Growing Catholic insurgency threatens top cardinal in Washington

CNN: The attorney general for the nation’s capital. The president of a Catholic college. Teachers at a celebrated Catholic elementary school. A former White House appointee on religious freedom. Even a popular priest in his own archdiocese.
It’s not just how many people are asking Cardinal Donald Wuerl, one of the world’s most powerful Catholics, to leave office. It’s who.
Wuerl, archbishop of Washington, has spent more than 50 years climbing the ranks of the Catholic Church, building a reputation as a loyal churchman and fastidious teacher.
He is also known as a political moderate and a key ally of Pope Francis who sits on the Vatican committee that appoints bishops around the world and is one of only 10 American cardinals who could choose the next Pope.
But in the wake of a damning 900-page report by a grand jury in Pennsylvania and a letter from a former top Vatican official accusing Wuerl of covering up for his disgraced predecessor, the cardinal is facing increasing pressure to step down from his perch atop the church’s hierarchy.
What’s unusual — and potentially problematic for Wuerl — is that those calls are increasingly coming from Catholics who play prominent roles in civil and church life in Washington.
“As a Catholic, my personal opinion is that Cardinal Wuerl should step aside in light of the sex abuse allegations in the Pennsylvania report and increasing reports of more abuse survivors,” said Karl Racine, Washington’s attorney general.
Racine also told CNN that, while his office does not typically discuss “confidential enforcement activity,” the attorney general is “reviewing the findings of the Pennsylvania attorney general’s report and we will consider taking action if appropriate.”
Patricia McGuire, president of Trinity Washington University, is the first Catholic college president to publicly call for Wuerl’s ouster.
“I think Cardinal Wuerl is a good man, and I have enjoyed knowing him,” said McGuire, who also sits on the board of Catholic Charities of Washington, the archdiocese’s leading charity group.
“But at some point the leader in a crisis has to know when to stay and try to fix the situation, and when deciding to step aside is an act of accountability and atonement. I don’t think Cardinal Wuerl is as culpable as some of his critics say, but at some point a leader has to step aside to let the healing process begin.”
McGuire said her views are widely shared on Trinity Washington University’s campus, which sits across the street from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ headquarters in Washington.
On Tuesday, faculty from Holy Trinity School in Georgetown protested at a Mass for Catholic schools in Washington, as an “act of solidarity against the injustices condoned by Cardinal Wuerl.”
In a public letter to the Vatican’s US ambassador, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, Trinity teachers called for Wuerl’s “immediate removal.”
Jack Devlin, a schoolteacher who attended the protest, told CNN that Wuerl’s record on clergy sexual abuse, as recounted in the Pennsylvania grand jury report, is mixed.
“However, for every good thing that Cardinal Wuerl did, there were enough negative things that he did that we find unforgivable.”
But the Archdiocese of Washington has vigorously defended Wuerl, sending detailed explanations of his actions to area clergy and pushing back against accusations that he failed to deal adequately with pedophile priests while he was the bishop of Pittsburgh.
The archdiocese declined to make Wuerl available for comment. But Kim Viti Fiorentino, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Washington, called the demands for Wuerl’s resignation “misguided and mistaken.”
“If you look at his record on child protection, not only is he one of the leaders in this area and one of the historic pioneers really in this area, but he has spent his entire priesthood (and) his episcopacy dedicated to protecting children, and if people reflect on his full record and the facts, they will see that.”