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Pope Francis will meet at the Vatican with leaders of the American Catholic Church, including the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, to discuss sexual abuse by the clergy.
Andrew Medichini / AP
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Andrew Medichini / AP
Pope Francis will meet at the Vatican with leaders of the American Catholic Church, including the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, to discuss sexual abuse by the clergy.
Andrew Medichini / AP
Updated at 9 pm ET
After weeks of relative silence, Pope Francis agreed to meet with a delegation of US bishops and cardinals to discuss the Vatican's response to the clergy abuse crisis.
A Vatican spokesman said the meeting at the Apostolic Palace on Thursday will include Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, who heads the Conference of American Bishops, and Cardinal Sean O. Malley of Boston, who advises the Pope on sexual abuse problems. Archbishop José Gomez, vice-president of the conference of bishops, and Bishop Brian Bransfield, secretary of the conference, will also be present, according to the Vatican.
In addition, Pope Francis should also meet with Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the Archbishop of Washington, DC, accused of helping to cover abusive priests.
In a letter to his priests issued Tuesday, Mr Wuerl said that he acknowledged that a "new start" might be needed in his church and he said that he would go to Rome "in a very near future "to discuss his possible resignation with Pope Francis. .
The treatment of sexual abuse by clergy should also be discussed at the meeting Thursday between the pope and the American bishops. Cardinal DiNardo called for the meeting last month, wishing the pope to support an investigation into the scandal surrounding former Archbishop Washington DC, Bishop Theodore McCarrick, who resigned from the College of Cardinals.
One of the questions is to know when Pope Francis was informed of McCarrick's alleged misconduct and what he did, if any, in response. Former Vatican ambassador to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, issued an explosive letter on August 26, accusing senior leaders of the Vatican and US churches of covering McCarrick for many years. .
In this letter, Vigano implicated Pope Francis in McCarrick's camouflage and called him to resign from the papacy. Francis has not yet responded to Vigano's accusations, but the Pope's Council of Cardinals reported this week that the Vatican will soon provide "clarifications" regarding recent events.
The pope accepted McCarrick's resignation in July and ordered him to remain in "prayer and penance" until the charges against him could be examined in a canon trial. The American bishops who will meet Francis on Thursday should put pressure on the pope to know how this trial would unfold.
A senior Vatican official acknowledged earlier this week that some allegations against McCarrick had been brought to the Vatican's attention in 2000.
Since last month, Cardinal Wuerl has been under intense pressure for a Pennsylvania grand jury to report several times that as bishop of Pittsburgh he had been informed of allegations of credible abuse against priests under his command. supervision,
In the letter sent Tuesday to the priests of his archdiocese, Mr. Wuerl stated that it had become clear "that a decision, on my part, is an essential aspect so that this archdiocesan church that we all love can moving forward".
As is customary for bishops who reach the age of 75, Wuerl has already submitted an official letter of resignation, but it is up to Pope Francis to accept it or not.
The publication of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report and the outcry over McCarrick's past conduct is the most serious crisis the Vatican has seen in years. A senior official of Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis said Tuesday that the scandal was the "own disaster of September 11" of the church.
