Will McElroy dismiss these allegations like he did those from Richard Sipe?
While living in Coronado, CA from 2009 to 2023, I had the pleasure of befriending and collaborating with the late psychotherapist and researcher, Richard Sipe, of nearby La Jolla. His letter of July 28, 2016, intended for Pope Francis, who alone has the authority to discipline bishops like those mentioned in his letter, was never acted upon by the Pope, the Apostolic Nuncio to the U.S., or then-Bishop Robert McElroy to whom the letter was legally served.
Armed today with similar allegations of abuse and cover-ups by U.S. prelates, I sent the following letter to now-Cardinal McElroy (received and opened at the Archdiocese of Washington Chancery at 7:53 pm on April 5, 2025) with the belief that it will be dismissed like Sipe’s letter even though it is supported by the testimony of numerous witnesses, including sworn affidavits filed before the Supreme Court of the State of New York. Insofar as Vos Estis complaints against bishops, including Cardinal Wilton Gregory, are almost always dismissed as “unsubstantiated” despite a plethora of evidence, all I can hope to accomplish is to document how abuse reports that Richard, I, and other sex abuse victims’ advocates have submitted over the years to the Pope and Church leaders have been covered up, often unreported by both the legacy and Catholic media.
660 Toftrees Avenue
State College, PA 16803
April 5, 2025
Dear Cardinal McElroy,
On April 22, 2008, my friend and fellow Californian sex abuse victims’ advocate, Richard Sipe, posted an “Open Letter” online to Pope Benedict XVI entitled, “Your Holiness, I Have the Evidence Card. McCarrick Is a Homosexual, Please Act.” It was the publication of this letter that many believe moved Benedict to have restrictions placed upon McCarrick to prevent him from engaging in further predatory behavior.
Following the 2013 election of Pope Francis when McCarrick no longer seemed restricted in his ministry, Sipe expanded on what he wrote eight years earlier to Benedict in a letter which he had you legally served dated July 28, 2016. Sipe’s letter reported McCarrick and other Church officials for engaging in and covering up abuse. A trained investigator was led to conclude that you, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, and Pope Francis, all conspired to cover up Sipe’s incriminating report with the help of Attorney Jeffrey Lena who made no mention of Sipe’s 2016 letter in his whitewashed McCarrick Report. The truth is that you, even before being approached by Sipe, were well-aware, like most U.S. bishops, that numerous seminarians and priests attested “to propositions, harassment, or sex with McCarrick, who had stated, ‘I do not like to sleep alone’.”
Continue reading at John Eighteen Thirty-Seven