The Vatican has expelled a former American cardinal accused of sexual abuse – Cba24n

Pope Francis returned to the secular state, the former American Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, accused of having badually abused at least one teenager, according to information published in a Vatican statement.

The Holy Father has declared a definite sentence in this sense of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a Vatican institution that ensures respect for Catholic dogma, the Holy See declared in a statement. It is the first time in the history of the Catholic Church that a cardinal is excluded for reasons of badual abuse.

This punishment, without possibility and therefore as a last resort, comes just before a crucial meeting, from 21 to 24 February, with the presidents of episcopal conferences around the world at the Vatican, where they will examine the responsibility of the prelates. this has kept the badual badault against minors perpetrated by the clergy in silence.

Pope Francis, who wants to enforce his promise of "zero tolerance", promised in recent months that he would be uncompromising with the high ecclesiastical hierarchy.

The former cardinal emeritus of Washington currently held in the state of Kansas, United States, simply becomes Theodore McCarrick.

The Holy See requested in September 2017 an investigation at the New York Archdiocese, following the testimony of a man who had accused the prelate of having badually badaulted him in the 1970s.

Faced with "serious clues" revealed by the investigation, the pope dismissed Bishop McCarrick from his title of Cardinal, which worried the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in the United States, reported the US government. AFP news agency.