CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times
by brian slodysko Staff Reporter January 19, 2014
Cardinal Francis George on Sunday pushed back against claims made by advocates for Catholic sex abuse victims, who say George has tried to escape responsibility for the handling of ex-priest and convicted sex offender Daniel McCormack by blaming his late predecessor.
The letter “wasn’t critical of Cardinal [Joseph] Bernardin at all,” George said of his deceased predecessor, following a pro-life rally Sunday in the Loop. “I don’t see how that can be said.”
In a letter to the faithful, distributed at Masses across the city Jan. 12th, George announced the impending release of thousands of pages of documents, the result of a court settlement with victims, that detail the Church’s handling of sex abuse allegations against priests between 1950 and 1996.
But George also addressed the handling of McCormack, whose alleged abuse of children occurred on George’s watch, between 2001 and 2006, while McCormack was stationed at St. Agatha Parish on Chicago’s West Side.
In the letter, he also addressed the church’s response to McCormack, who was convicted of abuse allegations while he was a parish priest at St. Agatha.
In the missive, George points to Bernardin’s role in promoting the now-defrocked priest, noting that Bernardin ordained McCormack and later elevated him to a “position of trust.”
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