(OPINION) Debates about San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy’s elevation to the Sacred College of Cardinals have focused on divisive issues in Catholic life, although decades of sexual abuse crimes loom in the background.
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(OPINION) A week after the Vatican released its much-anticipated investigation of former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, there remain many unanswered questions. Whether journalists will delve deeply into these unanswered questions remains to be seen.
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Cardinals, archbishops and other clerical leaders of the Catholic Church from around the world have penned a flurry of letters and official statements in the wake of the ground-breaking McCarrick report that concludes while many in the Vatican hierarchy had known for years about sexual abuse allegations against ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick and not removed him, Pope Francis was not complicit.
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A long-awaited Vatican probe into ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick found that many in the Catholic hierarchy — starting with Pope John Paul II — continuously turned a blind eye to a series of red flags that he’d sexually abused children and seminarians.
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(COMMENTARY) Pope Francis is a great example of an international leader whose handlers like to control the message. Not too different from the White House press office, where access can often be very limited. That makes the papal news conference, the one that takes place aboard the pope’s flight on the way to Rome at the end of very trip, very important.
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(COMMENTARY) Again, it was conservative Catholic media that proved to be the preferred mouthpiece for Cardinal Robert Sarah and Pope Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI over the past week. Both men — with help from right-leaning news organizations — have been very vocal about the problems plaguing the church.
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(COMMENTARY) The big story remains who knew what and when. Who’s implicated in potentially covering up the misdeeds of now-former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick over the years? The implication here is that the cover-up — if that’s the word you want to use — goes beyond Pope Francis, but back in time years to when Saint Pope John Paul II was the head of the Roman Catholic church.
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(COMMENTARY) Columnist Terry Mattingly shares his picks for 2018’s top religion stories, parting ways with Religion News Association (RNA)’s list.
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(COMMENTARY) Theodore McCarrick has become the iconic figure at the heart of the latest round of Catholic clergy sex scandals. Here in America, the key will be whether bishops find ways to hold each other accountable, especially with talk increasing of a federal investigation of cover-ups linked to sexual abuse.
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Priests know what it's like to enter the pulpit facing scriptures that appear to have been torn from the headlines.That happened just the other day, with news that one of America's most powerful Catholics – retired Archbishop Theodore McCarrick of Washington, D.C. – had been accused of the sexual abuse of boys, as well as decades of seminarians. Days later the Sunday Mass lectionary featured the Prophet Jeremiah, speaking for Jehovah: "Woe to the shepherds who mislead and scatter the flock of my pasture."
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