DUBLIN -- A former Vatican ambassador to the United States has alleged in an 11-page letter that Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis -- among other top Catholic Church officials -- had been aware of sexual misconduct allegations against former Washington, D.C., archbishop Cardinal Theodore McCarrick years before he resigned this summer.
The letter from Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who was recalled from his D.C. post in 2016 amid allegations that he'd become embroiled in the conservative American fight against same-sex marriage, was first reported by the National Catholic Register and LifeSite News, two conservative Catholic sites. The letter offered no proof, and Vigano on Sunday told The Washington Post he wouldn't comment further.
"Silence and prayer are the only things that are befitting," he said.
Francis declined Sunday to confirm or deny that he knew in 2013 about sexual misconduct allegations against McCarrick but rehabilitated him anyway.
Francis said the 11-page text by Vigano "speaks for itself" and that he wouldn't comment on it.
Francis was asked by a U.S. reporter during an airborne news conference Sunday if Vigano's claims that the two discussed the McCarrick allegations in 2013 were true. Francis was also asked about Vigano's claims that McCarrick was already under sanction at the time, but that Francis rehabilitated him.
Francis said he had read Vigano's document and trusted journalists to judge for themselves.
"It's an act of trust," he said. "I won't say a word about it."
The accusations landed as Francis was wrapping up one of the most fraught trips of his papacy, coming face-to-face with the church's damaged credibility in a country reeling from decades of abuse.
In a Mass at Dublin's Phoenix Park, Francis spoke in Spanish and asked for forgiveness for what he called "abuses of power, conscience, and sexual abuse perpetrated by members with roles of responsibility in the church," according to a translation of his remarks by Vatican News.
Francis issued a sweeping apology for the "crimes" of the Catholic Church in Ireland, saying church officials regularly didn't respond with compassion to the many abuses children and women suffered over the years and vowing to work for justice.
Francis was interrupted by applause as he read the apology out loud at the start of Mass in Dublin's Phoenix Park.
Hundreds of miles away, somber protesters marched through the Irish town of Tuam and recited the names of 796 babies and young children who died at a Catholic-run orphanage there, most during the 1950s.
"We ask forgiveness for some members of the church's hierarchy who did not take charge of these painful situations and kept quiet," Francis said.
Some 500,000 had been expected to attend the Mass, but the crowd was noticeably smaller, with patches of grass visible in areas that had been intended for spectators.
Francis also acknowledged the church's role in separating tens of thousands of unmarried mothers from their babies, and encouraged those mothers and children to reunite.
"For all those times when it was said to many single mothers who tried to look for their children who had been estranged from them, or to the children who were looking for their mothers, that it was a mortal sin: This is not a mortal sin," he said. "It is the Fourth Commandment! We ask for forgiveness."
Decades of clerical abuse, forced adoptions, forced labor in industrial houses and other exploitation have gutted the Catholic Church in Ireland. And as the Irish government has broken free from the church's once powerful hold, its people have voted in ways contrary to church teaching. They have legalized divorce and same-sex marriage, and in May took a major step toward the legalization of abortion.
The sexual abuses -- in Ireland, the United States, Australia, Argentina, Belgium Brazil, Canada, Chile and other countries -- have fed and amplified the bitter polarization within the Catholic Church. Some of Francis' critics, including Vigano, are calling for the pope to step down.
The Vatican had no immediate comment. McCarrick's attorney, Barry Coburn, declined to comment.
The letter was the latest development stemming from a fresh wave of allegations related to clergy sex abuse and its cover-up. Rumors that had swirled for decades about McCarrick exploded in June when Pope Francis suspended the cardinal. Last month, McCarrick, facing credible allegations of abusing seminarians and minors, became the first U.S. cardinal in history to resign.
Vigano, 77, was the Holy See's apostolic nuncio, or ambassador, in Washington from 2011 until 2016. He has been a lightning rod within the Vatican who lost a power struggle in Rome under Benedict, emerged as a Francis critic and reportedly ordered the halt of an investigation into the alleged sexual relations between an archbishop in Minnesota and seminarians.
Jason Berry, who has written several investigative books about the Vatican, said he believes this is the first time a pope has been accused from within.
"From within the Vatican hierarchy, from within the Roman Curia, I don't think anyone has ever publicly accused a pope of covering up for a sex abuser," Berry said. "That's why this is such a big deal."
Vigano's letter said that McCarrick had been privately sanctioned under Benedict -- though only after years of warnings about his alleged behavior. The warnings that Vigano describes dealt with McCarrick's alleged behavior toward seminarians and young priests -- not toward minors. Vigano wrote that the measures, taken "in 2009 or 2010," banned McCarrick from traveling, holding Mass, or participating in public meetings.
Yet McCarrick appears to have done essentially the opposite. He regularly appeared as a speaker and celebrant at church functions and represented the church in prominent foreign diplomatic efforts in places such as China and Iran. A video from 2013 shows Benedict warmly greeting McCarrick in Rome, at the pope's resignation (and the subsequent election of the new pope), where McCarrick gave television interviews and stayed at a seminary.
Vigano's letter says that in 2013, he met Francis months into his papacy and told him face to face that there was "a dossier this thick" about McCarrick. He says he then told Francis about Benedict's order that McCarrick remove himself from public life.
"He corrupted generations of seminarians and priests and Pope Benedict ordered him to withdraw to a life of prayer and penance," Vigano says he told Francis. "The Pope did not make the slightest comment about those very grave words of mine and did not show any expression of surprise on his face, as if he had already known the matter for some time, and he immediately changed the subject."
Vigano also alleges in that conversation that Francis told him American bishops "must not be ideologized, they must not be right-wing ... and they must not be left-wing, and when I say left-wing I mean homosexual."
It was not possible to reach Benedict or his representatives right away. Francis has not commented previously about what he was ever told about McCarrick, and on Sunday Vatican spokesman Greg Burke did not respond to a request seeking comment.
The American Catholic Church is deeply divided over Francis' leadership, with fault lines similar to those seen in the political realm. Francis's comments and teachings about everything from immigration and global warming to the death penalty are frequently adopted or refuted along partisan lines.
The Vigano document uses American culture-war language, such as "right-wing" and "left-wing," and concludes the letter by blaming "homosexual networks" for sexual abuse and corruption.
In the letter, Vigano described several figures who could corroborate parts of his account. Those people could not be immediately reached.
Before moving to D.C., Vigano spent time as a delegate within the secretary of state's office, working with the Vatican's embassies around the world. He says in his letter that his job included "the examination of delicate cases, including those regarding cardinals and bishops."
"I can imagine Vigano wanted to unburden his conscience," said Marcello Pera, a retired professor who knows Vigano, co-wrote a book with Benedict XVI, and has spoken critically about the direction of the church under Francis.
"The author is a reliable person who has suffered because of events," Pera said. "His warnings were not listened to."
Vigano was sent to Washington in 2011 and was there until May 2016. He arranged a hugely controversial meeting between Francis and an American woman, Kim Davis, who had lost her job as a municipal clerk in Kentucky for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Allies of Francis alleged Vigano set up the pope during a high-profile U.S. visit, and that Francis didn't intend to affirm Davis' cause.
The letter also includes an allegation against Donald Wuerl, D.C.'s current archbishop and McCarrick's immediate successor. He is a close ally of Francis and is already under scrutiny after a grand jury report in Pennsylvania about clerical child sex abuse in Pennsylvania and alleged cover-up. Wuerl for years led the diocese of Pittsburgh.
Vigano is vague in the allegation against Wuerl.
Wuerl's spokesman, Ed McFadden, denied the report Saturday night.
Information for this article was contributed by Chico Harlan, Stefano Pitrelli, Michelle Boorstein and Julie Zauzmer of The Washington Post; by Nicole Winfield and Helena Alves of The Associated Press; and by Ellen Barry and Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 08/27/2018