The Vatican announced on Saturday that Francis ordered McCarrick to conduct a “life of prayer and penance” even before a church trial is held.
Breaking with past practice, Francis decided to act swiftly in the case of the emeritus archbishop of Washington DC even before the accusations can be investigated by church officials.
McCarrick was previously one of the highest, most well-known Catholic church officials in the United States and was heavily involved in the church’s response to allegations of priestly abuse.
The pope has ordered McCarrick’s “suspension from the exercise of any public ministry, together with the obligation to remain in a house yet to be indicated to him, for a life of prayer and penance until the accusations made against him are examined in a regular canonical trial”.
Among the boys McCarrick allegedly abused was a child he had baptised shortly after he was ordained a priest.
Francis received McCarrick’s letter offering to resign from the College of Cardinals on Friday evening, after recent weeks brought a spate of allegations that the 88-year-old prelate had for years sexually abused boys and had sexual misconduct with seminarians.
The McCarrick case posed a test of the pontiff’s recently declared resolve to battle what he called a “culture of cover-up” of similar abuses in the Catholic…
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