The eyes of the world were already going to be on Rome this week, where some of the most senior Church leaders have gathered for a four-day meeting on child protection. Pope Francis convoked the meeting last September after more than seven months of unremitting scandal that began with his own mishandling of a case in Chile.
Last Saturday, the Vatican announced that Pope Francis had expelled the disgraced former Archbishop of Washington, DC, Theodore McCarrick, from the clerical state after the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith found him guilty of several canonical crimes, including the sexual abuse of both minors and adults and the solicitation of sex during the Sacrament of Confession. The Vatican also said that “abuse of power” was an aggravating factor in McCarrick’s guilt.
