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DETROIT (ChurchMilitant.com) - Church Militant has learned that Boston's Cdl. Sean O'Malley has reported a case of predatory homosexual sex abuse by a New York priest and the ensuing cover-up by New York's Cdl. Timothy Dolan to the papal nuncio to the United States, Abp. Christophe Pierre.

In a letter dated Dec. 21, O'Malley draws the nuncio's attention to the case of Fr. Donald Timone, a priest of the archdiocese of New York, whom Dolan allowed to remain in active ministry — even calling him "remarkably tender and holy" in 2013 — after he knew of the credible allegations of sex abuse.

The story about Timone broke in a recent New York Times article, which detailed that Dolan compensated two of Timone's victims and allowed him to remain in active ministry, even as recently as this week.

It is an extraordinary turn of events for one cardinal to essentially turn in another cardinal for neglect, and especially with the indirect pointing of a finger regarding sex abuse cover-up — but that is precisely what this amounts to.

What impact this will have on the U.S. bishops upcoming week-long retreat of prayer and reflection regarding their failures in the arena of sex abuse and the resulting decades of cover-up is uncertain, but it seems as though this latest bombshell will at the very least make some encounters among various bishops uncomfortable.

Nearly the entire body of U.S. bishops will be gathering at Mundelein Seminary near Chicago starting next week, and this seems like news that will cause quite the commotion.

O'Malley, who is president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, seems to have fallen out of favor, at least to a degree, with Rome and Pope Francis, perhaps relating back to his revelations regarding the involvement of multiple Chilean bishops in homosexual sex abuse and cover-up and his own criticism of the Holy Father's mishandling of the case of Bp. Juan Barros.

O'Malley's public declaration that he had indeed passed a letter to Pope Francis from Juan Carlos Cruz, a sex abuse victim of Fr. Fernando Karadima, whom Barros protected, became an enormous embarrassment for the pope and high-ranking Vatican officials, with the pope having to go as far as publicly acknowledging his own personal failure in the case and apologizing for his actions.

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