Boston, Mass., Aug 21, 2018 / 11:48 am
Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston has issued an apology for not seeing a 2015 letter to his office, which detailed accusations of former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick's sexual misconduct and abuse of diocesan seminarians.
The apology came after media reports revealed that New York priest Father Boniface Ramsey had tried to warn church officials about McCarrick multiple times, including in the 2015 letter, which he sent to O'Malley because of his role as President of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.
O'Malley said his secretary Father Robert Kickham received the letter and responded to Ramsey himself, saying that the accusations fell outside of the jurisdiction of O'Malley's office, as they did not involve minors. O'Malley said he only found out about Ramsey's letter after the recent media reports.
"In retrospect it is now clear to Fr. Kickham and to me that I should have seen that letter precisely because it made assertions about the behavior of an Archbishop in the Church," O'Malley said in his apology, posted on the Archdiocese of Boston's website.