VATICAN CITY
The Independent
August 27, 2018
By Nicole Winfield and Jon Sharman
‘I won’t say a word,’ pontiff replies when asked to comment on claim he knew about Theodore McCarrick’s alleged crimes
Pope Francis has refused to say whether he knew about child sexual abuse claims against the former archbishop of Washington, five years before his resignation last month.
Theodore McCarrick was forced to quit after a US church investigation determined that an accusation he had sexually abused a minor was credible. He was one of the highest-ranking church officials accused in a scandal that has rocked the faith’s 1.2 billion adherents since reports of systemic abuse were first published by the Boston Globe in 2002.
Since his resignation, another man has come forward to say McCarrick molested him starting when he was 11, and several former seminarians have said he abused and harassed them when they were in seminary.
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