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Pope Benedict XVI was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 19 April 2005 until his resignation on 28 February 2013. Benedict's election as pope occurred in the 2005 papal conclave that followed the death of Pope John Paul II. Benedict chose to be known as "Pope emeritus" upon his resignation, and he retained this title until his death in December 2022.
There have been many cases of sexual abuse of children by priests, nuns, and other members of religious life in the Catholic Church. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the cases have involved many allegations, investigations, trials, convictions, acknowledgement and apologies by Church authorities, and revelations about decades of instances of abuse and attempts by Church officials to cover them up. The abused include mostly boys but also girls, some as young as three years old, with the majority between the ages of 11 and 14. Criminal cases for the most part do not cover sexual harassment of adults. The accusations of abuse and cover-ups began to receive public attention during the late 1980s. Many of these cases allege decades of abuse, frequently made by adults or older youths years after the abuse occurred. Cases have also been brought against members of the Catholic hierarchy who covered up sex abuse allegations and moved abusive priests to other parishes, where abuse continued.
Angelo Raffaele Sodano, GCC was an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church and, from 1991 onward, a cardinal. He was the Dean of the College of Cardinals from 2005 to 2019 and Cardinal Secretary of State from 1991 to 2006; Sodano was the first person since 1828 to serve simultaneously as Dean and Secretary of State.
The Congregation of the Legionaries of Christ is a Roman Catholic clerical religious order made up of priests and candidates for the priesthood established by Marcial Maciel in Mexico in 1941. Maciel was also Director General of the congregation for over 60 years until forced to step down in January 2005 as a result of a child sexual abuse scandal.
Marcial Maciel Degollado was a Mexican Catholic priest who founded the Legion of Christ and the Regnum Christi movement. He was general director of the Legion from 1941 to 2005. Throughout most of his career, he was respected within the church as "the greatest fundraiser of the modern Roman Catholic church" and as a prolific recruiter of new seminarians. Late in his life, Maciel was revealed to have been a longtime drug addict who sexually abused many boys and young men in his care. After his death, it came to light that he had also maintained sexual relationships with at least four women, one of whom was a minor at the time. He fathered as many as six children, two of whom he is alleged to have sexually abused.
Theodore Edgar McCarrick is a laicized American bishop and former cardinal of the Catholic Church. Ordained a priest in 1958, he became an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of New York in 1977, then became Bishop of Metuchen, New Jersey, in 1981. From 1986 to 2000, he was Archbishop of Newark. He was created a cardinal in February 2001 and served as Archbishop of Washington from 2001 to 2006. Following credible allegations of repeated sexual misconduct towards boys and seminarians, he was removed from public ministry in June 2018, became the first cardinal to resign from the College of Cardinals because of claims of sexual abuse in July 2018, and was laicized in February 2019. Several honors he had been awarded, such as honorary degrees, were rescinded.
Tarcisio Pietro Evasio Bertone is an Italian retired prelate of the Catholic Church and a Vatican diplomat. A cardinal, he served as Archbishop of Vercelli from 1991 to 1995, as Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop of Genoa from 2002 to 2006, and as Cardinal Secretary of State from 2006 to 2013. Bertone was elevated to the rank of cardinal in 2003. On 10 May 2008, he was named Cardinal-Bishop of Frascati.
Timothy Michael Dolan is an American cardinal of the Catholic Church. He is the tenth and current archbishop of New York, having been appointed by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009.
Pope John Paul II reigned as pope of the Roman Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State for 26 years from October 1978 to his death, on 2 April 2005. Since his death, many thousands of people have been supporting the case for beatifying and canonising Pope John Paul II as a saint. His formal beatification ceremony took place on 1 May 2011.
Marcial Maciel was the founding leader of the Legion of Christ, then based in Mexico, and its general director from 1941 to January 2005. Since the 1970s the prominent Mexican Roman Catholic priest had sexually abused at least 60 minors." and fathered six children by three women. Described as a charismatic leader and the "greatest fundraiser of the modern Roman Catholic church", he was successful in recruiting seminarians at a time of declining priestly vocations. Maciel was the "highest ranking priest ever disciplined because of sexual abuse allegations."
Carlo Maria Viganò is a bishop of the Catholic Church who served as the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States from 19 October 2011 to 12 April 2016. He previously served as secretary-general of the Governorate of Vatican City State from 16 July 2009 to 3 September 2011. He is best known for having publicized two major Vatican scandals. These were the Vatican leaks scandal of 2012, in which he revealed financial corruption in the Vatican, and a 2018 letter in which he accused Pope Francis and other church leaders of covering up sexual abuse allegations against former cardinal Theodore McCarrick.
The media coverage of Catholic sex abuse cases is a major aspect of the academic literature surrounding the pederastic priest scandal.
The Curial response to Catholic sexual abuse cases was a significant part of the Church's response to Catholic sexual abuse cases. Its policies have shifted from favoring secrecy in the 20th century to active reform and apologies in the 21st century. Under the current leadership of Pope Francis, the issue has been addressed through direct instructions to report cases of sexual abuse and revoking the former policies of secrecy.
His Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI is a book published by the Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi of confidential letters and memos between Pope Benedict XVI and his personal secretary. The letters in the book portray the Vatican as a corrupt hotbed of jealousy, intrigue and underhanded factional fighting.
The Vatican leaks scandal, also known as Vati-Leaks, is a scandal beginning in 2012 initially involving leaked Vatican documents, exposing corruption; in addition, an internal Vatican investigation has purportedly uncovered the blackmailing of homosexual clergy by individuals outside the Church. Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi published letters from Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò in which he exposed corruption that caused the Holy See to pay increased prices for contracts.
Charles Jude Scicluna is a Canadian-Maltese prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who has been the Archbishop of Malta since 2015. He held positions in the Roman Curia from 1995 to 2012, when he was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Malta. Both as a curial official and since becoming a bishop he has conducted investigations into sexual abuse by clergy on behalf of the Holy See and led a board that reviews such cases. He has been called "the Vatican's most respected sex crimes expert". Since November 2018 he has also been an Adjunct Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the curial body responsible for dealing with clerical sexual abuse cases on minors around the world.
A conclave was convened on 12 March 2013 to elect a pope to succeed Benedict XVI, who had resigned on 28 February. 115 participating cardinal-electors gathered. On the fifth ballot, the conclave elected Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, SJ, Archbishop of Buenos Aires. He took the pontifical name Francis.
The resignation of Pope Benedict XVI took effect on 28 February 2013 at 20:00 CET, following his announcement of it on 11 February. It made him the first pope to relinquish the office since Gregory XII was forced to resign in 1415 to end the Western Schism, and the first pope to voluntarily resign since Celestine V in 1294.
The Vatican sexual abuse summit, officially the Meeting on the Protection of Minors in the Church, was a four-day Catholic Church summit meeting in Vatican City that ran from 21 to 24 February 2019, convened by Pope Francis to discuss preventing sexual abuse by Catholic Church clergy.
The Two Popes is a 2019 biographical drama film directed by Fernando Meirelles and written by Anthony McCarten, adapted from McCarten's play The Pope which premiered at Royal & Derngate Theatre in 2019. Predominantly set in Vatican City in the aftermath of the Vatican leaks scandal, the film follows Pope Benedict XVI, played by Anthony Hopkins, as he attempts to convince Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio, played by Jonathan Pryce, to reconsider his decision to resign as an archbishop as he confides his own intentions to abdicate the papacy.
References
- 1 2 "'Secrets of the Vatican' exposes moral crises facing Catholic Church's new pope". Yahoo! News. United States: Yahoo! Inc. 25 February 2014. Retrieved 12 February 2015.
- ↑ Lowry, Brian (24 February 2014). "TV Review: Frontline's 'Secrets of the Vatican'". Variety. Retrieved 12 February 2015.
- ↑ Crossan, Andrea; Haddad, Jaimee (24 February 2014). "A Frontline documentary exposes the Vatican's 'secrets' under Pope Benedict". pri.org. Retrieved 12 February 2015.
