[Catholic Caucus] Sexual abuse victim slams Pope Francis for appointing McElroy to DC archdiocese: ‘He spat in my face’

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Posted on 01/10/2025 2:54:06 PM PST by ebb tide

Rachel Mastrogiacomo said Pope Francis ‘spat right in my face’ by promoting Cardinal Robert McElroy to the Archdiocese of Washington three months after she sent him a letter detailing McElroy’s protection of a now-laicized ex-priest who subjected her to satanic abuse.

A survivor of satanic sexual abuse whose abuser was left in active ministry by Cardinal Robert McElroy for more than a year after confessing guilt slammed Pope Francis’ appointment of the controversial San Diego cardinal to the Archdiocese of Washington.

“Roman Catholics in the Archdiocese of Washington deserve to know the truth about Cardinal McElroy,” Rachel Mastrogiacomo wrote in a Facebook post on Thursday. “And frankly, it’s about time all Catholics open their eyes and see ‘Francis the Merciful’ for who he truly is and how he actually treats abuse victims.”

READ: Victim of clerical sexual abuse says Pope Francis’ promotion of Bp McElroy ‘fills me with fear’

Mastrogiacomo suffered ritual satanic sexual abuse at the hands of now-laicized ex-priest Jacob Bertrand, who was associate pastor at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in San Diego under Cardinal McElroy and remained in ministry even after confessing his guilt to the diocese.

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 parish the following year, a few weeks before McElroy’s installation.

The Diocese of Raleigh, North Carolina, where she was living at the time, had sent the diocese a report describing Mastrogiacomo’s allegations of abuse that Bertrand inflicted on her in 2010 while she was a theology student in Rome, and other women in San Diego made similar complaints, as Mastrogiacomo related in a 2022 interview with Crisis magazine.

But McElroy left Bertrand in active ministry for over 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.

n her Facebook post, Mastrogiacomo said that she “sent a letter directly to Pope Francis” on September 30, 2024, through Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio to the U.S., about her case. 

The letter “clearly described Cardinal McElroy’s complicity in covering up satanic ritual abuse and refusing to work with the prosecutors investigating the felonious crime committed against me — which was eventually proven to be true in the court of law,” she said. 

“No one may say that Pope Francis was or is ignorant of my criminal case and Cardinal McElroy’s criminal complicity. He’s not,” Mastrogiacomo declared, adding:

“In my letter to Pope Francis, I asked, ‘How can you and other bishops turn a blind eye to these betrayals?’ I stood up for another woman named Lisa who pleaded with him as well. I said, ‘When you refuse to investigate and discipline priests who ritually abuse little girls like Lisa or virgins like me, you send a message that we are not worth protecting. Worst of all, you send a message that Our Eucharistic Lord is not worth protecting.”

“Three months later, he spat right in my face and promoted Cardinal McElroy to the Archdiocese of Washington,” Mastrogiacomo said. “Far worse than spitting in my face, he spat in the Holy Face of Our Eucharistic Lord.”

READ: Pope Francis’ new cardinal pick has a horrifying record on homosexuality and abortion

The Diocese of San Diego has been accused of mishandling other abuse cases under Cardinal McElroy, such as in 2018, when the diocese did not 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 seminarian.

Diocesan spokesman Kevin Eckery defended the decision by saying that the accuser was an adult and the diocese didn’t want to influence a criminal case. Castillo was convicted that December.

Cardinal McElroy’s heterodox record

McElroy has also earned a reputation of one of the most heterodox U.S. prelates and has faced widespread criticism for rejecting Catholic teaching on various issues, especially sexuality.

In 2016, he attacked Church teaching on homosexuality, saying that calling homosexual acts “intrinsically disordered,” as do the Catechism of the Catholic Church and other Church documents, is “very destructive.”

In response to the 2015 Supreme Court decision that legalized homosexual “marriage” nationwide, McElroy suggested that homosexual “marriages” “enrich the lives” of participants.

READ: Bishop Strickland decries Pope Francis’ appointment of Cardinal McElroy as DC archbishop

The San Diego cardinal also supports ordaining homosexual men to the priesthood, which the Church prohibits, and has called for priests to give Catholic burials to unrepentant homosexuals in defiance of Church teaching and canon law. 

McElroy has celebrated LGBT-themed Masses, including one at St. John the Evangelist parish that featured “married” homosexuals with children, homosexual politicians, and a drag queen activist who spoke at the lectern after Communion. Tables with rainbow-colored tablecloths were set up for the post-Mass reception in the playground of the parish’s K-12 school. The parish continues to celebrate “LGBT Masses” and advertises “LGBTQ ministry” events with rainbow “pride” colors.

McElroy is a strong supporter of notorious LGBT activist priest Fr. James Martin, SJ, and wrote a glowing endorsement of Martin’s 2017 pro-LGBT book Building a Bridge in which Martin criticized Catholic doctrine on homosexuality as “needlessly cruel.”

In 2023, McElroy sparked outrage with an essay in Jesuit-run America magazine demanding what he called “radical inclusion” of divorced and “remarried” couples and so-called “LGBT persons” that would allow them to receive Holy Communion without repentance of adultery and sodomy in blatant contradiction to the teaching of the Church.

McElroy has also downplayed the impact of homosexuality on the clerical abuse crisis despite the overwhelming majority of priestly abuse having been perpetrated against boys and young men.

Moreover, the prelate has called for “ordaining” women as deacons despite women being unable to receive Holy Orders.

On abortion, he has vocally opposed the U.S. bishops’ declaration that abortion is the “preeminent priority” for Catholics when voting and has has long supported giving Holy Communion to politicians, including Joe Biden, who violate Catholic teaching on life and promote the murder of the unborn. 

In May 2021, McElroy joined a letter signed by more than 60 prelates urging then-U.S. bishops’ conference president Archbishop José H. Gomez to halt discussions of denying the Eucharist to pro-abortion politicians.

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1 posted on 01/10/2025 2:54:06 PM PST by ebb tide

To: Al Hitan; Fedora; irishjuggler; Jaded; kalee; markomalley; miele man; Mrs. Don-o; ...

2 posted on 01/10/2025 2:54:51 PM PST by ebb tide ("The Spirit of Vatican II" is nothing more than a wicked "ideology" of the modernists.)

To: ebb tide

3 posted on 01/10/2025 2:57:43 PM PST by Jonty30 (Liberals are a fulfillment of II Tim3:5. We are instructed to have nothing to do with those people. )

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