by Bob Walsh
In an act that is described by the Vatican as "unprecedented" the Pope has accepted the "resignation" of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. McCarrick is moving to a "life of prayer and penance" prior to his church trial. McCarrick has been suspended from all religious functions and is facing accusations of sexual misconduct with seminarians and young members of the church.
As far as can be determined this order of prayer and penance has NEVER before been imposed prior to a trial.
The former Cardinal is now 80. He had previously been heavily involved in the church's response to allegations of sexual abuse by priests.
In a somewhat related story, the A.P. has just released a major piece about sexual abuse of nuns by priests. Apparently it was relatively common for sexually active priests to go after nuns back in the 1990s, during the heights of the AIDS scare, as they figured they would not catch anything nasty from them.
In 1994 Sister Maura O'Donahue wrote up a comprehensive, six-year study covering 23 countries concerning apparent sexual abuse against nuns by priests. Among other things she found one congregation in which 29 nuns had become pregnant during the time of the study.
The problem allegedly moved from Africa, where the rape of nuns by priests was said to be "common" to the Vatican. When nuns were sent to the Vatican for study they often approached seminarians and priests for help with their studies. Sexual favors were often the payment for this assistance.
The Vatican has never commented on what, if anything, they chose to do with this information once they had it. I am guessing they simply ignored it as being inconvenient. It must be nice to have you own country, all be it a small one, where the head guy can simply ignore shit if he wants to.
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