Vatican City, Nov 10, 2020 / 10:30 am (CNA).- The Vatican’s report on Theodore McCarrick released Tuesday includes a letter written by an American cardinal in 1999, who objected to McCarrick’s potential appointment to higher office, on the basis of existing allegations of misconduct, including incidents involving sharing a bed with seminarians at a New Jersey beach house.
On Oct. 28, 1999, Cardinal John O’Connor of New York wrote a letter to the U.S. apostolic nuncio, Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, after the cardinal learned that McCarrick was under consideration to be appointed his successor as archbishop of New York. That letter was shared with Pope John Paul II shortly thereafter, the Vatican’s McCarrick Report states.
“With deep regret, I would have to express my own grave fears and those of authoritative witnesses cited above, that should Archbishop McCarrick be given higher responsibility in the United States, particularly if elevated to a Cardinatial See, seem[] sound reasons for believing that rumors and allegations about the past might surface with such an appointment, with the possibility of accompanying grave scandal and widespread adverse publicity,” O’Connor wrote.
He added that “while charity must prevail and the benefit of the doubt always given to the ‘accused,’ the good of souls and the reputation of the Church must be seriously considered and the potential for scandal given equally serious consideration.”
“I can not, therefore, in conscience, recommend His Excellency, Archbishop McCarrick for promotion to higher office, should this be the reason for your inquiry concerning him at this time. On the contrary, I regret that I would have to recommend very strongly against such promotion, particularly if to a Cardinatial See, including New York.”
O’Connor wrote in 1999 that authoritative sources had told him that stories about McCarrick frequently arranging for seminarians to visit a New Jersey beach house circulated in the dioceses of Newark and Metuchen, specifically that “the arrangement was for seven seminarians, six of whom shared the guestrooms and one of whom shared the bed with the Archbishop.”
He said that a key authority had informed him that he believed “that some problem did occur involving at least one person, perhaps a priest, and that Bishop Hughes handled that personally and secretly.”
O’Connor said that he had personally asked a priest psychologist of New York archdiocese to speak with the psychiatrist who was treating a priest involved.
“Both the priest psychologist and the psychiatrist seem convinced that the priests or priests (sic) in treatment were victimized, willingly or unwillingly, in their inappropriate relationship with the then Bishop McCarrick, while Bishop of Metuchen,” O’Connor wrote in the letter. He added that he did not find these findings “definitely persuasive,” but could not dismiss their findings “because of the gravity of the allegations.”
O’Connor also raised concerns about McCarrick’s “seemingly incessant need to travel outside of the archdiocese to different parts of the world,” saying that he questioned whether there could be “any relationship between this seeming need to travel outside the archdiocese and his apparently having put his former alleged inclinations behind him.”
Cardinal O’Connor led the Archdiocese of New York from 1984 until his death on May 3, 2000. He was a major figure of American Catholicism and an outspoken defender of the faith and Catholic moral teaching.
The report notes that O’Connor conducted “the first known inquiry related to concerns over McCarrick’s conduct.” In the early 1990s, O’Connor investigated anonymous complaints against McCarrick ahead of a potential papal visit to Newark. He concluded that allegations of possible misconduct with adults would not present an issue if the pope were to visit Newark.
In 1997, McCarrick was being considered to lead the Archdiocese of Chicago. While he was generally praised as a strong candidate, O’Connor questioned whether he would provide the “firmness necessary to ‘compensate’ for the prevailing permissiveness” following the tenure of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, the report said. However, it added that O’Connor “admitted” that McCarrick could be effective in addressing theological abuses. McCarrick was ultimately not selected for the role.
The 1999 letter from O’Connor is included in the 449-page McCarrick Report on pages 131-140. The report indicates that “it is reasonable to infer” that Bishop James T. McHugh, the former auxiliary bishop of Newark, and Bishop Edward T. Hughes, the bishop emeritus of Metuchen, were O’Connor’s sources of information regarding these allegations.
O’Connor wrote that John Paul II had made clear to him in a meeting early in the summer of 1999 that he was considering appointing McCarrick to another diocese, potentially as O’Connor’s successor in New York.
After this, O’Connor expressed concern to the nuncio Montalvo in late July, saying that he was aware of “some elements of a moral nature that advised against” McCarrick’s consideration. Montalvo requested that O’Connor put his concerns in writing.
O’Connor’s letter is dated Oct. 28, only weeks after the cardinal’s release from hospital following surgery to remove a brain tumor. O’Connor died from this tumor the following May.
In the letter, O’Connor wrote that he was concerned by events related to him by “absolutely impeccable authorities as occurring in the Archdiocese of Newark during this past year.”
Among these is that “after Archbishop McCarrick was appointed as Ordinary, it was said that he would frequently invite male visitors for dinner and to stay overnight. Usually they shared a bed, although there were sufficient guestrooms … This did not become known outside the house, but it was a cause of concern for those who live there.”
Cardinal O’Connor also recommended to the nuncio several people that he could follow up with for further information regarding McCarrick, including Bishop McHugh and the attorney of the Archdiocese of Newark, Thomas Durkin, noting that the lawyer had “spoken with him [McCarrick] very forthrightly about rumors and allegations cited above.”
Upon receiving the letter, Montalvo forwarded it to the Congregation for Bishops and to the Secretariat of State. Archbishop Giovanni Battista Re, at that time the Substitute of the Secretariat of State, informed Pope John Paul II of Cardinal O’Connor’s letter, according to the report.
Montalvo left it to Re to “inform the Holy Father as to the matter in the manner you deem appropriate,” according to a handwritten note sent to Re.
O’Connor’s letter was sent the day after a letter sent by Nuncio Montalvo to the Congregation for Bishops describing Washington Cardinal James Aloysius Hickey’s endorsement of McCarrick as his first choice for the New York see, and acknowledging concern from Cardinal Bernard Francis Law that “vague allusions are enough to damage the position of a person.”
At the request of John Paul II, in response to the allegations recorded in O’Connor’s letter, separate but “substantively identical letters” were sent to Bishops Vincent Breen and Edward Hughes of Metuchen, Bishop James McHugh of Rockville Centre, and Bishop John Smith of Trenton on May 12, 2000, asking for the truth about McCarrick.
“Three of the four American bishops provided inaccurate and incomplete information to the Holy See regarding McCarrick’s sexual conduct with young adults,” the report concluded.
The bishops presenting false information were Hughes, Smith, and McHugh.
The letter of Bishop Hughes, who succeeded McCarrick in Metuchen, told the Holy See that: “I have no factual information that would clearly indicate any moral weakness on the part of Archbishop McCarrick.”
Hughes’ letter dismissed the accounts of some priests who had reported to him being molested or abused by McCarrick, even when, in one case, a psychologist affirmed that the priest had been McCarrick’s victim. Hughes noted moral lapses on the part of the priests accusing McCarrick, while dismissing their claims against the archbishop.
In fact, the bishop’s letter did not mention at all some incidents of sexual abuse or coercion that had been reported to him by Metuchen priests, according to the report.
While in O’Connor’s letter written months before, O’Connor wrote that Hughes, then bishop of Metuchen, had handled the problem by the New Jersey beach house “personally and secretly.”
O’Connor added: “I, myself, recall talking with Bishop Hughes by telephone very privately, regarding this same case, which did in fact involve at least one priest, and perhaps two. As I recall, both where (sic) in psychiatric treatment.”
Smith, who had been an auxiliary bishop in Newark, told the nuncio that “I have never heard anyone make a substantiated accusation of immoral behavior against Archbishop McCarrick nor have I any evidence of ‘serious moral weakness shown by Archbishop McCarrick.’”
But according to the report, Smith himself had in 1990 witnessed McCarrick groping the groin of a young cleric during a dinner with several officials from the archdiocese of Newark. Smith’s letter made no mention of that incident.
McHugh, then auxiliary bishop of Newark, was present at the same 1990 dinner and also saw the groping, but he wrote in his letter that he “never witnessed any improper behavior on the part of Archbishop McCarrick.”
The misinformation presented by those bishops was part of what may have informed Pope John Paul II’s decision to appoint McCarrick archbishop of Washington in November 2000, the report said.
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Pope Francis says “homosexuality is a sin” but is pushing its legalization?
Pope Francis keeps allowing one James Martin to seduce him into these ideas?
Pope Francis and James Martin have a merit to hide who else is involved?
Pope Francis equates buggery with “sexual intercourse outside marriage”?
Pope Francis wants to make this into a “Magisterium” and into acts of piety?
The “conversational tone” of an interview makes up for what really should be taught but isn’t?
Pope Francis says if you do not join in you are Pelagian and/or Jansenist?
Pope Francis calls this clarification? …. when …. James Martin asked for it?
James Martin merits this welcome and specific clarification, but not the four cardinals who authored the dubia?
I think there’s an abiding ambiguity in the Pope’s thinking on the relationship between sin and culpability. According to the Church, my lack of full knowledge or deliberate consent may mitigate or nullify my culpability for an objectively disordered act, but this does not mean that the act is permissible for me even in a qualified or provisional sense, even for the sake of avoiding a greater evil.
Pope Francis suggests just the opposite in his response to the Argentine Bishops’ Letter, which argues I could discern that it is not presently possible for me to avoid sex outside marriage if to do so would lead to a greater sin, though it may become possible in the future with the help of grace. The issue here is not really a lack of full knowledge or deliberate consent. On the contrary, I have deliberated on my options, and have decided that it is necessary for me to consent to sex outside marriage in order to avoid some consequence that I judge to be a greater evil (e.g., subjecting my children to divorce, etc).
This is not the Church’s teaching. It is consequentialism with a smiling face. No matter how difficult my present circumstances may be, I can keep God’s law with the help of His grace. To say otherwise is not Christian mercy, but moral determinism. It is to strip us of agency and dignity, to deny the share Christ gives us in the victory of the Cross.
All this, of course, is old news, but it makes it difficult for me to take the Pope’s much-welcome correction of James Martin at face value. Francis tends to stretch the Church’s teaching on mitigated culpability from something like a distinction between degrees of murder to a distinction between murder and self-defense. If it is sometimes impossible for divorced and remarried couples to avoid sex outside marriage, and if we must treat all sexual sins alike, could it sometimes be impossible for gay couples too? If so, what is the point of re-affirming that homosexual acts are always sins?
“…of course, one must also consider the circumstances, which may decrease or eliminate fault.”
Yes, in individual cases, but from this will James Martin now manufacture the endorsement he needs to proclaim that LGBTQ as a category (!) is exempt from the natural law, the dubia and the Magisterium’s Veritatis Splendor?
What would such an endorsement mean when, instead, the homosexual tendency is triggered or locked in by early sexual abuse, by random sexual experimentation, by the trauma of absentee or abusive fathers, by cultural victimization? Ought the Church to truly affirm the victim persons and call for confronting and healing the entire package of such background abuses–at, say, the “aggregated, compiled and synthesized” Synod on Synodality? Fat chance. But perhaps James Martin will supply Cardinals Hollerich and Radcliffe with the needed wording!
But then there’s also the science–a literature review, plus the lab finding of a few genome “markers” of little explanatory value, and no gay gene:
One recent STUDY in the mix is a review of two hundred peer-reviewed studies on sexual orientation and gender identity. The conclusion: gender identity is not an innate, fixed property of human beings independent of biological sex (Mayer/McHugh, The New Atlantis: A Journal of Technology and Society, Ethics and Public Policy Center, No. 50, Fall 2016).
Other GENOME RESEARCH points to some genetic markers—it does not find a gay gene— and concludes that these markers do not account for same-sex behavior. https://news.yahoo.com/no-gay-gene-study-finds-180220669.html
Well to have clarified his remarks, although Pope Francis apparently doesn’t distinguish between sexual sins in the natural order, and those moral injustices that are a form of hostility to the natural order. Such are homosexual sins. Why the difference?
God ordained human sexual behavior exclusive to a man and woman. The sin then offends God as a sin outside marriage, and a sin against natural law. Also, the common opinion of late is that the predilection toward same sex is not sinful described as such ‘attraction’. The error in this while it’s apparently true that some have a deep seated same sex attraction that of itself may not be sinful -similarly, the historical evidence shows homosexuality behavior can be an acquired sexual dysfunction.
Francis clouds this distinction. That leads many to assume a form of liceity in that sodomy is no less grievous than natural sexual activity between a man and woman, adding to the willingness to engage in unnatural sex. As well as the Pontiff’s frequent admonition, this is how God made you, he loves you as you are. Hearing this from a pontiff weakens resistance to homosexuality, often for some encourages it.
Well said! The pope’s comment was rather shocking. As we read in scripture God condemns homosexuality which is an abomination to Him and for the pope to suggest that those who choose to disobey God should be given any consideration is wrong and speaks volume for a person in his position.
I could just imagine all the heads exploding in “America” offices all over the land as they hear Pope Francis saying that homosexuality is a SIN.
“He can’t say that!” they all cried out at once. James Martin swooned and had to be helped to the nearest fainting couch.
“We need to get him to issue a clarification right away” all the world’s Jesuits screamed in unison. “No one can know that homosexuality is sinful in any respect! We must have full papal approval of homosexuality, at least in the public mind!”
And so, Pope Francis did what he was told.
Pope Francis says “of course, one must also consider the circumstances which may decrease or eliminate fault.” The catechism, however, clearly states that homosexual acts “under no circumstances can they be approved.” The catechism makes things clear, the pope’s statement does not. Some could claim that love for a same sex partner eliminates the moral fault of homosexual acts,
Agreed. I posted a rather over-longish comment about this above.
Pax
Rene, this conflated concept of mitigation is the lever used in Amoris Laetitia to neutralize intrinsically evil acts. John Paul II warned not to make mitigation [in Amoris as you correctly note mitigating circumstances] a category, as a classification of moral acts. Grace is what’s absent in Ch 8 Amoris Laetitia, a surreptitious omission. When the Apostle Paul complained of Satan’s thorn in his side [Aquinas considered Paul’s affliction a moral temptation] Our Lord answered him, ‘My grace is sufficient. My power is perfected in weakness’.
Dear, dear Francis,
I stopped listening to anything you say or write a long, long time ago. Issue an encyclical or make pronouncements ex cathedra on a matter of faith and moral and then I’ll listen and obey. But your day to day remarks are not only confusing but you’re forever contradicting yourself.
Absolutely! Thank God that Francis hasn’t made any doctrinal ex cathedra edicts and pray that he doesn’t.
Up against the abyss, Pope Francis?
The Holy Spirit protects the Deposit of Faith.
I am deeply concerned over this pontiff and his comments.
I wish there was a way, outside of prayer, that we can address our concerns in a spirit of filial love and correction to this Holy Father, similar to St Paul’s rebuke of St Peter, or that of an adult son to his elderly father.
An interesting, albeit sad,turn of events. James Martin left his two audiences with Francis feeling encouraged and supported, probably due to his sense that the pontiff was on his side. But this is just another example of Francis doublespeak. Homosexual acts are sin. The church has taught this for centuries. There really is no need for clarification. Martin needs to either repent or be laicized.
I vote for laicization, as repentance seems to be off the table.
Last time I checked (okay, I never did, but still) mixing ammonia and bleach is not a crime, or even a sin as far as I know, but it is still an incredibly stupid thing to do, and carries with it the possibility of very, very scary breathing difficulties, if not death.
.
Maybe sodomy should be looked at that way. Not a crime, but incredibly stupid and harmful on many, many levels. Not something that can ever be approved of and should always and everywhere be discouraged–including in marriage–an institution that is exclusively between and man and woman.
A sound and sensible take on the issue.
These are not equal comparisons as mixing bleach & ammonia are not known from research or millenia of human experience to be a “dysfunctional behavior against Natural Law” – as IS sodomy and all homosexual sexual behaviors. The ramifications of homosexual sexual behaviors are immediately harmful both naturally & eternally to the people involved, and the consequences of harm and destruction from even one encounter can expand like an algae bloom in summer, and from the common on-going behavior (“gay culture”) explode with far-reaching and forever consequences like the radiation from nuclear explosion/melt-down.
A very good analogy there, the mixing of ammonia and bleach. Unfortunately, with sodomy some have apparently to learn the hard way or, worse yet, never do.
As soon as you read “Pope Francis clarifies comments” you know it is safe to stop reading.
You got it!
I get your point and agree in part. However, I’m not sure it’s ever safe. He is rather like the old uncle or grandpa who keeps coming to family reunions and embarrasses (almost) everyone with his inappropriate comments and behavior. It’s egregious stuff, but nobody seems to be able to stop him. So he keeps roiling things up and fouling the air until, finally, he falls asleep in a rocking chair. Then, then we have a moment of peace and sanity.
God said homosexuality is a sin both in the old and new testament LONG before any pope meekly mentioned it. It’s really sad that you all rely on a catechism made up by sinful men that doesn’t correspond exactly to God’s word. The world is watching as the Catholic church crumbles before their very eyes.
The Old and New Testaments were written by sinful men.
Inspired by the Holy Spirit
Still sinful (the men, that is).
Sinful men under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit so God’s word that the Catholic Church took liberty with and altered it to suit their purpose.
The Pope is implying the realities of voluntary and involuntary homosexuality. The former are sinful and the latter possibly not, as especially when in youth under non-cognitive exploration, a person discovers sexual response though no one taught him nor did one learn it from a source (i.e. ‘it just happened’). If one does not know, then culpability is indeed mitigated. But the one who has already gained full knowledge of disorder (has taken the eternal curriculum of heterosexuality and chastity) and acts out still, ‘will be severely beaten’, in consequence.
Dr/Fr Ripperger has covered this area called ‘involuntary vice’. But someone should write an entire book on this topic, because the tendency of the creature who has already voluntarily or involuntarily wired or configured his body to same-sex attraction (or any other disordered intoxication) preference, searches for every cognitive instance that will legitimize his configuration, to make licit the acting out in the preference. Addicts and compulsives do the same gymnastic of malaprop ‘understanding’ of commentary.
The pope is plying mercy to these vast grey areas, but unawake sinners/the misconfigured accept only what conforms to intoxication preference. Scripture often gets misinterpreted in the same way, in a twilight before facing the fact of disorder.
It is a very complicated area, arriving at actual moral culpability, because inner physical/psychological adolescent maturation often lacks guidance and occurs in total secrecy, and gets ‘locked’ into disordered patterns before cognition, reason or knowledge can undo them.
Conversion is a slow awakening to what got misconfigured, how it should have been configured, and where to get the desire to desist the old and find a home in the new: to change, to be reconfigured: redemption. For many it will take a lifetime of struggle to overcome the Beast who wants to gain the interior permanent upper hand. Which many do not want to make since the misconfiguration is not their fault and because there is deep unfortunate attachment to the intoxication preference.
These are some things the Pope could share with the press, which would have the impossible(!) effect of awakening, remorse, shock, release, amazement, understanding. That’s my prayer. Speak actual truth from the inner world of the sufferer, so he can come to freedom.
Very sad and disappointing that the Holy Father was so quick to clarify his comments in response to the inquiry of Fr. Martin; yet… 4 Cardinals of the Church asked for clarification of the Holy Fathers writings over 6 years ago (the dubia) and these have still not been addressed.
The lackadaisical “clarification” only compounded confusion about what constitutes a sin by persons experiencing same sex attraction. Sexual misbehavior is often a mortal sin, particularly such acts between persons of the same sex. While there are always mitigating circumstances, and only God can judge any particular soul, the Church should always strive to emphasize the “narrow gate” and that obstinate ignorance is not an excuse. Moreover, this would have been a most opportune occasion to strengthen the understanding of what is a God recognized marriage and Holy Matrimony. Instead we received a nuanced response from the Pope that “sex outside marriage” is a sin without soul saving instruction on either. Is there any wonder that Biden and Co Catholics may really believe that same sex “marriage” and funded abortion is supported by the Church?
Pope Francis said the homosexual act is not a crime. Well in some Muslim countries it is a crime.