Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston was elected chairman of the Papal Foundation’s board of trustees during a meeting in Washington, D.C. Oct. 30, taking over from Cardinal Donald Wuerl, who served in the position for eight years.O'Malley has been the chief US figurehead of reform since the First Crisis erupted in 2002, but his performance has been mixed. The historians of the First Crisis haven't yet fully caught up to the Second, and the jury is still out on O'Malley, but his record so far is anything but squeaky-clean.. . . In 2017 Pope Francis asked CardinalWuerl for a $25 million grant through the foundation for the Church-owned hospital Istituto Dermopatico dell’Immacolata, which specializes in researching and treating skin diseases.
The Holy See later declined half the grant after objections from some board members. The critics went to the media, resulting in news coverage that questioned the integrity of the hospital and the wisdom of the foundation’s grant-making process.
The foundation responded to criticism by committing to taking any necessary corrective measures and pledging to provide members with the facts of the grant and a clearer understanding of the foundation’s mission and governance. It also committed itself “to renewing its bond of trust with the Holy See.”
Engle's The Rite of Sodomy characterizes O'Malley as a "troubleshooter" who emerged under John Paul II as a former Bishop of Fall River, MA who was sent to stabilize the Diocese of Palm Beach, FL in 2002 after Bishop Anthony O’Connell’s resignation there following charges for predatory harassment of eight seminarians. The following year, John Paul sent him to Boston to replace Cardinal Law. However, Engle hasn't followed up on his performance in Boston.
Philip Lawler has discussed O'Malley in Boston in several cases, although again, The Faithful Departed talks primarily of the period leading up to Law's removal. However, he does discuss the Talking About Touching program, required in all Boston Catholic schools. This was a rock-no-boats approach to the First Crisis, in which the US bishops chose to characterize the problem as primarily a pedophile issue, in which all adults, including family members, were potential offenders.
A group of parents in Norwood, MA had concerns about the program, saying that it raised specific sexual matters with very young children, effectively sex education, without giving them a clear moral framework.
But when the Norwood parents brought these concerns to the attention of the Boston archdiocese, they ran into a stone wall. Deacon Anthony Rizzuto, the official responsible for implementing this "personal safety" cur- riculum, admitted that he had not read the Vatican documents that the par- ents cited. . . . Deacon Rizzuto asked the parents why they would not trust the archdiocese to educate their children properly.O'Malley inherited another problem that Law hadn't addressed, a group called Voice of the Faithful and a spokesman, Fr Cuenin. Cuenin and the group publicly questioned Church teachings on birth control, divorce, women's ordination, and homosexuality. Law had taken no action, and following his arrival, O'Malley did nothing as well.Recent history had given parents ample reason to mistrust the archdiocese. But as they investigated the origins of the Talking about Touching curriculum, the Norwood parents found entirely new reasons for suspicion. The program had been developed in Seattle, by the Committee for Children. That group was an offshoot of an organization originally known as COYOTE (an acronym for "Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics"), which was founded by a self-described Wiccan priestess to work for the repeal of laws banning prostitution. To be sure, the organization had changed radically since its inception in the early 1970s. But the bizarre history of the Committee for Children certainly gave Catholic parents no reason to assume that the Talking about Touching program would reflect Christian moral principles.
A few Boston pastors joined the Norwood parents in opposition to Talking about Touching. Arguing that the program violated the innocence of children and the rights of parents, Father David Mullen informed the newly installed Archbishop O'Malley that he could not in conscience allow Talking about Touching in his parish. Rejecting the criticism, archdiocesan officials plowed ahead with their plans, announcing that Talking about Touching was to be a required part of the curriculum for every Catholic school and religious-education program. (p 194)
Finally, after two more years, O'Malley did remove Cuenin from his pastoral assignment. But even then the story had a strange twist. In September 2005 an audit by archdiocesan officials uncovered financial irregularities in the Newton parish, and Father Cuenin was asked to resign. Yet as the leading dissident in Boston left his post as pastor, archdiocesan officials took great pains to say that Cuenin was not being disciplined for heterodox views. He was removed because he accepted special stipends from parishioners, in a violation of archdiocesan policy. But was that fiscal policy more important than the Church teachings on sexuality and marriage, which Father Cuenin had questioned for years? (p 206)Church Militant, in a piece from last August, listed O'Malley as among the current senior figures of the Church whose credibility has been damaged by claims of ignorance in the Second Crisis:
Cardinal O'Malley was accused of failing to act on knowledge of McCarrick after a letter was sent to him in 2015. But O'Malley claims that his staff handled the letter and deemed it not credible.
