Catholic Church cardinals implicated in sex abuse, cover-ups
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The conviction of French Cardinal Philippe Barbarin for failing to report a known pedophile priest to police deepens the crisis confronting an already discredited Catholic Church hierarchy. The verdict handed down by magistrates Thursday shows the church’s once-untouchable “princes” increasingly are judged accountable for priests who abuse children and the superiors who allowed the abuse to continue.
After centuries of impunity, cardinals from Chile to Australia and points in between are facing justice in both the Vatican and government courts for their own sexual misdeeds or for having shielded abusers under their watch..
Here is a look at cases implicating Catholic cardinals, members of the exclusive club of prelates that advises the pope and eventually elects his successor.
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AUSTRALIA – CARDINAL GEORGE PELL
In December, the Vatican’s former finance minister was convicted in his native Australia of sexually abusing two boys in the 1990s.
Pell was convicted of orally raping a 13-year-old choirboy and indecently dealing with the boy and his 13-year-old friend in 1996 and 1997, months after the 77-year-old cardinal became archbishop of Melbourne.
Pell has denied wrongdoing and planned to appeal. He is scheduled to be sentenced next week.
Each of his five convictions carries a potential 10-year maximum sentence.
After his conviction, the Vatican said its sex crimes office had opened an investigation and confirmed the Sydney archbishop restricted Pell’s ministry after the cardinal returned to Australia to face trial.
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UNITED STATES – EX-CARDINAL THEODORE McCARRICK
Francis last month defrocked the onetime leader of the American church after an internal investigation determined McCarrick sexually molested children and adult men; some of the molestation took place during confession. It was the first time a cardinal had been defrocked over the scandal.
One of McCarrick’s victims has filed a police report and spoken to prosecutors in New York City, but it is unclear if any criminal charges can be brought given so much time has passed since the abuse occurred.
The McCarrick scandal has implicated high-ranking churchmen in both the United States and at the Vatican since it was apparently an open secret he slept with adult seminarians.
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CHILE – CARDINALS JAVIER ERRAZURIZ AND RICCARDO EZZATI
The current and former archbishops of Santiago are under investigation by Chilean prosecutors for allegedly covering up for abusive priests.
Errazuriz, who retired as Santiago archbishop in 2010, was recently forced to resign from Francis’ kitchen cabinet after the depth of his cover-up was exposed last year.
His successor, Ezzati, was sued this week by a man who accused him of protecting a priest who allegedly drugged and raped him in the Santiago cathedral. The victim first filed a complaint with Ezzati in 2015. Ezzati issued a church sentence against the priest last year.
Prosecutors have overseen raids of church offices around the country. Ezzati and Errazuriz have so far refused to answer questions in the investigation.
Francis secured offers of resignation from every active Chilean bishop last year as part of Vatican efforts to clean up the Chilean church.
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SCOTLAND – CARDINAL KEITH O’BRIEN
O’Brien, once the highest-ranking Catholic leader in Britain, recused himself from the 2013 conclave that elected Francis pope after unidentified priests alleged in British newspaper reports that he acted inappropriately toward them.
The priests said they had complained to church authorities about O’Brien’s conduct but never received a response. None of the men were thought to have been minors when the alleged inappropriate behavior took place.
In 2015, Francis accepted O’Brien’s resignation after he relinquished the rights and privileges of being a cardinal. The decision was reached after the Vatican sent its top sex crimes investigator to Scotland to look into the allegations.
O’Brien was allowed to retain the title of cardinal and he died a cardinal in 2018.
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BELGIUM – CARDINAL GODFRIED DANNEELS
The retired head of Belgium’s Catholic Church has been under fire since 2010, when he was caught on tape suggesting that a victim of a serial predator bishop keep quiet until the man retired.
Two weeks after Danneels met with the victim, Bishop Roger Vangheluwe of Bruges resigned and expressed sorrow for having long abused his nephew, both as a priest and after becoming a bishop.
Danneels had told the victim it would do him no good going public, and he urged him to forgive his uncle.
Francis has been criticized for having included Danneels, considered a key supporter in his 2013 election, in important church meetings since the scandal.
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UNITED STATES – CARDINAL BERNARD LAW
Law resigned in disgrace as archbishop of Boston in 2002 following revelations he hid clergy abuse involving dozens of priests who raped and sexually molested children, the scandal chronicled by the Boston Globe that led to the reckoning in the U.S. church.
More than any other prelate, he epitomized the Catholic Church’s failure to protect children from pedophile priests and its arrogance in safeguarding its own reputation at all costs.
St. John Paul II’s decision to promote Law to head St. Mary Major basilica in 2004 reinforced the impression the Vatican still hadn’t grasped the scale of the child abuse problem, the trauma it caused its victims, and the moral credibility the church had lost as a result.
At Law’s Vatican funeral last year, Francis prayed for a merciful final judgment.
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AUSTRIA — CARDINAL HANS HERMANN GROER
Groer was allowed to retire on schedule as archbishop of Vienna in 1995 despite multiple allegations he sexually abused young boys at a seminary. He died in 2003 without ever facing civil or canonical justice.
His successor as Vienna archbishop, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, in 2010 accused the Vatican secretary of state at the time of the scandal, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, of being behind a cover-up and blocking a Vatican investigation of Groer’s crimes.
The same year, the Vatican gave Schoenborn a rare dressing down for his comments about Sodano, reminding him that only the pope can level accusations against a cardinal.
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VATICAN — CARDINAL ANGELO SODANO
As the powerful Vatican secretary of state under John Paul, Sodano has long been held in part responsible for the Vatican’s refusal to take action against pedophile priests.
More than anyone, he has been blamed for blocking a church investigation into the 20th century Catholic Church’s most notorious predator, the Rev. Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legion of Christ religious order.
Francis recently referred to how then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — the future Pope Benedict XVI — initially failed to secure a sanction against Maciel, a veiled reference to the weight Cardinal Sodano wielded on the decisions of Ratzinger’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
“He (Ratzinger) went with all his files. And when he returned he told his secretary, ‘Put them in the archive. The other side won,'” Francis said. “But then, once he became pope, the first thing he said was ‘Bring me the files from the archive,’ and he started.”
Eventually, the Vatican under Benedict sanctioned Maciel to a lifetime of penance and prayer for his crimes.
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