CHICAGO (IL)
CBS Chicago
[with video]
Jay Levine
CHICAGO (CBS) — A letter from Francis Cardinal George on sex abuse cases by Chicago area priests will appear in church bulletins throughout the Archdiocese on Sunday.
The letter contains an apology and a plea from Francis Cardinal George to Chicago area parishioners as attorneys prepare to release documents detailing sexual abuse by 30 priests.
CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine has obtained the letter to be read at mass this week.
The names of nearly all 30 priests guilty of sexual misconduct have been listed on the Archdiocese website for years. Just three of them, who’d died before allegations against them surfaced, are new, as is the Cardinal’s most complete explanation yet, a personal defense of the one which occurred on his watch.
It’s the case of Daniel McCormack, now defrocked and in state custody for molesting young parishioners on the West Side. McCormack was allowed to return to his parish after being arrested in 2005 because, the Cardinal writes, “various offices involved did not consistently share what they knew with each other or with me.”
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