PopeWatch: Best Buds

Pope Francis defenders have tried to portray Pope Francis as having virtually no involvement with former Cardinal McCarrick.  This defense is factually challenged to say the least:

In light of the recently published book by the unofficial papal spokesman Andrea Tornielli – who now claims against Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò that Pope Francis did not give McCarrick any “official” tasks during his pontificate – it might be worthwhile to review briefly some of the evidence published online that points to McCarrick’s influential role under Pope Francis’ pontificate. 

One 2015 article, for example, points out that McCarrick hand-delivered a letter from President Obama on behalf of the Pope. McCarrick also traveled to the Holy Land, Armenia, China, Iran, and other places on behalf of the Vatican under Pope Francis.

Cardinal McCarrick had been an important prelate for the Vatican when dealing with inter-religious matters or foreign affairs. As can be seen below, McCarrick played an important role in the establishment of relations between the U.S. and Cuba. Additionally, McCarrick helped in the Vatican’s dealings with Iran and its talks with the U.S. on nuclear proliferation. For that purpose, McCarrick traveled to Iran. In 2015, the Vatican publicly endorsed President Barack Obama’s nuclear non-proliferation deal with Iran. McCarrick, commenting on that deal, wrote an article for the Washington Post, in which he shows his own involvement in the matter, and includes Pope Francis’ words to him and his collaborators. McCarrick wrote in July of 2015: “Pope Francis himself let us know very clearly of his own tremendous concern for a peaceful and equitable resolution. In January 2015, we heard the Pontiff say, ‘I expressed my hope that a definitive agreement may soon be reached between Iran and the P5+1 group.’”

McCarrick had traveled in 2014 to Iran, as Bishop Richard Pates then related: “he [Pates], the retired archbishop of Washington Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, and auxiliary Bishop Denis Madden of Baltimore met in Qom with several prominent Islamic clerics to ‘promote understanding between the peoples of Iran and the United States.’ Pope Francis didn’t send an envoy of his own to Qom (and likely declined to, if his relations with the Argentinian authorities are any indication). But Pates said the get-together was in line with the new pontiff’s view that ‘dialogue is the key to discovering truth and avoiding misunderstanding.’”

McCarrick continued after 2014 to be involved in that inter-religious dialogue with Muslims that had started in 2014 in Qom. In 2016, he signed an inter-religious declaration after a meeting in Rome which took place with direct reference to Pope Francis. The declaration starts with the words: “We met in Rome this year, which Pope Francis designated a Year of Mercy, to continue our moral and religious dialogue that began in Qom in 2014.”

And in the matter of the Vatican/China deal — what Cardinal Zen said amounted to a betrayal of the Chinese people — McCarrick also seems to have had a hand in it. As Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò revealed in his own 25 August testimony, then-Cardinal McCarrick told him once in person that, after meeting Pope Francis, he was to go to Communist China.

As Catholic News Agency (CNA) said about McCarrick’s different missions and travels to China: “Following reports that the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China could be about to sign an agreement on the appointment of bishops in the country, attention has turned to the role of Archbishop Theodore McCarrick in fostering Vatican-China relations over the last two decades.” CNA points out that McCarrick traveled repeatedly to China, and a least once as lately as 2016.

Go here to read the rest.  One of the more distressing aspects of the current pontificate is the deep air of mendacity with which it has infected the Church.