UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter
Dennis Coday | Feb. 27, 2014 NCR Today
2014
In January, Cardinal Francis George prepared Chicago Catholics for a release of documents detailing the archdiocese’s mishandling of clergy accused of sexually abusing minors. An archdiocesan statement described the documents as “upsetting” and “painful to read.” The decisions church officials made decades ago “are now difficult to justify” but were based on “the prevailing knowledge at the time,” it said.
George’s letter specifically addressed the case Daniel McCormack, a priest that the cardinal would eventually defrock, but whom he allowed to stay in ministry — against the advice of his review board — for months after allegations against McCormack surfaced. George only removed him after McCormack’s second arrest in 2006.
“The response, in retrospect, was not always adequate to all the facts, but a mistake is not a cover up,” George wrote.
2013
Last fall, as details emerged about how the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese mishandled cases of clergy sexually abusing of minors, Archbishop John Nienstedt acknowledged mistakes: “Our policies and procedures may not have been uniformly followed.”
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