DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency
January 8, 2020
By JD Flynn
Vatican City – The news that Theodore McCarrick recently moved from the Kansas friary where he had been living has fueled speculation that a report from the Vatican’s internal investigation on McCarrick will soon be released.
But while the report may be completed in Rome, its release may not be imminent, and some U.S. bishops may be quietly hoping for further delays.
The report is the fruit of an internal Vatican investigation into the career of McCarrick, who was a cardinal and the archbishop of two major American sees before he was found canonically guilty of serial sexual abuse and laicized.
In October 2018, just months after sexual abuse allegations against McCarrick first emerged, the Vatican said that Pope Francis had commissioned a study of the Vatican archival files on McCarrick, “in order to ascertain all the relevant facts, to place them in their historical context and to evaluate them objectively.”
Since the study was announced, American Catholics have called for the release of its findings. In recent months, the report’s release has become highly anticipated.
In November, Cardinal Sean O’Malley told the U.S. bishops’ conference that the Vatican intended to publish the report “soon, if not before Christmas, soon in the new year.”
O’Malley said that he had seen a “hefty document,” which was being translated into Italian for the benefit of Pope Francis, before its imminent release.
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