“If the church shows itself to be incapable of responding with all its heart...all our other activities of evangelization will feel it.”

A top official from the Vatican Secretariat of State acknowledged allegations made by a New York priest in 2000 concerning Archbishop Theodore E. McCarrick, according to a letter obtained by Catholic News Service.

Some Catholics would like to exploit the crisis to promote anti-L.G.B.T. agendas. We cannot stand for it.

The 1983 Code of Canon Law did not anticipate crimes being committed by bishops that could result in their laicization, according to a canon law professor at The Catholic University of America.

A police official in Buenos Aires province said officers seized documents from the archives of the Antonio Provolo Institute in the city of La Plata dating back more than 30 years.

Father Zollner, who also is a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, also said the Catholic Church "can't ever do enough" to address the problem of clergy sexual abuse.