As we are getting more distance from the various bombshells of the last month, things seem to be more murky than clearer, but cooler heads may be prevailing.
The Pennsylvania report outed old unreported cases from decades ago and from priests long gone or long dead. The shock was to find out that priests that were beloved pastors and friends had committed abuse in their earlier life but seem to have not been serial abusers. No one knew, but it was in their records. Or, accusers came forward after the death of a priest but facts were not made known to the general public only placed on file.
The number of reported cases today is much lower, considerably lower as a result of the 2002 zero tolerance charter.
The case against McCarrick was originally how he was made the Archbishop of Washington and then a cardinal under Pope St. John Paul II given the fact that so many knew that McCarrick was a homosexual who surrounded himself with young priests and seminarians and took advantage of them. Was it consensual? No, not from our 2018 perspective.
It was only recently that two accusers came forward and made credible claims that McCarrick had abused them as teenagers in the 1960's. Pope Francis acted quickly to remove McCarrick's red hat and sentence him to prayer and Penance.
But a public tribunal, civil or ecclesiastical, would have helped and it would have been good to hear McCarrick's defense and how it was he rose so high in the Church.
Archbishop Vigano's testmony is riddled with inaccuracies and hearsay, and some of it is based on what he perceived facial expressions and the like to be. Asking a pope to resign was not the wisest thing for him to do and politicized and polarized more an already polarized and politicized Church revealing how polarized the hierarchy in the Vatican is and corrupt as well.
Pope Francis has criticized the curia in harsh, vicious ways and maybe now we know why a little bit better.
Despite all of this, I do hope that Pope Francis will address the central issues and clarify them and put any anger he has against Vigano to the side. I think he should meet with him. I think too the pope should have answered the dubia from a PR point of view and stated clearly what his intentions are for the Church and let the chips fall where they may.
A pope cannot be forced to resign and if there are those demanding it based upon progressive/conservative ideologies and a pope gives into it, hang on to your hats. We become a political institution and more corrupt than ever.
The pope should not resign but there needs to be canons in place for a caretaker "vice pope" to step in when a pope is incapacitated to keep the Church running more smoothing.
I wish Pope Benedict had taken this route and chosen men who would serve him well. It appears he too was betrayed by those around him.
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