![\"\"](\"http:\/\/themillenniumreport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/ArchbishopVigano_byEdwardPentin.jpg\")
<\/a>Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigan\u00f2 (Edward Pentin Photo)<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n
In a written testimony, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigan\u00f2 claims Pope Francis withdrew sanctions against Archbishop Theodore McCarrick.<\/h3>\n
Edward Pentin
\nNational Catholic Register<\/p>\n
In an extraordinary 11-page written testament, a former apostolic nuncio to the United States has accused several senior prelates of complicity in covering up Archbishop Theodore McCarrick\u2019s allegations of sexual abuse, and has claimed that Pope Francis knew about sanctions imposed on then-Cardinal McCarrick by Pope Benedict XVI but chose to repeal them.<\/p>\n
Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigan\u00f2, 77, who served as apostolic nuncio in Washington D.C. from 2011 to 2016, said that in the late 2000s, Benedict had \u201cimposed on Cardinal McCarrick sanctions similar to those now imposed on him by Pope Francis\u201d and that Vigan\u00f2 personally told Pope Francis about those sanctions in 2013.<\/p>\n
Archbishop Vigan\u00f2 said in his written statement,\u00a0simultaneously released to the Register and other media,\u00a0(see full text below) that Pope Francis \u201ccontinued to cover\u201d for McCarrick and not only did he \u201cnot take into account the sanctions that Pope Benedict had imposed on him\u201d but also made McCarrick \u201chis trusted counselor.\u201d \u00a0Vigan\u00f2 said\u00a0that the former archbishop of Washington advised the Pope to appoint a number of bishops in the United States, including Cardinals Blase Cupich of Chicago and Joseph Tobin of Newark.<\/p>\n
Archbishop Vigan\u00f2, who said his \u201cconscience dictates\u201d that the truth be known as \u201cthe corruption has reached the very top of the Church\u2019s hierarchy,\u201d ended his testimony by calling on Pope Francis and all of those implicated in the cover up of Archbishop McCarrick\u2019s abuse to resign.<\/p>\n
On June 20, Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, on the order of Pope Francis,\u00a0prohibited former Cardinal McCarrick from public ministry after an investigation by the New York archdiocese found an accusation of sexual abuse of a minor was \u201ccredible and substantiated.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0That same day,the public learned that the Archdiocese of Newark and the Diocese of Metuchen in New Jersey had received three accusations of sexual misconduct involving adults against McCarrick.\u00a0Since then media reports have written of\u00a0victims of the abuse, spanning decades, include a teenage boy, three young priests or seminarians, and a man now in his 60s who alleges McCarrick abused him from the age of 11. The Pope later accepted McCarrick\u2019s resignation from the College of Cardinals.<\/p>\n
But Vigan\u00f2 wrote that Benedict much earlier had imposed sanctions on McCarrick \u201csimilar\u201d to those handed down by Cardinal Parolin. \u201cThe cardinal was to leave the seminary where he was living,\u201d Vigan\u00f2 said, \u201che was also forbidden to celebrate [Mass] in public, to participate in public meetings, to give lectures, to travel, with the obligation of dedicating himself to a life of prayer and penance.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Vigan\u00f2 did not document the exact date but recollected the sanction to have been applied as far back 2009 or 2010.<\/p>\n
Benedict\u2019s measures came years after Archbishop Vigan\u00f2\u2019s\u00a0predecessors at the nunciature \u2014 Archbishops Gabriel Montalvo and Pietro Sambi \u2014 had \u201cimmediately\u201d informed the Holy See as soon as they had learned of Archbishop McCarrick\u2019s \u201cgravely immoral behavior with seminarians and priests,\u201d the retired Italian Vatican diplomat wrote.<\/p>\n
He said Archbishop Montalvo first alerted the Vatican in 2000, requesting that Dominican Father Boniface Ramsey write to Rome confirming the allegations. In 2006, Archbishop Vigan\u00f2 said that,\u00a0as delegate for pontifical representations in the Secretariat of State, he personally wrote a memo to his superior, then Archbishop (later Cardinal)\u00a0Leonardo Sandri, proposing an \u201cexemplary measure\u201d be taken against McCarrick that could have a \u201cmedicinal function\u201d to prevent future abuses and alleviate a \u201cvery serious scandal for the faithful.\u201d<\/p>\n
He drew on an indictment memorandum, communicated by Archbishop Sambi to Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, then Secretary of State, in which an abusive priest had made claims against McCarrick of \u201csuch gravity and vileness\u201d including \u201cdepraved acts\u201d and \u201csacrilegious celebration of the Eucharist.\u201d<\/p>\n
Memos Ignored<\/strong><\/p>\n But, according to Vigan\u00f2, his memo was ignored and no action was taken until the late 2000s \u2014 a delay which Archbishop Vigan\u00f2 claims is owed to complicity of John Paul II\u2019s and Benedict XVI\u2019s respective Secretaries\u00a0of State, Cardinals Angelo Sodano and Tarcisio Bertone.<\/p>\n In 2008, Archbishop Vigan\u00f2 claims he wrote a second memo, this time to Cardinal Sandri\u2019s successor as sostituto at the Secretariat of State, then Archbishop (later Cardinal)\u00a0Fernando Filoni. He included a summary of research carried out by Richard Sipe, a psychotherapist and specialist in clerical sexual abuse, which Sipe had sent Benedict in the form of a statement. Vigan\u00f2 said he ended the memo by \u201crepeating to my superiors that I thought it was necessary to intervene as soon as possible by removing the cardinal\u2019s hat from Cardinal McCarrick.\u201d<\/p>\n Again, according the Vigan\u00f2, his request fell on deaf ears and he writes he was \u201cgreatly dismayed\u201d that both memos were ignored until Sipe\u2019s \u201ccourageous and meritorious\u201d statement had \u201cthe desired result.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBenedict did what he had to do,\u201d Archbishop Vigan\u00f2 told the Register Aug. 25, \u201cbut his collaborators \u2014 the Secretary of State and all the others \u2014 didn\u2019t enforce it as they should have done, which led to the delay.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is certain,\u201d Vigan\u00f2 writes in his testimony, \u201cis that Pope Benedict imposed the above canonical sanctions on McCarrick and that they were communicated to him by the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, Pietro Sambi.\u201d<\/p>\n The Register has independently confirmed that the allegations against McCarrick were certainly known to Benedict, and the Pope Emeritus remembers instructing Cardinal Bertone to impose measures but cannot recall their exact nature.<\/p>\n In 2011, on arrival in Washington D.C., Archbishop Vigan\u00f2 said he personally repeated the sanction to McCarrick. \u201cThe cardinal, muttering in a barely comprehensible way, admitted that he had perhaps made the mistake of sleeping in the same bed with some seminarians at his beach house, but he said this as if it had no importance,\u201d Vigan\u00f2 recalled in his testimony.<\/p>\n In his written statement, Vigan\u00f2 then outlined his understanding of how, despite the allegations against him, McCarrick came to be appointed Archbishop of Washington D.C. in 2000 and how his misdeeds were covered up. His statement implicates Cardinals Angelo Sodano, Tarcisio\u00a0Bertone and Pietro\u00a0Parolin and he insists various other cardinals and bishops were well aware, including Cardinal Donald Wuerl, McCarrick\u2019s successor as archbishop of Washington D.C.<\/p>\n \u201cI myself brought up the subject with Cardinal Wuerl on several occasions, and I certainly didn\u2019t need to go into detail because it was immediately clear to me that he was fully aware of it,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n Ed McFadden, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Washington, told CNA that Wuerl categorically denies having been informed that McCarrick\u2019s ministry had been restricted by the Vatican.<\/p>\n The second half of Vigan\u00f2\u2019s testimony primarily deals with what Pope Francis knew about McCarrick, and how he acted.<\/p>\n He recalled meeting Cardinal McCarrick in June 2013 at the Pope\u2019s Domus Sanctae Marthae residence, during which McCarrick told him \u201cin a tone somewhere between ambiguous and triumphant: \u2018The Pope received me yesterday;\u00a0tomorrow I am going to China\u2019\u201d \u2014 the implication being that Francis had lifted the travel ban placed on him by Benedict. (Further evidence of this can be seen in this\u00a0interview<\/a>\u00a0McCarrick gave the National Catholic Reporter in 2014.)<\/p>\n At a private meeting a few days later, Archbishop Vigan\u00f2 said the Pope asked him \u201c\u2018What is Cardinal McCarrick like?\u2019\u201d to which the archbishop replied: \u201cHe corrupted generations of seminarians and priests and Pope Benedict ordered him to withdraw to a life of prayer and penance.\u201d The former nuncio said he believes the Pope\u2019s purpose in asking him was to \u201cfind out if I was an ally of McCarrick or not.\u201d<\/p>\n Freed From Constraints<\/strong><\/p>\n He said it was \u201cclear\u201d that \u201cfrom the time of Pope Francis\u2019s election, McCarrick, now free from all constraints, had felt free to travel continuously, to give lectures and interviews.\u201d<\/p>\n Moreover, he added, McCarrick had \u201cbecome the\u00a0kingmaker\u00a0<\/em>for appointments in the Curia and the United States, and the most listened to advisor in the Vatican for relations with the Obama administration.\u201d<\/p>\n Vigan\u00f2 claimed that the appointments of Cardinal Cupich to Chicago and Cardinal Joseph Tobin to Newark \u201cwere orchestrated by McCarrick,\u201d among others. He said neither of the names was presented by the nunciature, whose job is traditionally to present a list of names, or\u00a0terna<\/em>, to the Congregation for Bishops. He also added that Bishop Robert McElroy\u2019s appointment to San Diego was orchestrated \u201cfrom above\u201d rather than through the nuncio.<\/p>\n