US Cardinals (From L) Justin Francis Rigali, Adam Joseph Maida, Edward Michall Egan, Roger Michael Mahony, Francis George, William Henry Keeler and Theodore McCarrick pose at the North American College in Rome 17 April 2005. (GREGORIO BORGIA/AFP via Getty Images)
The brute fact is that that they don’t just happen out of nowhere. Rather, McCarricks are the malign by-products of a system ostensibly designed to create something else entirely: bishops who are, as per Canon 378, ‘outstanding in solid faith, good morals, piety, zeal for souls, wisdom, prudence, and human virtues’. While we have no doubt that the system succeeds in producing those as well, it clearly suffers from significant vulnerabilities.
