BY BENJAMIN ARIE
SEPTEMBER 9, 2018 AT 6:12PM
The Catholic Church is in trouble … and a scandal that has been brewing for years may have just gotten significantly worse.
Former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick has been accused of sexually abusing teenage altar boys in the United States, with some allegations going back almost fifty years.
The church recently asked him to step down from his religious leadership role after the Archdiocese of New York called the claims “credible and substantiated,” according to CNN.
“(S)everal former seminarians have claimed that the then-cardinal would invite groups of them to a beach house and insist individual members of the group share a bed with him,” explained the Catholic News Service.
That scenario is troubling enough, but now it looks like top officials within the church may have known about the allegations for nearly two decades, but either covered them up or did not take them seriously.
“A 2006 letter from a top Vatican official to a New York priest reveals that the Vatican had knowledge of allegations of sexual misconduct,” reported The Hill.
On Friday, the Catholic News Service published that very letter, and it may be the proverbial “smoking gun” in the scandal.
