- tion and public report on McCarrick (p.3).

There is a massive amount of material in the McCarrick report. Mickens says of the report that “…a lot of it is ugly, embarrassing and damning…and then there are 1,410 footnotes…they provide even more gruesome details…that will fascinate ecclesiastical voyeurs and scandalize those who are piously clueless or cluelessly pious.”

TRANSPARENCY

But all of this information does not show complete transparency within the process. Originally the U.S. bishops “urged the pope to entrust the investigation to a board of respected lay experts, but Francis and his aides ignored this advice. It was a mistake to do so.” (it was highly likely it was written by the Vatican’s lawyer who handles all the sexual abuse stuff). Why did this happen? “…One can only suspect why-because the Vatican would not be in control of what would and would not be reported” says Mickens (if the lay expert panel wrote it) (p.3).

So how did McCarrick get away with all of this for so long? Mickens says “All we have are a bunch of people who kept dropping the ball and were not following up on accusations, but dismissing them as ‘only rumors’. No one was ready to blame Teddy, the amazing con artist. He fooled us all. Except he didn’t. And that fact probably leads us closer to the truth about what really happened.”

He used money and his position as bishop, archbishop, and-eventually cardinal-to ‘buy’ people’s silence and cull their favour. No one would come forward and tell Church authorities what they knew. No one would sign a

sworn statement. Not the seminari- ans, for fear that McCarrick or his loyalists would block them from being ordained.

Not the priests-including certain seminary rectors-out of their desire to be raised to the episcopate (bishops or archbishops), which they knew McCarrick could facilitate or impede. Not McCarrick’s fellow bishops- especially his juniors-out of a similar desire for further advancement, which McCarrick could help or hinder, and for fear of being cut off from his generous monetary donations.

And not even the popes and their aides, who found in McCarrick an important financial and (at times) diplomatic asset of the Holy See (the Vatican)(p.3).” This emphatically describes what can happen when “clericalism” takes over in a hierarchical system, as in our present Church structure.

THE SYSTEM

Mickens goes on to say “Many of them are (or were) talented and good men who, from their first years in seminary, found themselves increas- ingly conformed to a clerical system and mentality that works very much like an Old Boy’s Network.

By the standards of the Gos- pel, it is a bad system (my empha- sis). And everyone knows it’s hard to be good in a bad system. And it’s even harder to stand at a distance, to objectively see the system’s defects and uncover them with any real transparency…That perhaps is the real flaw of the McCarrick Report.” (p.3-4)

On November 21, 2020, Brendon Walsh, editor of The Tablet wrote about the scandal which was aptly named “McCarrick: what hap- pened?”.

He says in his editorial that the clerical sexual abuse crisis is linked to the power and hierarchical nature of the Church, whereby victims of such abuse are both disempowered while often receiving disgraceful treatment. “It is time, as Pope Francis says, to

invert the pyramid.

Once again Catholics find out more about sexual abuse and the clerical- ism that contributed greatly to the McCarrick scandal. This despite years and years of hearing from the Church authorities that such abuse is behind us, and we can move on. Despite the flaws in how Pope Francis went about this report, I believe he deserves considerable credit for bringing this out into the open. It is truly a first for the Church in my opinion.

On November 2, 2020 there was a ZOOM session involving former Redemptorist Father Tony Flannery and people from around the world. This was in large part a session regarding his new book which was being released entitled From the Outside – Rethinking Church Doctrine.( ) See letter, page 5.

In the Zoom meeting, he described clericalism as a deeply flawed system that stems from the notion that priests, upon ordination, are ontologically changed.

“Ontologically changed” means that the very of a person is being altered or changed. When the Church adopted this perspective, all sorts of problems began to emerge. Setting the priests apart from the laity in this way, creates a higher tier of authority. This continues upwards to bishops, archbishops, cardinals, and popes.

Tony believes it is the sacrament of baptism that makes all of us equal. Pope Francis says in Wounded Shepherd “I have said many times that a perversion of the Church today is clericalism. But fifty years ago, the Second Vatican Council said clearly: The Church is the People of God” (p.72).

So in conclusion, I agree totally with Robert Mickens when he states that the McCarrick report and all of its findings goes back to I clericalism. also totally agree with David Gibson when he said in Commonweal “The Double Agent-Former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was both a product and a manipulator of a system of clericalism that desperately needs to be overhauled” (bold emphasis by Gibson – p.1, November 17, 2020).

There should not be any power differentiation among any members of the Catholic Church. We are here to serve and love one another, pure and simple (Servant Leadership!!!). As Brendon Walsh concludes his editorial in , while referencing a The Tablet feature article written in the November 21 edition by Christopher Lamb: “The Church’s failure in the McCarrick case was a monumental betrayal of its own vocation (my emphasis) of the view of the Church by Pope Francis, namely to nurture and guide its members while offering fierce protection of her children”.

Gerry Archibald is a regular ICN Columnist.