It’s amazing to me how many Catholics will still defend their church and send them money.

ROME (AP) — A Vatican investigation into ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick has found that a series of bishops, cardinals and popes downplayed or dismissed reports that he slept with seminarians, and determined that Pope Francis merely continued his predecessors’ naive handling of the predator until a former altar boy alleged abuse.

The Vatican took the extraordinary step Tuesday of publishing its two-year, 400-plus-page internal investigation into the American prelate’s rise and fall in a bid to restore credibility to the U.S. and Vatican hierarchies, which have been shattered by the McCarrick scandal.

Francis defrocked McCarrick, 90, last year after a Vatican investigation confirmed decades of allegations that the globe-trotting envoy and successful church fundraiser had sexually molested adults as well as children. The Vatican had reports from authoritative figures dating back to 1999 that McCarrick’s behavior was problematic, yet he continued to rise to become an influential cardinal, kingmaker and emissary of the Holy See’s “soft diplomacy.”

(more)

Vatican blames Pope John Paul II, many others for ex-Cardinal McCarrick’s rise (Scottsbluff, Nebr. Star-Herald)

Hmmm. The guy the Church declared to be a saint, covering up kiddie and adult rape.