“Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Facing Sexual Abuse Reports, Resigns From the College of Cardinals”

LTRP Note: For nearly sixteen years, Lighthouse Trails has been publishing resources related to child sexual abuse. Some may ask, how is that related to the Gospel? We believe pedophilia is part of what we call the death religion (really Satan’s “religion”) which includes: abortion, evolution, homosexuality, meditation/mysticism, antisemitism, pornography, and child sexual abuse). The Gospel offers eternal life through Jesus Christ; our adversary offers eternal death through his schemes to harm, maim, and kill.

The Color of Pain, written by LT author Gregory Reid, is a small book meant to be a help and encouragement to men who were sexually abused as boys. We’ll be releasing Nobody’s Angel by Greg later this year (which gives an account of his own horrific story of abuse). Believe us when we say, a high percentage of men were abused as boys, and certainly many of them from the Catholic Church, which leads us to mention Chris Lawson’s book Taizé. One of the chapters is titled “A Lifelong Commitment to Celibacy.” The chapter states:

Look at what has happened when priests are frustrated in something God commands is good. Because they have forbidden the priests to marry, the Catholic Church has a high percentage of improper sexual conduct, including sexual molestation of children. This is not to impugn specifically the Roman Catholic Church. There are other churches and groups as well that forbid people to marry and make men or women remain single when they are unable to successfully do so.

This is not to say that sexual molestation (especially of children) only takes place in groups that do not allow/encourage heterosexual marriage. We know that allowing heterosexual marriage does not per se solve the issue of abuse.

If you want to protect your children (or the children in your church) from being sexually abused, we highly encourage you to read  investigative police sergeant Patrick Crough’s incredible book, Seducers Among Our Children.

We publish these resources on child sexual abuse because we are very concerned about children in today’s world.

“Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, facing sexual abuse reports, resigns from the College of Cardinals“

By Julie Zauzmer
Washington Post

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington and longtime globe-trotting diplomat of the Catholic Church, resigned his position as a cardinal, the Vatican announced Saturday.

McCarrick, 88, was found by the church in June to be credibly accused of sexually abusing a teenager nearly 50 years ago. Since then, additional reports of sexual abuse and harassment by the cardinal, over a span of decades, have been reported. The victims include one then-minor and three adults, who were young priests or seminarians when McCarrick allegedly abused them. . . .

The wave of allegations has startled Catholics, especially in Washington, where McCarrick was the well-liked local archbishop from 2001 to 2006. McCarrick stepped down from the Washington archdiocese in 2006, when he reached retirement age, but continued to remain an active diplomat for the church — traveling around the world at the behest of the Vatican and occasionally the U.S. State Department to advocate for religious freedom and intervene in conflicts. Click here to continue reading.