Pope Francis promises end to sexual abuse in the church following McCarrick report

Pope Francis is vowing to purge the Catholic Church of sexual abuse, following a report released this week detailing the decades of sexual abuse by former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and the Vatican coverup of his actions.

The pope made the announcement Wednesday while offering a prayer to the victims of McCarrick's abuse, saying, "I renew my closeness to the victims of any abuse and commitment of the church to eradicate this evil." 

The Vatican report, which runs more than 400-pages, laid blamed on a number of bishops, cardinals, and several popes for sweeping accusations and evidence regarding McCarrick's abuse under the rug – though Pope Francis was largely spared of blame for direct misdoings.

St. John Paul II, the former pope, received a significant amount of the blame for making McCarrick the archbishop of Washington, D.C., in 2000, despite a report from the previous decade that concluded he had slept with seminarians.

McCarrick was defrocked last year, at age 90, after a second Vatican investigation concluded he had abused children, in addition to adults. 

The Vatican report notes that John Paul and his trusted secretary and adviser, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, often dismissed allegations of sexual misconduct leveled against priests on account of their history with Communist controlled Poland, where many priests and members of the clergy were undermined with false allegations against them.

Special attention is now being paid to Dziwisz regarding his role in the coverup of McCarrick's abuse around the time when the later was promoted to archbishop.  Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki, the head of Poland's conference of bishops, said this week that he hopes an "appropriate commission of the Holy See will clarify all the doubts" pertaining to Dziwisz's history. Dziwisz has said he would welcome scrutiny of his past actions.