Vatican admits mistakes, denies cover-up of US ex-cardinal abuse

VATICAN CITY AFP Nov10, 2020-The Vatican on Tuesday denied covering up sexual abuse committed by a US ex-cardinal, admitting papal mistakes but saying Theodore McCarrick’s crimes had for years been nothing but rumours.   

A 450-page report on who knew what --and whether three consecutive popes overlooked McCarrick’s abuse of at least one teenage boy and a number of male seminarians -- said Polish Pope John Paul II had ignored warnings the cleric was toxic.   

The influential former archbishop of Washington DC, now 90, was stripped of his cardinal’s title in 2018 and his priest’s status in 2019.   

He was found guilty by the Vatican of the abuse of the teenager in the 1970s as well as years of misconduct --such as inviting seminarians to his beach house where he made them share his bed. But “what makes the document unprecedented is its willingness to confront the mistake that was made by a pope and now saint, John Paul II”.