ROME
The Daily Beast
August 27, 2018
By Barbie Latza Nadeau
On his way home from Ireland last night, Francis was stunningly silent about what he knew about new allegations of past criminal sex abuse at the top of the U.S. Catholic Church.
Pope Francis has officially lost control of the American clerical sex-abuse scandal.
On the heels of the damning Pennsylvania grand jury report out this month, he now finds himself facing calls for his resignation over allegations that he was complicit in the cover-up of a different sex-abusing cardinal, this time Washington, D.C.’s Theodore McCarrick, whose abuse was apparently so well known that he once advertised in a church bulletin that young seminarians should seek him out. And now, a BuzzFeed News exposé published Monday about murderous nuns at St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Vermont is sure to feed the fire, or at least prove once and for all—lest anyone doubted—that clerical sex abuse in the Catholic Church is endemic.
Francis may actually be making things even worse by refusing to comment. He was widely criticized for his “no comment” remarks in the days after the Pennsylvania case. And last night on the flight back to Rome from Ireland, he did not deny claims of a cover-up involving McCarrick. Instead, he refused to comment once again.
“I read the statement this morning, and I must tell you sincerely that, I must say this, to you and all those who are interested: Read the statement carefully and make your own judgment,” the pontiff said, according to a transcript of the in-flight Sunday night press conference published on the Catholic News Agency’s website. “I will not say a single word about this. I believe the statement speaks for itself.”
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