Saint John Paul II was deceived on the ex-cardinal

The McCarrick report shows that Pope Saint John Paul II was misled about former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, said Polish Bishops’ Conference president Bishop Stanislaw Gadecki.

In a November 13 statement, the Polish Archbishop explained that “prior to McCarrick’s appointment to Washington, the Pope had not received full information from the American bishops about his moral behavior, and McCarrick himself lied , in a letter of August 6, 2000, stating that he had not had sexual relations with anyone ”.

The Archbishop of Poznan also referred to a section of the McCarrick report in which it is noted that John Paul II asked the apostolic nuncio to the United States in 2010 to contact four bishops in the state of New Jersey to ask them if McCarrick had behaved. inappropriately with young adults.

The bishops said McCarrick, then Archbishop of Newark, shared his bed with young men, “but they have not indicated with certainty that McCarrick engaged in sexual misconduct.”

The report concludes that three of the four bishops gave the Vatican “inaccurate and incomplete information”.

“This imprecise information seems likely to have had an impact on the conclusions of John Paul II’s advisers and, therefore, on John Paul II himself,” the text says.

In the letter of August 6, 2000 cited by Bishop Gadecki, McCarrick insisted that “in the 70 years of my life, I have never had sexual relations with anyone, male or female, young or old, and I haven’t abused anyone or treated anyone with disrespect ”.

The letter was sent to the one who was for more than 40 years the personal secretary of the Polish Pope, then Bishop Stanisław Dziwisz and who would later become the Archbishop of Krakow (Poland).

On the eve of the publication of the McCarrick report, a TV show accused the current Cardinal Dziwisz of negligence in the face of sexual abuse by clerics. The 81-year-old cardinal said on November 9 that he was ready to cooperate with an independent commission that “will clarify these matters.”

The McCarrick report prepared by the Vatican says the former cardinal’s letter to Dziwisz sought to counter another letter that Cardinal John O’Connor, then Archbishop of New York, sent to the Holy See warning against McCarrick and its possible promotion.

The Pope appointed McCarrick as Archbishop of Washington on November 21, 2000. John Paul II was Pope between 1978 and 2005. He was beatified on May 1, 2011 and canonized on April 27, 2014.

Bishop Gadecki said in his statement that “the case of former Cardinal McCarrick is also detrimental to Saint John Paul II, who was cynically deceived by him”.

The Polish episcopate president said the Church’s response to the McCarrick report was summarized by Pope Francis during the general audience on Wednesday, November 11.

“Yesterday the report on the painful case of former Cardinal Thedore McCarrick was released. I renew my closeness to the victims of all abuses and the Church’s commitment to eradicate this evil ”, declared the Pope.