One thing that intrigues me is that none has attracted the critical press attention that Wuerl or McCarrick had attracted before their ultimate downfall. Wuerl's opulent lifestyle was covered in Pittsburgh and Washington, while McCarrick's conduct with seminarians had reached the press in 2006, whether or not US bishops could insist they'd heard nothing about it but rumors. But the most we know about McElroy, Tobin and Cupich comes only from an implication in the first Viganò testimony:
Viganò claimed that the appointments of Cardinal Cupich to Chicago and Cardinal Joseph Tobin to Newark “were orchestrated by McCarrick,” among others. He said neither of the names was presented by the nunciature, whose job is traditionally to present a list of names, or terna, to the Congregation for Bishops. He also added that Bishop Robert McElroy’s appointment to San Diego was orchestrated “from above” rather than through the nuncio.So the "father" of this corruption turns out to be McCarrick, but we don't have a more complete record of sponsors and patrons that we earlier had of figures like Bernard Law or Donald Wuerl. In the wake of the Wuerl-McCarrick scandal, we have only hints. On McElroy,
The Bishop of San Diego has explained why he did not respond to a 2016 letter alleging sexual misconduct on the part of Archbishop Theodore McCarrick and other Catholic clerics.On Cupich, the most consistent cirticism comes from Church Militant, for instance:The letter was sent to Bishop Robert McElroy by psychotherapist Richard Sipe.
. . . Sipe wrote to Bishop McElroy in 2016, listing allegations against half a dozen bishops – including then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick – and warning of a broader problem of chastity violations among clergy.
According to a man who thinks he's a so-called transgender woman, the archbishop of Chicago is listening to him instead of his faithful priest, Fr. Paul Kalchik, the pastor of Resurrection Parish.The most we know about Tobin's rise is that the Archdiocese of Newark is characterized in Engle's The Rite of Sodomy as "gay friendly" and a predictable step in the career of an upwardly mobile gay bishop, as it was for McCarrick. Before he became Archbishop of Indianapolis, he spent about 15 years in the Vatican, where, speaking apparently good Spanish, he seems to have developed ties with Cardinal Bergoglio. Of other patrons and protectors, we seem so far to know little.The biological man, who goes by the name Alexandra Whitney, started a Twitter storm over the weekend claiming to have the cardinal's ear in having Fr. Kalchik ousted:
"I called and spoke to Cardinal Blase Cupich, Archbishop of the Diocese of Chicago. I shared my concerns with Cardinal Cupich about Fr. Kalchik's attacks on LGBTQ Catholics and how this priest is harming the Body of Christ."
UPDATE: Regarding Tobin, we have the episode of the "Nighty-night" tweet, which may or may not have been intended for his sister, as well as the Italian actor who was in residence at the rectory:
In late September, I started getting calls from concerned Catholics in Newark, New Jersey that Cardinal Joseph Tobin “had an Italian actor living at his cathedral basilica rectory.” The callers identified the actor as Francesco Castiglione. They said that Castiglione has been taking English and voice classes at Seton Hall University, and suggested that he is the real recipient of Tobin’s infamous accidental tweet from earlier this year. (“Nighty, Night baby, I love you,” Tobin wrote to someone whom he claimed later was one of his sisters; the sister has never published proof of receiving the tweet.). . . I got a call from a well-placed source in Newark. “Francesco is gone. He left the rectory,” my source informed me.
It's probably not an accident that none of these men has an extensive paper trail. If anyone can refer me to additional links, I'll be very happy to follow up.
