This insight gets within shouting distance of the problem, and it's clear that Msgr Pope isn't quite comfortable even with shouting distance -- if Cardinal Tobin succeeds Wuerl in Washington, things could go south for him in a hurry. Arroyo presses on with what seems to be the consensus response to the Second Crisis, a lay-led investigation into how Cardinal McCarrick was able to advance in the hierarchy despite his clear record of sexual predation.
This is a lot like the calculated indirection that "explained" the First Crisis, that it was a series of bad apples, marginal priests who had a pedophilia problem at a time when the condition was poorly understood blah blah blah, and the Virtus program has been put in place to deal with it, blah blah blah. That the nice middle-aged ladies who serve as lectors must be trained in where not to touch toddlers is not, of course, the real issue, but everyone goes on pretending it's the solution.
By the same token, what is a "lay-led investigation" into McCarrick going to turn up that we don't already know? Engle's The Rite of Sodomy covers McCarrick quite fully. For instance,
Cardinal Spellman ordained Father McCarrick on May 31, 1951. He served as secretary to Cardinal Cooke from 1971 to 1977, when Cooke made him an Auxiliary Bishop of New York.And in the footnote:New York insiders glibly refer to McCarrick by his feminine name “Blanche” and Vatican officials have long been aware of his penchant for young handsome seminarians. [74] McCarrick has ordained at least three homosexual bishops.
Yet, here is a man who the Holy See permitted to play the fool before an international audience of reporters on the question of the ordination of homosexual candidates to the priesthood and the existence of a homosexual network within the Church.
How far has the rot gone? All the way to the top. (p 758)
74 The charge that Cardinal McCarrick is a homosexual prelate who preys on seminarians was made public by whistleblower Father James Haley in December 2005, shortly after The Rite of Sodomy went to press. See Matt C. Abbott, “Priest accuses U.S. cardinal of abuse of power,” 2 December 2005 at http://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_10585.shtml. Several years later, author Richard Sipe confirmed McCarrick’s homosexual proclivities on his web site at http://www.richardsipe.com. “The Archdiocese of Newark September 2009—Questions About the Status of Clergy Abuse Schulte/Gillen; Sita; & McCarrick,” and “The Cardinal McCarrick Syndrome” are two articles by Sipe which further substantiate the charge of homosexual exploitation of clergy and seminarians by the cardinal. According to Sipe, McCarrick’s homosexuality was known at the time of his installation as the first bishop of Metuchen. This was on January 31, 1982. The New Jersey diocese was erected especially for him by Pope John Paul II on November 19, 1981. Readers will recall that McCarrick was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of New York by homosexual Francis Cardinal Spellman, and later served as secretary to Spellman’s successor Terence James Cardinal Cooke, also a homosexual. The McCarrick case is a classic example of intergenerational homosexuality in the Roman Catholic hierarchy today. (p 762)I don't see the point of a new lay-led investigation that will take months or years to restate what's been documented in a decades-old public record. But Arroyo is correct, and echoes Engle, in saying that one part of the problem is intergenerational homosexuality. The chain of "paternity" referred to by Arroyo is fully known. It's just as well known with his successor Wuerl.
What we don't know yet, at least in the full public record, is what's up with Tobin, Cupich, and others. I would say this is where lay-led investigation would be much more profitable.
