■ LifeSiteNews ■ A prominent cardinal is joining a chorus of bishops in calling for a full investigation into the Archbishop Viganò testimonies, which implicated several senior prelates and Pope Francis in the cover-up of former cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s sexual abuse of priests and seminarians.
In a Dec. 13 interview with the Italian daily Il Giornale, Cardinal Willem Jacobus Eijk, Archbishop of Utrecht, Netherlands, says “it is clear” that the allegations contained in the Viganò testimonies “should be thoroughly examined,” adding that “many bishops” have asked for such an investigation.
“It has to be fully clarified if the Church wants her credibility back,” he said.
In the wide-ranging interview, the Dutch Cardinal also discusses the importance of persevering in Catholic doctrine amid pressures to adopt a more Protestant-Anglican model. “The strength of the Catholic Church,” Eijk says, “is that her doctrine is valid for the whole world. Dialogue with the Protestants must not lead the Catholic Church herself to become Protestant.”
Eijk, 65, also offers his view on the inclusion of the “LGBT” acronym in the recent Youth Synod’s working document, and his thoughts on the expected move to ordain married men in the Latin Church with next year’s Amazonian Synod.
“To allow [married priests] temporarily is not a solution,” he insists. “Once it is decided, it becomes irrevocable,” and “with this, priestly celibacy, a splendid and fruitful centuries-old tradition of the Latin Church, would be lost.”
Cardinal Eijk, who issued a forceful commentary after Pope Francis failed to reject a draft proposal by the German Bishops’ Conference allowing Protestants in certain cases access to Holy Communion, also says in the interview that he “would like the bearer of the Petrine ministry, who is the principle of the unity of the Christian faith, to provide clarity” on the issue of divorced and remarried Catholics being granted access to the Blessed Sacrament.
Created a cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012, Eijk is also a medical doctor and expert in medical ethics. He wrote one of his doctoral dissertations on euthanasia, and another on the ethical problems of genetic engineering of human beings. In 2004, Pope John Paul II appointed him a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, and a member of its governing council in 2005. Under Pope Benedict, Eijk also served on the Vatican’s Congregations for Clergy and Catholic Education.
In the Dec. 13 interview Eijk also turns to politics, discussing the influx of migrants into Europe, and the rise of “nationalism” and “populism.”
The cardinal argues that while nationalism must never be used as a “shield to keep others out,” governments are “not obliged” to grant residence “to economic migrants.” He also notes that migrants, for their part, “have obligations towards the common good of the country where they are seeking refuge,” and must especially respect “the inviolability of the human person.”