The pope’s ‘no comment’ on sexual abuse cover-up allegations isn't good enough, by Michaek Mcgough, Los Angeles Times (August 27, 2018)

The pope’s ‘no comment’ on sexual abuse cover-up allegations isn't good enough

By Michaek Mcgough
Los Angeles Times
August 27, 2018

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-ol-enter-the-fray-the-pope-s-no-comment-on-mccarrick-1535399056-htmlstory.html?mod=article_inline

Pope Francis prays at Knock Shrine in County Mayo, Ireland, on Sunday.

Let’s stipulate, as the lawyers say, that an Italian archbishop had an ideological ax to grind when he claimed that Pope Francis lifted the restrictions his predecessor had placed on a cardinal accused of sexual misconduct. Go ahead and assume for the sake of argument that Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano — a former Vatican ambassador in Washington, D.C., — was disgruntled and out for revenge.

That doesn’t mean the pope can continue to refuse to comment on it.

Vigano accused Francis of reversing a decision by Pope Benedict XVI to impose limitations on the activities of then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, D.C., who according to news reports had a a 50-year history of sexual relations with male seminarians and young priests. (After a church investigation found credible an accusation that McCarrick also had abused a minor, Francis accepted his resignation from the College of Cardinals.)

Francis “knew from at least June 23, 2013, that McCarrick was a serial predator,” Vigano wrote. Yet the pope “did not take into account the sanctions that Pope Benedict had imposed on him and made him his trusted counselor.” Vigano said that the pope “must be the first to set a good example for cardinals and bishops who covered up McCarrick’s abuses and resign along with all of them.”

The Vigano letter, released to conservative Catholic publications during the pope’s visit to Ireland, is a feverish denunciation not only of Francis but of several of his allies in the hierarchy. It also calls for the eradication of the “homosexual networks present in the church,” a favorite theme of anti-Francis conservatives in the church.

Asked about the Vigano letter on his return flight from Ireland to Rome, the pope declined to comment on the letter. “I will not say a single word about this,” he told reporters. “I believe the statement speaks for itself. And you have the sufficient journalistic ability to make your conclusions.”

On Monday the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, suggested that Vigano’s letter raised questions that “deserve answers that are conclusive and based on evidence. Without those answers, innocent men may be tainted by false accusation and the guilty may be left to repeat sins of the past.”

Some of those answers must come from the pope.

Even if you believe that the pope’s conservative critics are exploiting the abuse scandal to undermine Francis for other reasons, and that the Vigano letter is a volley in the intra-Catholic culture wars, the pope can’t continue to decline comment on its central accusations. Was he informed of McCarrick’s history? Did he know that Benedict had attempted to rein in the retired cardinal? Did he sound an “all clear”? At some point Francis does need to say a single word about these questions: “yes” or ”no.”