More damaging evidence surrounding the Vatican’s reported knowledge of corruption within the Catholic Church has emerged this past week, providing further reason to believe that high-ranking clergy members were aware of alleged instances of abuse and did nothing about it, The Daily Wire reported.
A few weeks back, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò testified that there had been an abuse scandal under disgraced former D.C. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick that the Vatican covered up. Viganò has claimed that Pope Francis himself was involved in protecting the abusive ex-cardinal.
Last Friday, a 2006 letter from then-Archbishop Leonardo Sandri was released. The letter suggests that the Vatican knew that Cardinal McCarrick was abusing seminarians and did nothing about it.
There was a “conspiracy of silence not so dissimilar from the one that prevails in the mafia,” Archbishop Viganò wrote in a bombshell letter responding to the scandal.
In 2000, Fr. Boniface Ramsey wrote a letter to Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, where he informed him of complaints he had received from seminarians about McCarrick. At the time, McCarrick was serving as a rector at Immaculate Conception Seminary in New Jersey, where Fr. Ramsey had taught from 1986 to 1996.
Six years later, the Vatican finally responded to Fr. Ramsey’s letter. On October 11, 2006, Archbishop Sandri, the Vatican substitute for general affairs, sent a letter to Father Ramsey asking about McCarrick — not to check in on the alleged abuse, but to vet him for a position in the Vatican office.
“I ask with particular reference to the serious matters involving some of the students of the Immaculate Conception Seminary, which in November 2000 you were good enough to bring confidentially to the attention of the then Apostolic Nuncio in the United States, the late Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo,” the letter from Archbishop Sandri stated.
Fr. Ramsey did not receive a response to his 2000 letter, but the 2006 Sandri letter solidified that the Vatican had indeed received his letter and knew of McCarrick’s alleged behavior.
“I complained about McCarrick’s relationships with seminarians and the whole business with sleeping with seminarians and all of that; the whole business that everyone knows about. My letter November 22, 2000, was about McCarrick and it wasn’t accusing seminarians of anything; it was accusing McCarrick,” Fr. Ramsey told the Catholic News Service about his original letter.
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CNS noted that the Vatican absolutely knew about the claims made regarding McCarrick because they mentioned it in their 2006 letter. This shows that the Vatican was fully aware of McCarrick’s abuse as far back as 2000, when Pope John Paul II was in leadership. In 2005, Pope Benedict XVI took over and placed sanctions on McCarrick. Then, in 2013, Pope Francis overturned these sanctions, completely ridding McCarrick of any type of restriction in the Catholic Church.
Just weeks ago “Everybody Loves Raymond” star Patricia Heaton, spoke out against Pope Francis’ response to the scandal. Pope Francis has urged people to be wise and learn to speak appropriately.
“With people lacking goodwill, with people who only seek scandal, who seek only division, who seek only destruction, even within the family: silence, prayer,” Pope Francis declared, as reported by America Magazine.
The pontiff added that the Gospel narrative helps believers “to reflect how to act in daily life, when there are misunderstandings” and “to understand how the father of lies, the accuser, the devil, acts to destroy the unity of a family, of a people.”
“The truth is meek. The truth is silent. The truth is not noisy,” he added. “Jesus stayed silent.”
(H/T: The Daily Wire)