Lawsuit: McCarrick victim told pope of sex abuse in 1988

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NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — A man claims in a lawsuit filed under a recently enacted New Jersey law that he told Pope John Paul II in 1988 about being sexually abused as a child by the priest who would become Cardinal Theodore McCarrick but that the Vatican did nothing — claims he also made in a lawsuit this summer in New York.
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Lawsuit: McCarrick victim told pope of sex abuse in 1988

A man claims in a lawsuit in New Jersey that he told Pope John Paul II in 1988 about being sexually abused as a child by the priest who would become Cardinal Theodore McCarrick but that the Vatican did nothing.
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I have a feeling that JPII is going to take a beating in the upcoming McCarrick report that the Vatican is working on.
 
They probably should have exercised the same caution with his cause as that now being exercised with Sheen’s. Honestly, any Pope or bishop from 1950 onward not clearly martyred should have been and should be off limits for canonization until all this stuff has had time to be investigated and come to light, say a good hundred years.
 
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Yes, the fast-tracking of Papal Saints seems odd and fraught with potential revelations like this (assuming it is true, of course).
 
It seems well known that JPII had many strengths as a Pope but handling clerical sex abuse was not one of them.

That doesn’t make him ineligible for sainthood however.
 
Pope John Paul II is both dead and a Saint in heaven, so whatever people say about him here on earth at this point matters not. The Church is not going to un-saint him.
 
Has there been any corroborating evidence of this claim?
Are any of the others supposedly present in the room still alive?
While I have a lot of compassion for victims I am just not so sure if I believe this tale.
If this is true (and how will we ever know for sure) it makes suspect a great many things regarding the papacy of JPIIand that will not be a good thing for the Church.
 
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The one case about St John Paul II that comes to mind was his blind spot concerning Marcial Maciel.

It was then-Cardinal Ratzinger that opened a formal investigation on Maciel, if memory serves.

In St John Paul II’s defence, I think the abuse scandal in the US was only starting to come to light under his pontificate. I believe he started the process of dealing with it, but didn’t live long enough to follow through.
 
Yes, I think he sincerely assumed the best about clergy. He was ordained in secret in a time and place where doing so could get yourself killed. I don’t think he believed there were so many “wicked” priests out there.
 
twf said:
Yes, I think he sincerely assumed the best about clergy. He was ordained in secret in a time and place where doing so could get yourself killed. I don’t think he believed there were so many “wicked” priests out there.
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I’ve read that as well. Apparently JPII just couldn’t wrap his brain around the concept of such evil in the priesthood.
 
twf said:
Yes, I think he sincerely assumed the best about clergy. He was ordained in secret in a time and place where doing so could get yourself killed. I don’t think he believed there were so many “wicked” priests out there.
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I have learned not to assume these things about clergy. I respect them and do not assume wrong doing, but I dont ignore reality and dismiss wrong just because they are clergy. That would be called partiality.
 
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