Pope Accepts Wuerl's Resignation as Washington Archbishop, but Calls Him a Model Bishop

[47of74]

This happened today

Pope Francis on Friday accepted the resignation of Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington, a moment many victims of clerical sexual abuse had hoped would demonstrate his commitment to holding accountable bishops who have mismanaged cases of sexual misconduct.

But instead of making an example of Cardinal Wuerl, who was named in a recent Pennsylvania grand jury report that accused church leaders of covering up abuse, Francis held him up as a model for the future unity of the Roman Catholic Church. The pope cited Cardinal Wuerl’s “nobility” and announced that the 77-year-old prelate would stay on as the archdiocese’s caretaker until the appointment of his successor.

In an interview, Cardinal Wuerl said that he would continue to live in Washington and that he expected to keep his position in Vatican offices that exert great influence, including one that advises the pope on the appointment of bishops.

Cardinal Wuerl had a reputation as a reformer before the Pennsylvania grand jury report in August detailed widespread clerical abuse over many decades. The report included accounts of Cardinal Wuerl’s poor handling of accusations against priests when he was the bishop of Pittsburgh, mentioning his name more than 200 times.

Francis is still being tone deaf here. Ugh.

[TommyCelt]

1. Too much has been made...

...of Francis's "tone" change.

There's been no movement in actual Church teaching on progressive issues.

"Who am I to judge?" is a nice token nod to the LGBTQ community, but there will be no changes to canon law about homosexuality being "intrinsically disordered.

Francis has mentioned "studying" the idea of women deacons, but those kind of studies have been going on for decades. PRIESTLY ordination will never be conferred upon women. JP II's Ordinatio Sacerdotalis states "the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful". Francis has upheld the content this apostolic letter.

Francis has been just as vocal with upholding the Church's anti-choice stance as any of his predecessors.

And Francis still adheres to "The Devil made them do it" narrative about the sexual abuse crisis. The enablers, like Wuerl, are held up as models of episcopacy and left with tremendous influence and power.

I left the Roman Church because of all of this. I am a dissenter and a heretic in that I still call myself Catholic and worship with an independent sacramental church (www.celticchristianchurch.org) that ordains women all the way to the episcopate, marries LGBTQ, confers ordination on LGBTQ and married folk, leaves a woman's right to choose between her and her doctor, etc. and so on.

I am and always will be Catholic. Just not ROMAN Catholic.

[47of74]

2. I swam the Thames back in 2012.

I'm not going back either. I like Francis a bit more than his immediate predecessors, but not enough that I'd ever want to go back. Even if we had a Pope who dropped the opposition to abortion and birth control, and treated women as fully equal and worthy of ordination I still don't think I would go back even then. I wish I had swam the Thames years ago. I would have saved myself a lot of mental issues if I had left.

I'm a member of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. Just not the Roman version of it.