Pope's claim about scandal corrected
VATICAN CITY — The Vatican communications office on Wednesday corrected the Italian transcript of Pope Francis’ comments about disgraced ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. Earlier, it had omitted Francis’ claim that he didn’t remember if he had been told in 2013 of McCarrick’s penchant for sleeping with seminarians.
The omission gave the impression that Francis flatly denied knowing anything about McCarrick, whereas the full comment, provided initially only in the Spanish version, makes clear he didn’t remember. That distinction is at the root of the scandal over the Vatican’s years-long cover-up of McCarrick.
The Vatican’s communications coordinator, Andrea Tornielli, said Wednesday the discrepancy was due to the quick turnaround time for translating a lengthy interview from Spanish into Italian.
The interview was conducted May 21 by Valentina Alazraki, longtime Vatican correspondent of Mexico’s Televisa.
The issue concerns claims by the retired Vatican ambassador to the U.S., Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, that he told Francis in a June 2013 private audience that McCarrick had “corrupted a generation” of seminarians while he was a rising star in the U.S. church.
Francis in February defrocked McCarrick after a church investigation found that he had sexually abused minors as well as adult seminarians.
The scandal has caused a credibility crisis in the Catholic hierarchy.
Until the interview released Tuesday, Francis had refused to respond to Vigano’s claims, telling journalists to investigate it themselves.
In the Spanish version of the interview, Francis said he “knew nothing, obviously, nothing nothing” about McCarrick. “I have said it many times, that I didn’t know, no idea. And when this guy (Vigano) said that he told me about it that day, that he came ... I don’t remember if he told me about this. If it’s true or not. No idea!”
The initial Italian version omitted Francis’ reference to not remembering if Vigano told him about McCarrick.
Vigano’s allegations have been used by Francis’ conservative critics to attack him, since they seemingly show Francis disregarded information about McCarrick.
As a result, Francis’ claim to not remember if Vigano told him about McCarrick now amounts to his defense against such criticism.
