The debut of the Anti-trump cardinal In Washington it was not the happiest. Robert McElroy, a new archbishop of the diocese of the White House and appointed by Francesco despite his strongly critical positions towards the Republican President, is settlement Last Tuesday during a mass in the Basilica of the National Sanctuary of the Immaculate Conception. The celebration, however, did not spare bitterness to the US cardinal, both outside and inside the church.
Accusation
Outside the Basilica, together with a group of demonstrators, she presented itself with a lot of protest signs Rachel Mastrogiacomo. The woman has long been a great accuser of McElroy who, according to him, would have been complicit in the ” ” ” abuse committed by a priest of the diocese of San Diego. Recently Mastrogiacomo wrote one letter To President Trump, to his deputy JD Vance and all the representatives of the Congress Catholic Congress to tell his story. In 2018, after a plea bargain, the Minnesota Court sentenced the priest Jacob Bertrand to 10 years of supervised freedom for criminal sexual conduct. The crime would have been committed in 2010 during a private mass celebrated in a minnesota house. Bertrand had met Mastrogiacomo in Rome during a common period of study and had become a sort of spiritual director for her. The woman said she had reported For the first time, the incident at the diocese of Raleigh in 2014 and this report would also arrive at the diocese of San Diego where in the meantime he had started to serve the priest in the parish. Despite this, after an initial period of pause, Bertrand would return to operate in other parishes between 2015 and 2016. In the meantime, to lead the diocese since April 2015 it was precisely the future cardinal McElroy. At that point Mastrogiacomo decided to turn to the civil authorities and in April 2016 he presented criminal complaint. In August Bertrand took a expectation from the ministry, then in October of the same year he was offending and in January 2017 he admitted his conduct who cost him a sentence in 2018 and the farewell to the priesthood. In the only declaration attributed to him on the case, the current Archbishop of Washington rejected any responsibility claiming that the priest would be reassured before his arrival in San Diego. In these years Mastrogiacomo has continued to accuse Mcelroy of cover -up with very hard tones and on the day of his settlement in Washington he decided to “challenge him” in person by shaking the Basilica a sign who called him “accomplice”. Then the woman also entered the church and during the final procession she crossed the cardinal’s gaze. Outside the Basilica, Mastrogiacomo told his story to the microphones of the War Room by Steve Bannon.
Empty Church?
In addition to the presence of the victim of criminal sexual conduct, the settlement of the new archbishop made discussing for the alleged poor participation of faithful. In several photos circulated on social networks you could see showy empty spaces among the benches of the Basilica. According to McElroy’s detractors, this would demonstrate the little popularity of the prelate who, before settling, started a criticize Trump’s policies, declaring that “A wider, indiscriminate and massive deportation throughout the country would be incompatible with Catholic doctrine”. Other chronicles instead described how “crowded” The basilica for the celebration attended by, among others, the cardinals Christophe Pierre, Sean O’Malley, Joseph Tobin, Blase Cupich; Timothy Dolan, Donald Wuerl and Wilton Gregory.
The McCarrick burden
The reaction to the installation mass in Washington seem to confirm that the name of McElroy remains divisive In the panorama of Catholicism with stars and stripes. A risk that, according to different reconstructions, had been presented to the Pope by those who would also suggest to choose a less exposed figure. In the end, however, perhaps precisely to give a signal to the Trump administration, the Pope had decided to trust the former bishop of San Diego. Against the appointment of McElroy, however, there was not only his very critical statements to Trump and his liberal positions on ecclesial themes, but also for no longer having followed in 2016, after two initial interviews, to the requests for the meeting of the psychotherapist Richard Sipe who had collected seminarians testimonies on the criminal conduct of the former cardinal Theodore Edgar McCarrick Dimised by the clerical state in 2019 for violations of the sixth commandment of the decalogue with minors and adults, with the aggravating circumstance of the abuse of power. The punishment had come after McCarrick had been indicted for pedophilia from American justice.
McElroy defended his behavior by supporting, about Sipe, that “The limitations to his willingness to share corroborating information made it impossible to know what real was and what a voice was”.