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For more than four years, the office of the attorney general in Illinois has been looking into clergy sexual abuse. Prompted into action by the damning report out of Pennsylvania in 2018, then-attorney general Lisa Madigan began an investigation into the six Latin-rite dioceses within Illinois. Once again, as has happened most recently in Maryland and other states, the information discovered is both damning and greatly dismaying. The report shows that, since 1950, hundreds of priests abused nearly two thousand children.
The scourge of clergy sexual abuse is one of the greatest black marks on the Church in its 2,000-year history, and it is necessary to dig the evil up at its roots and bring it to light, for “the truth will set you free” (Jn 8:32).
At the same time, it is necessary for the complete truth to be told, not necessarily the convenient one. For the past seven years, I have been immersed in the life of Cardinal Francis E. George, O.M.I., archbishop of Chicago from 1997 until six months before his 2015 death. In the course of my research in writing his first biography that was published earlier this year, I found one of his greatest regrets to have been the discovery that laicized priest and notorious abuser Daniel McCormack had abused children on his watch.
There is no question, as the recently published “Report on Catholic Clergy Child Sex Abuse in Illinois” states, that McCormack “is one of the most infamous child abusers anywhere in Illinois.” And, as the report cited, there is no question that the way allegations were processed by a intricate, multi-layered archdiocesan bureaucracy that manifested a “left-hand-doesn’t-know-what-the-right-hand-is-doing” dysfunction. The report is fair in its criticism of an archdiocesan-wide communication breakdown.
However, the justice intended to be upheld by such a report is ineffective — and its moral authority undercut — due to its incomplete and biased nature. This is certainly the case when it comes to Cardinal George’s role in the McCormack case.
Who was Daniel McCormack?
Continued below.
www.oursundayvisitor.com
The scourge of clergy sexual abuse is one of the greatest black marks on the Church in its 2,000-year history, and it is necessary to dig the evil up at its roots and bring it to light, for “the truth will set you free” (Jn 8:32).
At the same time, it is necessary for the complete truth to be told, not necessarily the convenient one. For the past seven years, I have been immersed in the life of Cardinal Francis E. George, O.M.I., archbishop of Chicago from 1997 until six months before his 2015 death. In the course of my research in writing his first biography that was published earlier this year, I found one of his greatest regrets to have been the discovery that laicized priest and notorious abuser Daniel McCormack had abused children on his watch.
There is no question, as the recently published “Report on Catholic Clergy Child Sex Abuse in Illinois” states, that McCormack “is one of the most infamous child abusers anywhere in Illinois.” And, as the report cited, there is no question that the way allegations were processed by a intricate, multi-layered archdiocesan bureaucracy that manifested a “left-hand-doesn’t-know-what-the-right-hand-is-doing” dysfunction. The report is fair in its criticism of an archdiocesan-wide communication breakdown.
However, the justice intended to be upheld by such a report is ineffective — and its moral authority undercut — due to its incomplete and biased nature. This is certainly the case when it comes to Cardinal George’s role in the McCormack case.
Who was Daniel McCormack?
Continued below.
A closer look at the Illinois clergy abuse report shows Cardinal George deserves better
The Illinois report released May 23 shows that, since 1950, hundreds of priests abused nearly two thousand children.
www.oursundayvisitor.com
