Calling the Pope a Liar

Email correspondence shows disgraced ex-Cardinal Theoore McCarrick was place under Vatican restrictions in 2008 for having sex with seminarians, but he regularly flouted those sanctions with the apparent knowledge of Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis. 

The emails, released last week by a former aide, make it clear that retired Washington Cardinal Donald Wuerl knew about the restrictions, despite claims of ignorance after the McCarrick scandal exploded last year.  Pope Francis defrocked McCarrick earlier this year after a church investigation confirmed that McCarrick sexually abused minors and adults.

The existence of prior Vatican sanctions on McCarrick has been the subject of debate ever since a retired Vatican diplomat accused Pope Francis of rehabilitating McCarrick from the restrictions in 2013 despite knowing of his behavior.

Pope Francis initially denied knowing anything about McCarrick's prior history of sexual abuse.  But as the secret emails were being made public, the Vatican communications office updated Vatican records-- which (in the new version) say that Francis did not remember having been told of McCarrick's past behavior in 2013.  Pope Francis' critics accused the Vatican of trying to re-write the official version of the events in order to deflect criticism away from the Pope.  

Most vocal among those critics is retired Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who claims that Pope Francis removed the sanctions against McCarrick and made McCarrick "his trusted counselor," even though Francis knew from 2013 that McCarrick was a serial predator. "He knew that he was a corrupt man, he covered for him to the bitter end," said  Viganò.

In a letter containing these allegations, Viganò called on Francis and all others who covered up McCarrick's conduct to resign.  Viganò stated, "In this extremely dramatic moment for the universal church, he [Pope Francis] must acknowledge his mistakes and, in keeping with the proclaimed principle of zero tolerance, Pope Francis must be the first to set a good example to cardinals and bishops who covered up McCarrick’s abuses and resign along with all of them... We must tear down the conspiracy of silence with which bishops and priests have protected themselves at the expense of their faithful, a conspiracy of silence that in the eyes of the world risks making the church look like a sect, a conspiracy of silence not so dissimilar from the one that prevails in the mafia."