An independent investigation into the German Diocese of Trier’s handling of sex abuse allegations recently made headlines after concluding that “successive bishops” covered up acts of abuse by predatory priests. The investigation cites examples of priests like Father Edmund Dillinger, who, shielded by multiple bishops’ cover-ups, escaped punishment and went on to abuse 19 victims from 1961 until 2018. While the findings have rocked the Church in Germany, victims’ advocates point out that the Diocese of Trier is only one among countless dioceses around the world where clerical abusers have been enabled by multi-generational chains of bishops and the corrupt successors who inherit their posts. As a growing number of cathedras are being vacated by greying or scandal-racked Bishops, the media has yet to report that many Church leaders today are being picked to helm dioceses and prominent posts not because of their talents, but because of their skill at burying the sins of their outgoing predecessors.
The Vatican saw the costly and self-destructive impact of promoting transparent clerics when it appointed Archbishop Diarmuid Martin to replace Dublin Cardinal Desmond Carroll. Following Carroll’s resignation amid cover-up accusations, Martin handed over more than 80,000 files from the archdiocesan archives to civil authorities implicating his disgraced predecessor and revealing how the archdiocese hid abuse complaints. When Martin broke the Church’s code of silence by exposing the depths of Dublin’s sexual depravity, the Vatican learned that the only way to protect its sexual secrets is to promote compromised prelates who are skilled at cover-up or who are themselves blackmailable into silence owing to their own personal scandals. Such continues to prove true today in (arch)dioceses like Newark; Washington D.C.; and Springfield in Illinois.
When then-Newark archbishop Theodore McCarrick was tapped to head the Washington Archdiocese, he was followed by Archbishop John Myers, who himself together with former New York Cardinal Edward Egan became the subject of a lawsuit accusing him of homosexual misconduct. After Myers proved his ability to bury what he knew about his predecessor’s serial predation upon seminarians and minors, he was named Chairman of the Board of Governors of the North American College (NAC) seminary in Rome, where he oversaw the recruitment of homosexually-active seminary leaders like former vice-rector, Father Adam Park, and former rector, Father Peter Harman. Both Harman and Park would step down in disgrace after they were named by multiple seminarians in complaints of sexual harassment and cover-up. Myers was later replaced as Newark Archbishop by Cardinal Joseph Tobin, a notoriously pro-LGBTQ+ prelate who was caught living for months with a 36-year-old gay Italian actor. Given that Pope Francis appointed Monsignor Battista Ricca head of his residence at Casa Santa Marta after Ricca cohabitated with a Swiss boyfriend, it came as no surprise when Francis rewarded Tobin with a post on the Congregation for Bishops, an influential office that advises the pope on who to nominate to become a bishop.
Myers and Tobin were not the only successors tasked with hiding abuse by a predecessor.
https://www.complicitclergy.com/2024/05/20/shepherds-of-souls-or-keepers-of-secrets/