![Vatican Faults Many for McCarrick’s Rise, Spares Pope Francis](https://townsquare.media/site/101/files/2020/11/Pope-Francis-reaches-out-to-hug-Cardinal-Archbishop-emeritus-Theodore-McCarrick-on-Sept.-23-2015-in-Washington-DC.-Jonathan-Newton-_-The-Washington-Post-via-Getty-Images.jpg?w=980&q=75)
Vatican Faults Many for McCarrick’s Rise, Spares Pope Francis
ROME (AP) — A Vatican investigation of former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick has found that bishops, cardinals and popes downplayed or dismissed reports that he slept with seminarians.
But the 449-page report determined that Pope Francis merely continued his predecessors’ handling of the predator until a former altar boy alleged abuse.
The Vatican took the extraordinary step of publishing its two-year investigation into the American prelate’s rise and fall to restore credibility to the U.S. and Vatican hierarchies, which have been shattered by the McCarrick scandal.
Francis defrocked the 90-year-old McCarrick last year after a Vatican investigation confirmed decades of allegations that the successful church fundraiser had sexually molested adults as well as children.
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