The John-Henry Westen Show - Cardinal pressured bishops to stay quiet on sex abuse case so as not to harm Pope's image

00:00:00.000 This is John Henry Weston for LifeSite News. We've got something very rare.

00:00:04.360 Documents and testimony directly from bishops and a cardinal all about a case where they are

00:00:09.500 refusing to issue a public statement supporting a clergy sexual abuse victim for fear of tarnishing

00:00:15.820 the reputation of Pope Francis. This is one show you won't want to miss. Stay tuned.

00:00:30.000 Let's begin as we always do with the sign of the cross. In the name of the Father and of the Son

00:00:43.180 and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Sexual abuse of minors by clerics in the Catholic Church has been

00:00:49.960 the cause of untold scandal and has resulted in much animosity toward the Church. However, 0.90

00:00:56.580 the cover-up of such scandals and especially the mistreatment of victims is something that in

00:01:01.380 many cases has upset the public even more. The cover-ups and victim mistreatment are nearly as

00:01:08.680 hard to uncover as the atrocious incidents themselves. For the most part, if there are

00:01:14.560 paper trails, they are buried deeply in confidential documents. Now, one well-known exception is Cardinal

00:01:23.320 Godfrey Daniels, who was caught on tape telling a sexual abuse victim not to go public with the

00:01:30.520 incestuous pedophilic abuse he suffered at the hands of his uncle, a bishop friend of the Cardinals.

00:01:36.940 Recently, however, a hearing of the UK government-established independent inquiry into child

00:01:43.480 sexual abuse has elicited testimony from two bishops replete with incriminating evidence

00:01:49.820 on Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster and the president of the Catholic

00:01:56.080 Bishops' Conference of England and Wales. Both Portsmouth Bishop Philip Egan and Northampton

00:02:03.800 Bishop Peter Doyle testify that Cardinal Nichols cajoled them into refusing to issue a statement in support

00:02:12.020 of a known victim of sexual abuse who was being disparaged in Catholic media as non-credible and her

00:02:19.720 claims as fantastical. Cardinal Nichols, the bishops testify, warned that any public statement issued by

00:02:28.640 the bishops in support of the abuse victim would be used to bolster attacks on Pope Francis. The victim,

00:02:36.160 a female, given the code name A-710 during the inquiry so as to conceal her identity, is a known

00:02:44.620 clergy abuse victim. Some details of her case came out during the testimony of Vatican whistleblower

00:02:51.760 Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, since the Pope intervened directly to halt an investigation into her

00:03:00.020 claims of being abused by a cardinal, in addition to the abuse she suffered at the hands of Father Michael

00:03:07.520 Hill. But more on that later. Both bishops, Egan and Doyle, testify that communications directors from

00:03:16.060 both the bishops' conference, of which Nichols is president, advised them against any public statement

00:03:24.280 in favor of the victim, as it would lead to an attack on the Pope. Both also testify under oath

00:03:31.460 that Cardinal Nichols himself had later intervened to confirm these fears of his conference's PR agents,

00:03:39.400 and that it was the cardinal's intervention that convinced both bishops not to act for the abuse

00:03:46.100 victim. In an email Bishop Doyle sent to the victim, subpoenaed by the inquiry, the bishop explained

00:03:54.260 why he was now refusing to honor the victim's request that a public statement be issued asserting

00:04:01.040 her credibility. Referring to Cardinal Nichols, Bishop Doyle writes, and I quote,

00:04:07.880 He said that the statement raised more questions which media agencies like LifeSite News in the States

00:04:15.260 would take up in their campaign against the Holy Father. By the end of that conversation,

00:04:21.040 I was convinced that a statement would not be the answer for us. Similarly, when asked how he

00:04:28.820 understood the media reports on the case of the victim, Bishop Egan states, I saw it as an attempt

00:04:34.040 to discredit the Holy Father, actually. Actually, because it was so connected at that time with the Viganot

00:04:40.820 affair, it was, in a sense, accusing the Holy Father of manipulating appointments and covering up

00:04:52.160 matters. I didn't see it as something directed directly at the victim. I mean, I wouldn't know

00:05:02.560 who would want to do that, to be honest. But in another exchange, he says directly that he did,

00:05:11.680 in fact, speak to Cardinal Nichols about this situation, and the first thing that Cardinal Nichols

00:05:18.360 mentioned was the Viganot affair. Have a look. Remind us, when you spoke to, I think you told us

00:05:24.540 you spoke to Cardinal Nichols' invalid lead, did you actually speak to him? I did, yeah. And what

00:05:31.140 concerns did he voice? Yeah, he immediately connected it to the Viganot affair. Right. However, when Cardinal

00:05:39.200 Nichols himself comes to the stand, he vehemently rejects the assertion that his primary concern was

00:05:46.220 trying to protect the reputation of the Pope, and suggests rather that his overriding concern was

00:05:52.100 for the victim. The adjudicator of the panel challenges the Cardinal's assertions in this

00:06:00.260 regard in a rather fascinating exchange. Have a look.

00:06:04.340 Do you accept that when Bishop Doyle is writing to A710 and saying that the focus of the conversation,

00:06:13.120 not only with the Bishop's Conference Director of Information and News, was targeted at and directed

00:06:20.360 towards a campaign against the Pope, and reiterated by you and confirmed by you in a conversation with

00:06:27.840 him subsequently, that he's accurate? That he's? He's been accurate. My conversation with him, as I

00:06:35.180 remember, covered substantially the well-being of A710. I said earlier, in answer to your question,

00:06:45.080 that that was not my sole concern, it was my substantial concern. And the conversation I had

00:06:51.540 with Bishop Doyle was substantially about A710. It did not exclude the evident and obvious fact

00:07:00.080 that further publicity would be used to attack Pope Francis. That certainly was part of our

00:07:05.800 conversation. Which parts of that conversation Bishop Doyle chooses to report to A710 is for him

00:07:13.860 and not for me. Well, let's have a look at what he says. The Cardinal asked what else he could do.

00:07:19.160 He knows that neither you nor Angela think much of him. But he wondered whether you'd be willing to

00:07:24.020 meet with Baroness O'Lone, the Chair of the Catholic Council, and with him, but with the Baroness taking

00:07:30.660 the lead in conversations with you. And then this, I hope that I have represented accurately the

00:07:37.020 sequence of events last week as background. And he attached a copy of the proposed statement for

00:07:43.480 A710 to see. Now, what's missing in this email from a man who had known A710 for a very long time and

00:07:52.980 had offered her pastoral support for many years and had continued to do so is the very thing that

00:07:58.720 perhaps she would want to know is that the Cardinal, Cardinal Nichols, was actually more concerned or

00:08:04.600 substantially concerned about her welfare rather than a campaign against the Pope. But that's the one

00:08:12.660 thing that Bishop Doyle, who would have understood everything that A710 had wanted to hear, that

00:08:17.640 is omitted in this email. Don't you find that odd? I can't answer for Bishop Doyle. No, but don't you

00:08:22.480 find that odd? I don't know how he relates to her. If you said, if you had said all of this that you

00:08:28.500 say to us, Cardinal, during the course of this conversation, don't you find it odd? It's Bishop Doyle's

00:08:33.700 choice. I report our conversation accurately. Because on the face of this email, the concern was

00:08:39.860 not substantively or otherwise about A710, not only in a conversation between you and Bishop Doyle,

00:08:47.700 but also in a conversation with the Bishop's Conference Director of Information and News.

00:08:52.220 Consistently throughout this, my substantial concern has been for A710.

00:08:56.780 Yeah, I haven't finished my question. I beg your pardon.

00:08:59.980 It was all about the campaign against the Pope.

00:09:04.080 Substantially throughout this, my substantial concern has been about A710. If I may add,

00:09:11.780 Pope Francis is quite capable of looking after himself.

00:09:16.280 The Cardinal's own testimony is not only contradicted by the other two bishops who took the stand,

00:09:22.300 but also by a woman who worked in the Portsmouth Diocese as an advocate for abuse victims, a

00:09:29.360 position called a Safeguarding Commissioner. Angela McGrory, in her testimony to the inquiry,

00:09:35.660 was incensed at the mistreatment of the abuse victim, stating clearly that it was in the best

00:09:41.480 interest of the victim to go forward with a statement. She wanted this statement, McGrory tells

00:09:47.760 the inquiry of the victim. McGrory wrote to the victim saying, quote, you are suffering so much

00:09:53.760 and, quote, you are physically declining because of a lack of positive action on the part of the

00:10:00.260 church, end quote. Mrs. McGrory said that she could not understand the bishop's decision to

00:10:06.260 refuse to issue a statement in support of victim due to a possible threat to Pope Francis's reputation.

00:10:12.520 I can't understand the advice that was given. I don't see that that should have prevented the

00:10:18.940 church standing up for a victim. Yeah, because aren't we reading here that Cardinal Nichols

00:10:27.240 and his director of information and news, Alexander Desforge, weren't they putting the reputation of the

00:10:38.240 church before all else? That's what I read as well, and that was why I was very surprised it was

00:10:46.300 passed to Westminster when it had been passed to Portsmouth. I wasn't copied into it being passed

00:10:51.720 to Portsmouth, so I don't know who shared it with Westminster, but I thought that would have been a

00:10:56.380 likely outcome as soon as Westminster. McGrory notes that the victim pleaded for a statement from

00:11:03.420 the bishops detailing her credibility. And now we come to the most damning evidence

00:11:09.720 against Cardinal Nichols and the non-action of the bishops in question, and that is the words of the

00:11:17.600 clergy sexual abuse victim herself. The inquiry reproduces a letter from the victim, dated May of

00:11:26.280 this year, with her name redacted of course, and the victim strongly criticized the suggestion that

00:11:33.200 a public statement by the bishops apologizing to her and supporting her credibility might further harm

00:11:39.500 her. She says, and I quote, the church has allowed public leaks of a very confidential document written

00:11:46.140 at its request and entrusted to its care, then left me for seven months to manage the outfall,

00:11:53.140 and now its publicity department is saying that to put that right publicly will cause me more harm

00:12:00.240 than the church's own neglect, abuse, and the already published derogatory comments in the Catholic

00:12:06.380 press in several parts of the world? That feels like an insult. End quote. But what is likely the most

00:12:15.080 damning part of this whole affair is that the victim was begging for this public statement from her bishop

00:12:21.080 in order to assist her to come back into a right relationship with the church. Without a statement

00:12:28.620 attesting to her credibility, she says, she could not finish her therapy and ads, and I quote,

00:12:34.580 I will not have any chance of reconnecting with the church or faith. End quote.

00:12:42.180 The victim's letter says with regard to Cardinal Nichols, and I quote,

00:12:46.840 anyone who knows what I have been put through by Vincent Nichols would not be giving him yet another

00:12:54.400 chance to delay my therapeutic journey and disrupt my life, while denying me the one thing I need to

00:13:02.400 move on. End quote. That's just unbelievable. But there's more to this story. What indeed are Cardinal

00:13:12.000 Nichols and the two bishops trying to conceal about Pope Francis? What is it that has them so concerned

00:13:19.440 about an attack on Pope Francis that they'd be willing to refuse to assist a clergy sexual abuse

00:13:26.280 victim? Well, it's this. Remember the leaked reports that early in Pope Francis's reign, he personally

00:13:33.880 halted a Vatican investigation into sexual abuse perpetrated by a cardinal? That cardinal was

00:13:41.800 none other than Cormac Murphy O'Connor, who by all accounts was very instrumental in electing Pope

00:13:50.580 Francis. He is the same cardinal who victim A710 alleges abused her. LifeSite confirmed with very high

00:14:01.260 ranking sources in the Vatican that while he was celebrating mass for a group of people, Cardinal

00:14:08.280 Gerhard Müller, who was at the time the head of the Congregation for Doctrine of Faith, was interrupted

00:14:14.720 during mass by his secretary, telling him that the Pope was calling him on the phone. When the cardinal

00:14:22.400 asked his secretary if he had informed Pope Francis that he was in the middle of celebrating mass,

00:14:29.060 the secretary said that he had told the Pope that, but the Pope insisted on speaking with the cardinal

00:14:35.300 immediately nonetheless. So, in this sacristy on the phone, Cardinal Müller was told by the Pope to

00:14:43.600 stop the investigation into Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor. Pope Francis's blocking of that

00:14:51.260 investigation is not only hearsay. I confirmed it with Cardinal Müller himself. It was in October of

00:14:58.760 2018 when I met up with Cardinal Müller at a Napa conference in Washington, D.C. When I asked about

00:15:06.260 that incident at the altar, the cardinal told me he was, quote, bound by pontifical secret. But he added

00:15:13.260 this, quote, that the Pope's approval is required for investigations of a cardinal. I informed him that

00:15:22.280 some of the news reports were suggesting that he had indeed completed the investigation rather than that

00:15:27.580 the investigation was interrupted and prevented from continuing. I asked the cardinal if he would at

00:15:35.100 least go on the record to indicate that the investigation was stopped rather than completed,

00:15:41.940 and he agreed and said yes. The conclusion of this sad tale is this. This abuse victim made her request

00:15:52.100 for a hearing into these new allegations of abuse by Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor in 2009, a decade

00:16:01.260 ago. And despite Cardinal Nichols' testimony that it was investigated, and fairly so, the other two

00:16:09.660 bishops disagree and sent a joint letter to the cardinal asking him to reopen her case. In his sworn

00:16:17.840 testimony, Cardinal Nichols claims that the congregation for the Doctrine of Faith had closed the case of A710

00:16:24.360 in 2011, thus implying that the Pope did not stop it in 2013. However, the other two bishops ask him

00:16:33.040 for the reopening of the case, and I quote, I was going to ask Cardinal Vincent, says Egan in his testimony,

00:16:41.840 if he would reopen and re-examine this case and see what could be done to help the person concerned,

00:16:48.640 end quote. Check out this letter that Bishops Egan and Doyle wrote this joint letter on Egan's letterhead

00:16:57.420 to Nichols in May 2019. Egan writes about the witness, quote, I have to say that regardless of the

00:17:07.080 remarkable nature and contents of the allegations made, I found nothing to suggest that she was 0.57

00:17:13.420 not a very genuine and credible witness. In fact, she came over to me as entirely sincere and convincing

00:17:21.860 in her statements, end quote. He also admits in that document, quote, with regard to her case,

00:17:29.560 the Church's own policies and procedures, which are very clear, have not been followed correctly.

00:17:34.800 We are writing, therefore, to request that her case be once again reviewed and an investigation

00:17:41.040 undertaken, end quote. Egan testified that Cardinal Nichols didn't even respond to the letter.

00:17:49.740 And finally, in the interests of full disclosure, I should tell you that LifeSite News is brought up

00:17:55.680 several times in this hearing. Remember, LifeSite News was used by Cardinal Nichols and the PR folks

00:18:02.180 as the threat to the bishops that should they speak in defense of the abuse victim, her case would

00:18:08.220 surely be used to attack Pope Francis. And there is another exchange that actually couldn't help leave

00:18:16.420 me with a smile, and it was this. Cardinal Nichols was asked how he could have missed a key LifeSite

00:18:24.040 story on the case. In part of his response, he says this.

00:18:30.480 I can only add, I'm not an avid reader of LifeSite News, end quote. To which the questioner follows with,

00:18:37.820 no, but presumably you've heard of LifeSite News before. And the Cardinal responds, oh yes.

00:18:43.520 I can only add, I'm not an avid reader of LifeSite News. No. But presumably you've heard of LifeSite

00:18:53.400 News before. Oh yes. You see, my friends, this business of reporting, of reporting the news,

00:19:01.520 of investigating and digging into these cases is arduous work that goes on on weekends and late

00:19:08.360 into the night after very long days. I am so very proud of the whole team at LifeSite News that work

00:19:16.540 very hard to bring the truth to light. And in this case, especially to Dr. Micah Hickson, without whom

00:19:23.220 I could not have done this report. The journalists, videographers, editors, marketers, development,

00:19:30.020 the youth work and management, and all at LifeSite do what they can. Yes, they do it for unborn babies.

00:19:38.120 Yes, for victims of sexual abuse. Yes, to support families. But first and foremost, for Christ,

00:19:44.580 and to bring souls to Christ through His truth. For LifeSite News, this is John Henry Weston,

00:19:52.440 and may God bless you.

The John-Henry Westen Show - November 12, 2019

Cardinal pressured bishops to stay quiet on sex abuse case so as not to harm Pope's image

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