Unprecedented: the pope has rejected a former cardinal pedophile

Former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, cast of Francisco / AP

Vatican City

Pope Francis brought the Church back into the secular state and returned to the 88-year-old former 88-year-old American cardinal Theodore McCarrick, accused of having badually badaulted at least one teenager there. has been for nearly half a century, something unprecedented in the history of the Catholic Church.

The Argentine pope has declared a definitive sentence in this sense of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a Vatican institution that ensures respect for Catholic dogma, yesterday announced a communiqué from the Holy See. The former cardinal was found guilty of "violating the sixth commandment (which forbids adultery) with minors and adults, with the aggravating circumstance of an abuse of power", according to this text.

SUMMIT WITH EPISCOPES

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

The pope sent with this measure "a clear signal" on zero tolerance for abuses in the Church, said yesterday the president of the American Episcopal Conference.

"No bishop, no matter how influential, is above the laws of the Church," added Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, archbishop of Galveston-Houston.

SNAP, a group of victims of abuse committed by priests, suggested that McCarrick's decision had been "accelerated by the hierarchy" in the days leading up to the aforementioned conference "because it's very condemnatory" .

This group called on the Catholic hierarchy to implement the promised transparency and said in a statement that criminal proceedings should be brought not only against McCarrick, but also "against members of the Church who hide their crimes for years. decades. "

The great scandals that erupted in the United States, Chile or Germany tarnished the credibility of the Catholic Church.

The former cardinal emeritus of Washington had already been banned in July from practicing his ministry and then resigned from his honorary title of cardinal.

With his official exclusion from the Church, the man currently incarcerated 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 cues" revealed during the investigation, the pope removed McCarrick from his title of cardinal at the end of July. This affair shook the hierarchy of the American Catholic Church shortly before the publication of a devastating report on the mbadive abuses committed in Pennsylvania. (AFP, EFE and AP)