A conservative bishop who was removed from his position by Pope Francis last year has accused the Vatican of “deep corruption.”
Bishop Joseph Strickland wrote on X, formerly Twitter.”There will be no peace in the Catholic Church until the McCarrick scandal is fully exposed along with all the corrupt prelates who are connected to it,”
“The smoke & mirrors billowing out of the Vatican are just efforts to hide the deep corruption. Pray & cling to Jesus & His Church.”
Strickland declined to provide further comment when contacted by Newsweek. The Vatican has been contacted for comment via email.
One of the pope’s most vocal critics among U.S. Catholic conservatives, Strickland was dismissed from his position as the bishop of Tyler, Texas, in 2023.
Strickland’s post on X was referring to Theodore McCarrick, an American cardinal who was defrocked by Francis in 2019 after a Vatican investigation confirmed decades of rumors that he was a sexual predator.
It was written in response to a post that criticized the Vatican for reportedly summoning Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former Vatican ambassador to the U.S., to face schism charges.
“Who else thinks the Vigano accusation is timed just right, since the next move is Operation Crush the [Traditional Latin Mass]?” Michael J. Matt, the editor of The Remnant, a Traditionalist Catholic newspaper, wrote.
“Because, of course, it’s a BRILLIANT plan to excommunicate the whistleblower in the McCarrick case—the most egregious clerical sexual predator in history. Is the former Cardinal McCarrick up for excommunication? Of course not! This is the Church of Accompaniment, dammit, where predators roam free, and whistleblowers get excommunicated. Are these guys actually allergic to Grace?”
Viganò published an expose in 2018 in which he alleged Francis knew about McCarrick’s misconduct for years and did nothing about it. The Vatican denied covering up sexual misconduct..
Viganò, who has been at odds with Francis over the direction of the Catholic Church in recent years, has called the accusations against him an “honor.”
He said he has been charged with denying the legitimacy of Francis, having broken communion with him and rejecting the Second Vatican Council. The Vatican has not confirmed that Viganò is being tried or commented on his accusations.
Viganò last week said he does not intend to cooperate with what he called an “extrajudicial” trial.
“I have no intention of submitting to a farce trial in which those who should judge me impartially to defend Catholic Orthodoxy are at the same time those whom I accuse of heresy, betrayal and abuse of power,” he said.
• By Khaleda Rahma, Newsweek’s National Correspondent based in London, UK