Pope Francis’s Disgraceful Sex Abuse Excuses

In general I do not often agree with Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen who I view as too right wing on any number of topics and issues.  Yet, in a new column, he sums up my views of Pope Francis' sharp failure to firmly address the need for a thorough house cleaning of the ranks of the Vatican and Church hierarchy without which the Catholic Church will remain a moral embarrassment and will lack any shred of moral authority to lecture others on anything. The column lays out why the continued evasive excuses, cover ups and refusals to hold individuals accountable must end.  Don't hold your breath for this to happen.  Only a massive exodus of parishioners and huge drops in financial supprt will force need to change to happen.  Until, then, expect more of the same failure to act in any meaningful way.  Here are column highlights:

Pope Francis’s closing address to the Vatican Summit on Child Protection was a disgraceful display of excuses and evasions. He began with extended meditation on how a “great number of” abuse cases are “committed within families.” He urged the assembled bishops to focus on “other forms of abuse” experienced by “child soldiers,” “starving children,” “child victims of war” and “refugee children.” He laid out an agenda that, bizarrely, focused on matters have nothing to do with clerical abuse (such as combating “sexual tourism”). And, most shamefully of all, he lashed out at those demanding that bishops who covered up abuse and silenced victims be held to account, declaring that the church must “rise above” those who “exploit, for various interests, the very tragedy experienced by the little ones.”

While Francis did declare that “no abuse should ever be covered up (as was often the case in the past),” he still refuses to tell us which bishops and cardinals did the covering up. It’s true that, just days before the summit, he removed disgraced former archbishop Theodore McCarrick from the priesthood. But Francis still refuses to explain: What took so long? Who knew about McCarrick’s alleged serial predations and did nothing? When did Francis know? And why did he not punish McCarrick until his crimes — which were repeatedly reported to the Vatican — were publicly exposed by the media?

Francis’s decision to focus the summit exclusively on “the protection of minors” was a cynical ploy to avoid addressing questions of accountability, or the rampant sexual abuse of vulnerable adults by their religious superiors. The accusations against McCarrick were not limited to his horrific abuse of children. He allegedly forced countless young priests and seminarians, whose careers he could make or break, to have sex with him. Last week, The Post reported on the Rev. Lauro Sedlmayer, who says he was sexually abused as a young priest by McCarrick during the 1990s. The priest says he told three bishops and that nothing was done.

It is not enough for Pope Francis to remove McCarrick from the priesthood. The patronage network that enabled him must be rooted out as well.

There are documents in the Vatican archives that would definitively show who knew what, and when they knew it. But Francis has refused to release them, much less hold McCarrick’s many enablers to account.

[T]he pope has squelched efforts to expose and punish those responsible for covering up abuses by McCarrick and others. The Wall Street Journal reports that in 2015, Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley — whom Francis put in charge of handling the abuse crisis — recommended the creation of a special tribunal to try bishops who ignore or cover up abuse. The pope rejected his proposal. Last year, O’Malley met with Francis in Rome where, the Journal reports, the pope “made it clear he would not authorize a full-fledged investigation into the McCarrick affair.”

Until Francis addresses the corruption of the episcopacy, he has zero credibility to lead a fight against sex tourism. No one wants to hear lectures on morality from bishops who refuse to rid their ranks of those who enable sex predators. They seem to be more concerned with preserving their worldly privilege and power than restoring the church’s moral integrity. How many souls have been lost, how many have left the sacraments, because of their scandalous inaction? We will never know in this world. But they will certainly learn the answer in the next.

Francis called the summit an “opportunity for purification.” It was a missed opportunity. Purification requires two things: confession and penance. Until the bishops repent of their sins, and accept the temporal consequences of their actions, there will be no forgiveness from the laity.

Former Catholic Cardinal Said to Have Abused Child During Confession

2018 may well go down as the year that at last saw the beginning of the end of the Roman Catholic Church's continued efforts to cover up rampant sexual abuse of children and youths by Catholic priests in the United States.   The Church hierarchy has previously been exposed as thoroughly morally bankrupt in Ireland and Australia (where Cardinal Pell was convicted of molestation) and the movement begun by the release of the Pennsylvania grand jury report earlier this year has created long needed momentum for investigations in dioceses across the USA.   With roughly 17 states mounting investigations and a federal investigation in the works, the true scope of the abuse and the lengths bishops, cardinals, and yes, popes, went to deceive the authorities and sheep like parishioners  hopefully will be revealed.  Meanwhile, The Daily Beast looks at allegations against the former Archbishop of Washington, DC:

The Catholic Church’s sexual abuse case against an ex-cardinal from has broadened after an accuser testified that he was groped for years, including during confession, according to reports. Theodore McCarrick, who was the archbishop of Washington, D.C., had been accused of groping an altar boy in the 1970s. The New York Archdiocese previously said that this allegation was credible, the Associated Press reports.

James Grein on Thursday told the judicial vicar of New York City's archdiocese that McCarrick had abused him for years. Grein told the judicial vicar that McCarrick repeatedly groped him during confession, his lawyer reportedly said. “He touched James’ genitals as part of the confessional. That became the course, it happened almost every time,” Grein’s lawyer, Patrick Noaker, reportedly said. The New York Times first reported on Grein’s allegations. McCarrick, who now resides at a religious residence in Kansas, has denied the allegation that he groped an altar boy.

Yes, I am a former Catholic and yes I am bitter at all the psychological abuse I suffered as a closeted gay youth as I foolishly bought the lie that one can "pray away the gay." And do not get me started on the hypocrisy of the Church leadership which continues under Pope Francis who still clings to a 12th century knowledge of sexuality and sexual orientation. My regret is that I did not walk away years earlier. 

Sex-Abuse Scandal Growing Faster Than the Church Can Contain It

Interestingly, as the sexual misconduct allegations against Brett Kavanaugh are roiling Washington, the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal is exploding at new levels.  In both instances, the behavior of the alleged predators is part and parcel with a sense of entitlement and being above the law. On the one hand you have rich boy, private prep school boy Brett Kavanaugh and on the other you have priests and bishops - princes of the Church, if you will - who may no longer live in palaces as the once did in France and the United Kingdom where I recently visited, yet who see themselves as free from the rules that bind others.  In the case of the GOP, it has already given Trump a pass on serial cases of sexual harassment.  In the case of the Catholic Church, the Church hierarchy has covered up crimes against  children and youths and for decades, if not centuries.  Now, the Catholic Church is facing a reckoning that has put even Pope Francis in the bull's eye.  A piece in The Atlantic looks at the long overdue accounting facing the Church.  Here are highlights:

As Pope Francis faces mounting pressure to address the spiraling clergy sex-abuse crisis, almost every day has brought some new revelation or declaration.  

Since Tuesday alone, a group of American Catholic leaders went to Rome to ask Francis some tough questions, while a women’s open letter demanding answers from him crossed the 45,000-signature mark. The pontiff summoned bishops from around the world to a future meeting, while making one bishop the subject of a new investigation. One cardinal who had come under fire for allegedly enabling accused priests to keep working for the Church announced his plans to resign, while another, who has been pressing for meaningful action against abusers, came under scrutiny himself. Amidst all this, a bombshell report about sex abuse in Germany was leaked to the press.

It does seem like we are reaching a watershed moment.” By Thursday, there had been so many new developments that she said she was having a hard time keeping up—and that the leaders at the Vatican probably were, too.  “I think they’re scrambling. The news is coming on so many fronts. I think they don’t know quite what to do.” Here is some of what they nevertheless did this week.

An American audience with the pope

Church leaders from the U.S. met with the pope in Rome on Thursday. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, had called for a meeting to discuss allegations against Theodore McCarrick, a former cardinal who served as archbishop of Washington from 2001 to 2006. This summer, McCarrick resigned as cardinal after he was accused of sexual abuse.

But if any concrete decisions came out of the papal meeting, DiNardo did not reveal them.  “I worry that the cardinals are coming home empty-handed. They were listened to, but it’s not clear they’re going to have support from the Vatican in terms of handling the investigation into the McCarrick situation,” Mary Rice Hasson, the director of the Catholic Women’s Forum, a network that aims to amplify the voices of Catholic women, told me Thursday. “The concern doesn’t go away because our cardinals had a nice listening session with Pope Francis. People want action.”

Complicating matters further, on the eve of his meeting with the pope, DiNardo himself was accused of covering up abuse in his Galveston-Houston archdiocese, casting doubt on whether he could effectively lead the U.S. Church’s effort at reform, the Washington Post reported.  

Even as DiNardo and other U.S. leaders gathered in Rome on Thursday, the pope accepted the immediate resignation of a West Virginia bishop, Michael J. Bransfield, over allegations that he had sexually harassed adults. Francis also authorized another bishop to investigate the allegations against Bransfield.

A plan for an unprecedented meeting of world bishops

Pope Francis on Wednesday summoned bishops from around the world to a first-of-its-kind meeting in Rome in February. The focus will be on protecting minors, and bishops will reportedly receive training in identifying abuse, intervening, and listening to victims.

The choice to summon the presidents of bishops’ conferences worldwide signals that the Vatican finally recognizes clergy sex abuse is a global problem, according to Cummings, the historian.  . . . In the past, she explained, Church leaders had suggested that the problem was limited to the U.S., but as scandals began to surface elsewhere—from Ireland to Australia to Chile to Germany—that story became impossible to believe.

Stephen Schneck, a former Catholic University professor, likewise told me, “I’ve come to the conclusion that the bishops can’t be trusted to police themselves. I think the ultimate solution, especially here in the U.S., is going to require an active, permanent role for the laity, because of the problem of oversight.”

A new bombshell report

A study has alleged that more than 3,600 children were sexually abused at the hands of some 1,670 clergy members over the past seven decades in Germany. Commissioned by Church officials and conducted by university researchers, the report was supposed to be released on September 25, but it was leaked to German outlets Spiegel Online and Die Zeit and reported this Wednesday instead.

This study comes on the heels of another bombshell report. Just last month, a 900-page Pennsylvania grand-jury report detailed accusations against about 300 priests and alleged that their actions—which the report said involved more than 1,000 children—were covered up by diocese officials.

A cardinal on the verge of resignation

Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington, said Tuesday that he plans to travel to Rome soon, where he will ask the pope to accept his resignation. Wuerl has been heavily criticized after the Pennsylvania grand-jury report alleged that, as archbishop of Pittsburgh from 1988 to 2006, he had permitted priests accused of abusing minors to be reassigned or reinstated. He said Thursday that new leadership is needed to help the Washington archdiocese get past the “current confusion, disappointment, and disunity.”

A very vulnerable pope

In an ambiguous homily on Tuesday, Francis seemed to suggest that Satan was playing a role in the uncovering of the Church’s sex-abuse scandal. “In these times, it seems like the ‘Great Accuser’ [a biblical name for the devil] has been unchained and has it in for bishops. … He tries to uncover the sins, so they are visible in order to scandalize the people,” he said.

Some Catholics I spoke to speculated Francis may have been alluding to Viganò’s letter, which demanded the pope’s resignation. Either way, it struck some as a discordant remark at a moment when many are seeking contrition and humility from the Vatican.  

The pope’s favorability has been plummeting in the U.S., among both Catholics and the general public. A year and a half ago, he enjoyed a 83 percent favorability rating among U.S. Catholics, but that’s dropped to 63 percent, according to CNN.

Hasson, who drafted a public letter—now signed by 45,000 women—demanding answers from the pope about what he knew and when, said that although she and the other signatories love the Church, they are angry that the pope has not been more forthcoming and transparent. “The Church itself needs to get serious about spiritual integrity,” she said. “People are now praying for the Church.”

 If one wants the Church to reform itself and belatedly remove bishops and cardinals who turned a blind eye to sexual abuse, the best way to do so is to (i) have parishioners cease financial support to the Church and let pastors and bishops know why the funds are being cut off, and (ii) better yet, walk away from the Church and, again, let it be known why you are leaving.  Throughout history, only a lose of membership combined with a precipitous drop in financial support have forced the Church to change.  These forces need to be brought to bear again.

Pope Francis Backpedals on Recommendation of Psychiatric Treatment for Gay Children

Pope Francis in Ireland.

With the Roman Catholic Church on the defensive on multiple fronts in the wake of (i) Pope Francis' less than successful visit to Ireland where he was dressed down by that nation's prime minister, (ii) continued reverberations from the release of the Pennsylvania grand jury report - some have called for a federal grand jury to investigate the Church nationwide - and (iii) growing credible accusations that the Vatican covered up Cardinal Theodore McCarrick's sexual molestation, the Vatican/Pope Francis is seemingly trying to quell a new firestorm by attempting to walking back Francis' recommendation that parents of gay children seek psychiatric cures for their children. Agence France-Presse has coverage.  Here are highlights:

The Vatican on Monday rolled back on Pope Francis's recommendation that parents seek psychiatric help for children who show homosexual tendencies.

The Pope made the comments to journalists as he was flying back to Rome from Ireland, but the Vatican later removed his phrase from its official account, saying he had not meant to suggest that homosexuality was a mental illness.

Francis was asked by a journalist what he would say to parents who observe homosexual traits in their children.  "I would say first of all pray, not to condemn, to dialogue, to understand, to give space to the son or the daughter," he responded, before adding that parents must also consider the age of the child.

"When it [homosexuality] shows itself from childhood, there is a lot that can be done through psychiatry, to see how things are. It is something else if it shows itself after 20 years," he said.

The Pope added that ignoring a child who showed homosexual tendencies was an "error of fatherhood or motherhood".

When asked why, a Vatican spokeswoman told AFP it had been done in order to not "change the thoughts of the Holy Father".  "When the Pope referred to 'psychiatry', it is clear that he was doing it to highlight an example of 'things that can be done'. But with that word he didn't mean to say that it (homosexuality) was a 'mental illness'," she said.

Francis's trip to Ireland was fraught with controversy amid accusations that he ignored sexual abuse allegations against prominent US cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

Ahead of his visit, delegates at a Catholic conference in Dublin heard a plea from a US priest for the Church to welcome gay members, whom he said had been made to feel like lepers.

Having been raised Catholic, I can assure you that the message the Vatican and hierarchy clearly and consistently sends is that being gay is pretty much the worse possible thing one can be.  Calling homosexuality a "mental illness" would almost be kind in comparison to being taught that one is an abomination hated by God.  The Church's treatment of gays is nothing less than soul killing - just in a different form than sexual abuse by priests. 

In Ireland only a quarter of the size crowds hoped for showed up.  The Church's credibility is in tatters.

Pew Research: U.S. Catholics Give Pope Francis Failing Grade on Sex Abuse Scandal

Pope Francis arriving in Chile where Church cover ups remain a hot button issue.

Many Catholics, especially in the United States, had hoped that Pope Francis would lead the Roman Catholic Church into the 21st century and mark a turning away from the reactionary policies of his predecessors, the far less than saintly John Paul II, and the "Nazi Pope", Benedict XVI.   Five years into Francis' reign, little has actually changes, especially in terms of addressing the still ongoing global sex abuse scandal - a scandal that will be further reignited once the Pennsylvania grand jury report is released.  The more or less forced resignation of Cardinal McCarrick for sex abuse - something reportedly known by many in the Church hierarchy - is adding fuel to the demands that a house-cleaning of implicated high clerics be undertaken.  Of the things fueling the exodus from the Catholic Church is the sex abuse scandal. Among the others are the Church's continued anti-gay agenda and its rejection of commonsense contraception policies.  A piece in Pew Research looks at the growing impatience with Francis' failure to clean house.  Here are excerpts:

The long-simmering Catholic Church sex abuse scandal has been back in the headlines following new allegations against Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, D.C., who resigned from the College of Cardinals last weekend. Pope Francis accepted the resignation — reportedly making McCarrick the first cardinal in church history to resign over allegations of sexual abuse. In addition, some church officials have been accused of having long known about at least some of the allegations against McCarrick.

Even before news stories about McCarrick came to light in recent weeks, U.S. Catholics were increasingly unhappy with the church’s handling of the sex abuse scandal. A January 2018 Pew Research Center survey found that just 45% of U.S. Catholics said Pope Francis is doing an “excellent” (13%) or “good” (33%) job addressing the crisis, down from 55% who said this in 2015, the last time the question was asked.

The survey also found that U.S. Catholics’ ratings of Pope Francis had become less positive on some other issues, including spreading the Catholic faith and standing up for traditional morals.

U.S. Catholics have long viewed addressing the sex abuse scandal as a particularly high priority. A survey conducted immediately after Francis’ 2013 election found that 70% said this should rank as “a top priority” for the new pope, compared with far fewer who said the same about standing up for traditional moral values (49%) and spreading the Catholic faith (39%).

Francis’ declining rating on the sex abuse scandal mirrors a pattern seen during the papacy of his immediate predecessor, Benedict XVI. By the time of Benedict’s retirement, in February 2013, just a third of American Catholics who were following the news of his resignation (33%) rated his handling of the issue as excellent or good – down from roughly half (49%) who held this view five years earlier.

Francis' problem, of course, is the entrench, power mad Vatican hierarchy which cares far more about money, power, perks of office and protecting the secrets of the many bishops and cardinals who aided and abetted predator priests or engaged in sexual misconduct themselves.

Clericalism and a Derelict Hierarchy Fuel Catholic Church Sex Abuse

Accused sexual predator Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

Even as far right Catholic sites such as Church Militant - ironically edited by a self-loathing closet gay man - continue to blame the Church's seemingly never ending sex abuse scandal that is finally creeping up into the ranks of the Church hierarchy on "gay priests," Commonweal, yet another legitimate site is pointing the finger at the Church hierarchy and the Church's insane doctrine on human sexuality.  A derelict, if not actively involved, Church hierarchy abetted and/or covered up sexual abuse. Adding to the problem was the Church's desperate recruitment of psychologically unfit individuals as it struggled to fill ballooning shortages of candidates for the priesthood.  None of this was unknown to the highest levels at the Vatican as the scandal surrounding Cardinal Theodore McCarrick continues to unfold.  Here are excerpts from Commonweal:

Emerging details about the scope and duration of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s sexually abusive behavior once more underscore the fact that an institutional sickness afflicts the Catholic Church. A predator priest can ascend to princely rank only if the clerical culture around him enables those who are complicit by their silence and failure to act.

The behavior of “Uncle Ted,” as the cardinal insisted he be called by his preferred victims, was something of an open secret at elite levels of the church. As the New YorkTimes noted, multiple reports about McCarrick’s sexual encounters with seminary students were made between 1994 and 2008—to American bishops, to the pope’s representative in Washington, and even to Pope Benedict XVI.  . . . . He even played a prominent role as a spokesperson for the church’s “zero-tolerance” policy on sexual abuse.

The causes of clerical abuse are complex and multilayered. Some Catholic conservatives and others on the right seem not to take this sufficiently into account. [*] First Thingssenior editor Matthew Schmitz recently tweeted: “It will be impossible to address sexual abuse in the Church if bishops and priests do not clearly affirm the Church’s teaching on sex, including same-sex activity. 

A 300-page report, prepared by researchers at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the request of the U.S. bishops seven years ago, found no statistical evidence that gay priests were more likely to abuse minors. What’s more, researchers found that the uptick in the number of gay priests from the late 1970s corresponded with “a decreased incidence of abuse-not an increased incidence of abuse.” The disproportionate number of adolescent male victims, according to the report, was linked to opportunity, not to preference or pathology.

A witch-hunt mentality demonizes the vast majority of celibate gay men who are faithful to their vows, serve the church, and are as horrified as anyone at the abuses committed. 

If the church removed all gay priests from ministry today, it would suffer for that loss. Nor would it bring an end to the abuse crisis. The problem is with those bishops, and others with influence in the church, who at best are asleep at the wheel and at worst willing to excuse predatory behavior. Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley this week acknowledged a “major gap” in procedures for how the church deals with a bishop or cardinal accused of abuse, and called for specific new steps. “

There were plenty of red flags about McCarrick, more than enough to stop his ascent into the College of Cardinals. That it was nevertheless allowed to proceed is an institutional failure on a massive scale. No scapegoating will make this mess go away.

And no single step—ending celibacy requirements or allowing priest to marry—will serve as a panacea. The significant spike in abuse cases in the 1960s and 1970s, the John Jay researchers found, had much to do with psychologically unhealthy priests who were not properly screened, and who became clergy at a time when seminary education lacked a focus on psychological-emotional development. Improved seminary training and education in the 1980s, according to the report, contributed to a “sharp and sustained decline” in abuse cases since then.

More important is changing a clerical culture that prizes secrecy and loyalty over truth and transparency. That will be tedious, challenging and essential work. In the ongoing wake of the McCarrick scandal, it’s time to take up that task with greater urgency than ever.

Catholic Cardinal Preyed on Men Seeking Priesthood

McCarrick with George W. Bush and John Roberts.

While most of the media's focus is on Trump's open acts of treason in Helsinki, another story revealing the depths of the depravity of the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy is laid out in detail in a piece in the New York Times.  The piece looks at how the behavior of Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, former archbishop of Washington, DC, was ignored by Church officials who received numerous warnings that the cardinal was sexually abusing seminarians.  The Church condemns normal, loving same sex relations, yet covers up the misdeeds of psycho-sexually deformed clerics, damaged by the Church's bizarre dogma on sexuality. Anything rather than discard the warped 12th century beliefs so loved at the Vatican.  Here are article highlights (read the full article and note how the less than saintly John Paul II ignored warnings about McCarrick):  

As a young man studying to be a priest in the 1980s, Robert Ciolek was flattered when his brilliant, charismatic bishop in Metuchen, N.J., Theodore E. McCarrick, told him he was a shining star, cut out to study in Rome and rise high in the church.

Bishop McCarrick began inviting him on overnight trips, sometimes alone and sometimes with other young men training to be priests. There, the bishop would often assign Mr. Ciolek to share his room, which had only one bed. The two men would sometimes say night prayers together, before Bishop McCarrick would make a request — “come over here and rub my shoulders a little”— that extended into unwanted touching in bed.

Mr. Ciolek, who was in his early 20s at the time, said he felt unable to say no, in part because he had been sexually abused by a teacher in his Catholic high school, a trauma he had shared with the bishop.

“I trusted him, I confided in him, I admired him,” Mr. Ciolek said in an interview this month, the first time he has spoken publicly about the abuse, which lasted for several years while Mr. Ciolek was a seminarian and later a priest. “I couldn’t imagine that he would have anything other than my best interests in mind.”

Bishop McCarrick went on to climb the ranks of the Roman Catholic hierarchy — from head of the small Diocese of Metuchen to archbishop of Newark and then archbishop of Washington, where he was made a cardinal. He remained into his 80s one of the most recognized American cardinals on the global stage, a Washington power broker who participated in funeral masses for political luminaries like Edward M. Kennedy, the longtime Massachusetts senator, and Beau Biden, the son of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Suddenly, last month, Cardinal McCarrick was removed from ministry, after the Archdiocese of New York deemed credible an accusation that he had molested a 16-year-old altar boy nearly 50 years ago.

He is the highest-ranking Catholic official in the United States to be removed for sexual abuse of a minor.

But while the church responded quickly to the allegation that Cardinal McCarrick had abused a child, some church officials knew for decades that the cardinal had been accused of sexually harassing and inappropriately touching adults, according to interviews and documents obtained by The New York Times.

Between 1994 and 2008, multiple reports about the cardinal’s transgressions with adult seminary students were made to American bishops, the pope’s representative in Washington and, finally, Pope Benedict XVI. Two New Jersey dioceses secretly paid settlements, in 2005 and 2007, to two men, one of whom was Mr. Ciolek,

[W]hile the church has made strides in dealing with sexual abuse of children, it has largely avoided a reckoning over sexual harassment and abuse suffered by adult seminarians and young priests at the hands of their superiors, including bishops.

Because bishops have control over priests’ assignments and complete loyalty is expected by the church’s clerical culture, seminarians and priests can be especially vulnerable to sexual harassment by their superiors.

Now, after the fall of Cardinal McCarrick, some Catholics are saying that the church is on the verge of confronting its own #MeToo moment, akin to the wave of painful truth-telling that has swept through other workplaces, schools and Hollywood. In 2000, Pope John Paul II promoted Archbishop McCarrick to lead the Archdiocese of Washington D.C., one of the most prestigious posts in the Catholic Church in America. He was elevated to cardinal three months later.

At least one priest warned the Vatican against the appointment. The Rev. Boniface Ramsey said that when he was on the faculty at the Immaculate Conception Seminary at Seton Hall University in New Jersey from 1986 to 1996, he was told by seminarians about Archbishop McCarrick’s sexual abuse at the beach house. When Archbishop McCarrick was appointed to Washington, Father Ramsey spoke by phone with the pope’s representative in the nation’s capital, Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, the papal nuncio, and at his encouragement sent a letter to the Vatican about Archbishop McCarrick’s history.

Do not hold your breath waiting for the Vatican to clean house of individuals like McCarrick as it needs to do so badly.