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SNAP Responds As Disgraced Cardinal Mccarrick’s Financial Impropriety Revealed

SNAP
December 27, 2019

https://www.snapnetwork.org/disgraced_cardinal_mccarricks_financial_impropriety_dec19

A new investigation by the Washington Post has revealed that a disgraced cardinal and notorious sexual abuser was also an abuser of church finances, giving lavish gifts to church bureaucrats and friends.

According to the Washington Post, former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick routinely used the “Archbishop’s Special Fund” from the Archdiocese of Washington D.C. to give hundreds of thousands of dollars to church officials including former Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict. Church officials claim that these gifts never influenced McCarrick’s power in the Vatican, but it’s hard to believe that such donations weren’t made in an effort to burnish his reputation among his peers and protect himself when his abuses inevitably came to light.

We’re not surprised by this news. Earlier this year, it was revealed that disgraced Bishop Michael Bransfield also used donated funds to give lavish gifts to his colleagues and superiors, and a Wall Street Journal investigation also recently found that church donations earmarked for the poor ended up being taken by church officials for their personal and administrative use.

This is yet another example of a continuing trend where church officials take from their parishioners, lie to them about what’s going on, and beg forgiveness when their impropriety is discovered. The only difference in this case is that church officials are stealing money instead of innocence.

We hope that parishioners and the public will look closer at how they donate to the church in light of these scandals, and we hope that police and prosecutors are looking closely at this situation to determine if there are any crimes that could be prosecuted.

CONTACT: Zach Hiner, Executive Director (zhiner@snapnetwork.org, 517-974-9009)

(SNAP, the Survivors Network, has been providing support for victims of sexual abuse in institutional settings for 30 years. We have more than 25,000 survivors and supporters in our network. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org)

 

 

 

 

 




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