The former Vatican ambassador who accused three popes and their advisers of covering up for a disgraced American ex-cardinal has denounced Pope Francis' refusal to directly respond to his claims and challenged the Vatican to say what it knows about the scandal.
Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano penned a new missive a month after his initial 11-page bombshell sent shockwaves through the Catholic Church. It was uploaded to a document-sharing site late on Thursday.
In the document, Mr Vigano denounced the official Vatican silence about his claims and accused Pope Francis of mounting a campaign of "subtle slander" against him by referring indirectly to him as Satan in recent homilies. Mr Vigano urged the current head of the Vatican bishops office to speak out, saying he has all the documentation needed to prove years of cover-up by the Vatican about alleged sexual misconduct by ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.
"How can one avoid concluding that the reason they do not provide the documentation is that they know it confirms my testimony?" Mr Vigano wrote. "The pope's unwillingness to respond to my charges and his deafness to the appeals by the faithful for accountability are hardly consistent with his calls for transparency and bridge building."
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Read more:
Pope meets with US church leaders over clergy sex abuse
Vatican fights back against accusations of sex abuse cover-up
Pope says he will not respond to allegations of abuse cover-up
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The letter was dated Friday, 29 September, the feast of St. Michael, Archangel. It was not a coincidence: St. Michael is considered the protector of the church, the leader of all angels who battled evil and drove it from the church.
Mr Vigano threw Pope Francis' papacy into turmoil last month when he accused him of rehabilitating McCarrick from sanctions imposed by Pope Benedict XVI. He accused more than two dozen current and former Vatican officials, as well as a host of US bishops and papal advisers, of being part of the cover-up and called for the pontiff to resign over the scandal.
The Vatican has known since at least 2000 that McCarrick would invite seminarians to his New Jersey beach house and into his bed. And yet St. John Paul II made him archbishop of Washington and a cardinal in 2001, and McCarrick became a spokesman for the US bishops in 2002 as they sought to address the then-burgeoning sexual abuse scandal that had erupted that year in Boston.
Pope Francis removed McCarrick as a cardinal in July after a US church investigation determined an allegation he sexually abused a teenage altar boy in the 1970s was credible. After news broke of the investigation, several former seminarians and priests came forward to report that they, too, had been abused or harassed by McCarrick as adults. The scandal has led to a crisis in confidence in both the US and Vatican hierarchy, since McCarrick's sexual escapades were apparently an open secret in some US church circles.
In his first denunciation, published 26 August, Mr Vigano initially claimed former pope Benedict had imposed sanctions against McCarrick prohibiting him from exercising public ministry, travelling or lecturing on behalf of the church. He has changed his account, however, since the historic record is rife with evidence McCarrick lived his ministry free from any real constraints, and it is unclear what type of sanctions were ever imposed.
But the crux of Mr Vigano's claim was that he told Pope Francis of the sanctions against McCarrick on 23 June 2013, and that the pope effectively rehabilitated McCarrick and made him a trusted adviser.
More coverage from the Future Forum
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Gulf Under 19s final
Dubai College A 50-12 Dubai College B
If you go...
Fly from Dubai or Abu Dhabi to Chiang Mai in Thailand, via Bangkok, before taking a five-hour bus ride across the Laos border to Huay Xai. The land border crossing at Huay Xai is a well-trodden route, meaning entry is swift, though travellers should be aware of visa requirements for both countries.
Flights from Dubai start at Dh4,000 return with Emirates, while Etihad flights from Abu Dhabi start at Dh2,000. Local buses can be booked in Chiang Mai from around Dh50
UAE cricketers abroad
Sid Jhurani is not the first cricketer from the UAE to go to the UK to try his luck.
Rameez Shahzad Played alongside Ben Stokes and Liam Plunkett in Durham while he was studying there. He also played club cricket as an overseas professional, but his time in the UK stunted his UAE career. The batsman went a decade without playing for the national team.
Yodhin Punja The seam bowler was named in the UAE’s extended World Cup squad in 2015 despite being just 15 at the time. He made his senior UAE debut aged 16, and subsequently took up a scholarship at Claremont High School in the south of England.
More from Rashmee Roshan Lall
Emergency phone numbers in the UAE
Estijaba – 8001717 – number to call to request coronavirus testing
Ministry of Health and Prevention – 80011111
Dubai Health Authority – 800342 – The number to book a free video or voice consultation with a doctor or connect to a local health centre
Emirates airline – 600555555
Etihad Airways – 600555666
Ambulance – 998
Knowledge and Human Development Authority – 8005432 ext. 4 for Covid-19 queries
Brief scores:
England: 290 & 346
Sri Lanka: 336 & 243
Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
Bloomberg
ABU%20DHABI%20CARD
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Race card
5.30pm: Maiden (TB) Dh82,500 (Turf) 1,400m
6.05pm: Handicap (TB) Dh87,500 (T) 1,400m
6.40pm: Handicap (TB) Dh105,000 (Dirt) 1,400m
7.15pm: Handicap (TB) Dh105,000 (T) 1,200m
7.50pm: Longines Stakes – Conditions (TB) Dh120,00 (D) 1,900m
8.25pm: Zabeel Trophy – Rated Conditions (TB) Dh120,000 (T) 1,600m
9pm: Handicap (TB) Dh105,000 (T) 2,410m
9.35pm: Handicap (TB) Dh92,500 (T) 2,000m
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Essentials
The flights
Emirates and Etihad fly direct from the UAE to Geneva from Dh2,845 return, including taxes. The flight takes 6 hours.
The package
Clinique La Prairie offers a variety of programmes. A six-night Master Detox costs from 14,900 Swiss francs (Dh57,655), including all food, accommodation and a set schedule of medical consultations and spa treatments.
More from Neighbourhood Watch:
Karwaan
Producer: Ronnie Screwvala
Director: Akarsh Khurana
Starring: Irrfan Khan, Dulquer Salmaan, Mithila Palkar
Rating: 4/5
Company%C2%A0profile
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MATCH STATS
Wolves 0
Aston Villa 1 (El Ghazi 90 4' pen)
Red cards: Joao Moutinho (Wolves); Douglas Luiz (Aston Villa)
Man of the match: Emi Martinez (Aston Villa)
