https://youtu.be/LqFIVfPvTBU
United States groups representing survivors of sexual abuse by Catholic priests called Thursday on the Vatican to publish a list of clerics accused of sexual assault, even as they pressed the US Department of Justice to “do something about this.”
The calls came after Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, a former Vatican envoy to Washington, dropped an 11-page bombshell letter on Saturday accusing Pope Francis of ignoring sexual abuse allegations against prominent US cardinal Theodore McCarrick.
The 88-year-old former archbishop of Washington — one of the most senior Catholic leaders to face abuse allegations — resigned as cardinal in late July even as he denied the charges.
The Vatican dossier on McCarrick contains “underlying facts concerning Pope Francis and two other popes, Benedict and John Paul” that shows they covered up clerical sexual abuse, said Peter Isley with the group Ending Clergy Abuse (ECA).
The information “is in the pope’s file, let’s see it,” he said at a press conference outside the Vatican’s embassy in Washington.
“Why isn’t the Department of Justice looking into this? We’re citizens of the United States. Children are being harmed as citizens of the United States. Where is our embassy? Our embassy our ambassador?” Isley said.
Pamela Spees, lead counsel for Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), pushed for a federal investigation into this “cover-up” by the Catholic Church hierarchy of clergy sexual abuse.
“A federal investigation is necessary to be able to look at how this cover up and how the crimes are occurring throughout the country. And it can also look at what’s happening when they (the Catholic Church) send people abroad,” she said. (with Agence France Presse)
