ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests
Dec. 27, 2019
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.
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