Oct 19, 2018
FAITH AND CULTURE CORRESPONDENT
(Left) Former papal nuncio to the United States, Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, and (Right) Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops. (Credit: CNS.)
ROME - In a new and now third public letter, a former Vatican envoy to the United States said the Vatican’s top official for overseeing bishops confirmed many of his accusations of negligence in the handling of an infamous ex-cardinal charged with sexual abuse and once again pointed to homosexuality as the cause of the abuse crisis facing the Catholic Church.
“Cardinal [Marc] Ouellet concedes the important claims that I did and do make, and disputes claims I don’t make and never made,” said Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò in a letter published on the blog of Italian conservative journalist Marco Tosatti Oct. 19.
Earlier this month, Ouellet, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops, published a letter accusing Viganò of a political “frame job” and a “deplorable and incomprehensible attack” on Pope Francis, after Viganò accused the pontiff of knowing about sexual misconduct concerns regarding ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick in 2013 and taking no action. In his original letter released Aug. 26, Viganò called on Francis to resign.
Ouellet also stated that there were no formal “sanctions” against McCarrick imposed by Pope emeritus Benedict XVI that Francis ignored, contrary to Viganò’s allegation.
In what has become a Vatican “he said-he said” scenario, Viganò answered Ouellet’s letter by stating that his rebuke has reinforced him in his decision and, furthermore, serves to “vindicate” his claims.
The former U.S. ambassador said that Ouellet’s letter confirms they both spoke about the McCarrick situation, that they corresponded about the “conditions and restrictions” imposed against the ex-cardinal by Benedict, which “forbade McCarrick to travel or to make public appearances.”
Ouellet acknowledged that McCarrick was “strongly encouraged” to keep a low public profile and was urged to live a “private life” of silence “with the rigor of canonical penalties,” though he claims these were not actual sanctions since there was not enough proof.
While Viganò admits in his latest letter they “were not technically ‘sanctions’ but provisions,” he also added that to “quibble” over the distinction is a matter of “pure legalism” and that “from a pastoral point of view they are exactly the same thing.”
Regarding Ouellet’s observation that it would have been impossible for Francis to properly assess the information given to him on McCarrick while he was meeting numerous nuncios, Viganò stated that the question was fully addressed in private when he told the pope that the ex-cardinal had “sexually corrupted his own seminarians and priests.”
“No pope could forget that,” he added.
