Vatican finds church leaders warned about McCarrick's abuse, report largely spares Pope Francis

A Vatican investigation released Tuesday finds cardinals, bishops and even popes mitigated and dismissed reports of abuse by ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

The report concludes a two-year internal investigation into the former archbishop of Washington, D.C., and is over 400 pages. 

McCarrick, now 90, was defrocked last year by Pope Francis after an earlier Vatican investigation confirmed several decades of allegations that the he had sexually abused adults and children in the Roman Catholic Church. 

Despite warnings issued to a number of high church and Vatican officials over the years on the matter of McCarrick's behavior, he was allowed to continue his ascent to high office, according to the report. However, the report concludes that Francis continued the incompetent behavior of his predecessors when it came to handling the cardinal.

The report also found that Pope John Paul II – a saint – naively believed McCarrick's denials of wrongdoing and appointed him Archbishop of D.C. in 2000, despite an inquiry that confirmed his sexual consorting with seminarians. 

Francis was cleared of much wrongdoing at all, maintaining plausible deniability by arguing that he believed his predecessors would've handled the case appropriately, had there been a significant issue. 

"Pope Francis had heard only that there had been allegations and rumors related to immoral conduct with adults occurring prior to McCarrick’s appointment to Washington. Believing that the allegations had already been reviewed and rejected by Pope John Paul II, and well aware that McCarrick was active during the papacy of Benedict XVI, Pope Francis did not see the need to alter the approach that had been adopted," reads the summary of the report.

In 2017, following allegations by a former altar boy that McCarrick groped him in the early 1970s, Francis changed his position.

The accusation led to a canonical trial that resulted in McCarrick's defrocking. 

Francis commissioned the report, following an expose by former Vatican Ambassador to the U.S. Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano. He detailed the 20-year coverup of McCarrick's behavior enabled by various high-ranking church officials. 

Vigano's most consequential claim against Francis was that he lifted "sanctions" imposed by his predecessor to allow McCarrick to again become a trusted adviser to the Vatican. Vigano, in his expose, demanded Francis's resignation. 

The report's release comes days before American bishops gather to commence their annual fall meeting.