VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) – On Saturday, Aug. 27, after LifeSiteNews republished an article detailing the newly elevated Cardinal Robert McElroy’s long history of promoting homosexuality and Communion for pro-abortion politicians, as well as his cover-up of priests guilty of sexual abuse and his silence about ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the new cardinal unsurprisingly refused to grant an interview to LifeSiteNews in Rome, saying the faithful would find the truth “elsewhere than LifeSiteNews.”
After waiting for over an hour at the Holy See Press Office in the Vatican to ask the San Diego cardinal some hard questions regarding his silence on McCarrick and other controversial topics, LifeSiteNews Rome correspondent Louis Knuffke was told by the Vatican Press Office that Cardinal McElroy was refusing an interview with LifeSiteNews. The cardinal did not give a reason to the Press Office and had gladly granted interviews to other news outlets that morning.
After the ceremonies for the newly appointed cardinals at St. Peter’s Basilica, at which McElroy received the red hat from Pope Francis, Knuffke approached the cardinal to greet him, introducing himself as a native Californian and asking if the cardinal would be willing to answer an interview question or arrange for a future meeting. The cardinal brusquely refused.
Knuffke then told the prelate that his background was in education and that, being from California, it was a concern of the faithful that the Church is not observing California law in covering up and moving around priests who are guilty of sexual abuse. McElroy refused to address the topic. When told that “the Church needs the truth,” the cardinal retorted, “Well, they’ll find it elsewhere than LifeSiteNews,” to which Knuffke replied, “How about in your offices?”
The most egregious case of cover-up involved a satanic ritual rape by Fr. Jacob Bertrand, now laicized. As LifeSiteNews correspondent Raymond Wolfe previously reported regarding the cover up by San Diego’s bishop, “In a recent interview with Crisis Magazine, abuse survivor Rachel Mastrogiacomo detailed the diocese’s extensive efforts to protect now-laicized rapist priest Fr. Jacob Bertrand, who served as associate pastor at St. John the Evangelist Church … and remained in ministry even after confessing his guilt to the diocese.”
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“In 2014, Bertrand admitted to abusing Mastrogiacomo in the presence of diocesan administrator and later vicar general Fr. Steven Callahan, but the diocese still transferred him to St. John the Evangelist the following year, a few weeks before McElroy’s installation.”
“The Diocese of Raleigh had sent the diocese a report describing Mastrogiacomo’s allegations of satanic ritual rape she suffered at the hands of Bertrand in 2010, when she was 24 years old. Other women in San Diego made similar complaints. But McElroy left Bertrand in active ministry for more than a year, until August 2016, after learning that Bertrand was being prosecuted. Prosecutors accused the diocese of withholding key files about the priest, who ultimately pleaded guilty to criminal sexual conduct in the third degree and faces 10 years’ probation.”
“In 2018, the San Diego diocese sparked outrage for declining to alert parishioners that police launched an investigation into Fr. Juan Garcia Castillo, an associate pastor at St. Patrick’s Church in Carlsbad, for sexual battery of a seminary student. Castillo was convicted that December.”
“The website of the Diocese of San Diego still does not maintain a list of priests or employees credibly accused or convicted of abusing adults.”