Letter From US Attorney McSwain To Cardinal DiNardo

A few sources, including USA Today and Church Militant, are carrying the story of a letter from U.S. Attorney William McSwain of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, President of the USCCB, putting "every archdiocese, diocese and Catholic entity on notice to preserve and not destroy evidence of priest abuse or a cover-up."

Government sources confirmed with Church Militant that the DOJ was seriously considering the possibility of a RICO prosecution of the Catholic Church. McSwain's Oct. 9 letter to the U.S. bishops further signals a move in that direction, based on whatever evidence is gathered in the preliminary investigation.

Michael Voris in a YouTube presentation goes somewhat farther in speculating about the implications.

The matters under investigation, according to Voris, include the transfer of priest violators across state lines and international borders, which he feels signals the beginning of a RICO investigation. I suspect that McCarrick and Wuerl will not be the last to be affected.

My impression, though, is that Voris tends to be overoptimistic about how much reform could result, and I very much doubt that loss of the Church's tax exemption would take place -- first, you'd have to go after the Scientologists, for instance.

But what I think this does reflect is an upending of what had been a generations-long tacit deal, under which the US bishops allowed prominent Catholic politicians to skate on life and public morality issues, while in return, politicians of both parties avoided or minimized serious prosecution of the Church on matters of abuse, as well as financial improprieties. Donald Trump has been changing US politics and culture on many levels. Trump won a majority of rank-and-file Catholics in 2016, and McSwain is a Trump appointee. His district doesn't include Pittsburgh, so there must be other targets in mind.

As I look more closely at the crisis, it seems to me that Engle's The Rite of Sodomy gives only an incomplete (and not fully reliable) picture of the networks of corruption, and allowing limited numbers of cardinals like Law, Mahony, Wuerl, and McCarrick to take the fall for a much bigger problem is not an adequate solution. But it will take more than one pope and more than one saint to set things right.