CHICAGO (IL)
National Catholic Reporter
Joshua J. McElwee | Jan. 9, 2014
To prepare for next week’s release of historical files on 30 priests removed from ministry following allegations of sexual abuse, Chicago Cardinal Francis George has taken a defensive stance on his handling of the issue, asserting that the public narrative “has been largely fashioned by plaintiffs’ lawyers and other activists.”
Reliance on these sources, George wrote, “deliberately distorts or ignores points that would mitigate the charge of Archdiocesan neglect.”
In a letter to be released in Chicago’s 356 parishes Sunday, George says he wants to “put on the public record” several facts about his and the archdiocese’s handling of accused priests.
Among one of those facts is that when he was appointed Chicago’s archbishop in 1997, he was unaware of the actions of one of the city’s most notorious priest abusers, he writes.
George states that when he took over the archdiocese from the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, he did not know of accusations against Daniel McCormack, an archdiocesan priest who pleaded guilty in 2007 of sexually abusing five young men and has been the subject since of dozens of civil suits leading to tens of millions of dollars in settlements.
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