Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio made official Wednesday, September 29, his resignation and replacement by a New York priest, a month after the Vatican cleared him of sexual abuse charges dating back half a year ago. century. “Today I welcome Bishop Robert Brennan who has been appointed as the eighth Bishop of Brooklyn. I have known Bishop Brennan for years and have great confidence in his ability to lead the diocese ”, wrote on Twitter Nicholas DiMarzio, 77, whose resignation Pope Francis had earlier accepted.
Read alsoUnited States: Catholics in shock after revelations about pedophile priests
According to American media, Robert Brennan, is a native of the Bronx, one of the districts of New York, and, at 59, he has been since 2019 the bishop of Columbus, Ohio. NBC television recalls Wednesday that on September 1 the Catholic Church in New York announced the end of a Vatican investigation against Bishop DiMarzio. According to the findings of this investigation, the allegations of sexual abuse brought against the bishop were not “A semblance of truth”.
However, two men claim that the priest abused them in New Jersey 50 years ago when they were minors, which he has always denied. Their lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian, responded in a statement that “The retirement of Bishop DiMarzio will not hinder the pursuit of the two civil complaints”. He ruled the Rome inquiry “Biased and made by a Vatican court judge and party with a decision taken in advance”.
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Several Northeastern American states are marred by sex scandals involving the Catholic Church. Cases notably illustrated in the film Spotlight (2015), which recounts the investigations of journalists from Boston Globe on the actions of the clergy to cover up sexual abuse committed by some 90 priests in Boston and surrounding areas for decades. The American Church received, between 1950 and 2016, complaints from more than 18,500 victims of sexual abuse committed by more than 6,700 members of the clergy, according to the site bishop-accountability.org.
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