The Italian traditionalist blog Messa in Latino (Mass in Latin) has reported that its own “internal sources” at the Vatican have confirmed a report by the Italian daily Il Fatto Quotidiano on September 4, indicating that there is a possibly soon to be revealed dossier on the American cardinal Kevin Farrell.

Farrell, picked by Pope Francis as the prefect for the new Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life, is the highest ranking prelate from the United States. He is also a former Legionary of Christ – under the tenure of their founder, the monstrous abuser Fr. Marcial Maciel – and also one of those closest to the disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick. Farrell served as McCarrick’s vicar general and auxiliary in Washington, D.C., living in the same residence with McCarrick until his retirement in 2006.

Farrell claimed, at the time revelations of McCarrick’s abuse began to be made public earlier this year, that he had no knowledge of McCarrick’s abusive activities. “Never once did I even suspect” McCarrick, said Farrell to the Associated Press (AP) in July 2018. In another, earlier interview, he told Cindy Wooden of Catholic News Service (CNS), “I was a priest of Washington, D.C. I worked in the chancery, in Washington. And never. No indication. None whatsoever.” The video of that CNS interview came immediately under scrutiny because Farrell’s facial expressions betrayed none of the emotions – such as shock – that he claimed to be feeling over the revelations.

Claims of new information from Francesca Fagnani of Il Fatto Quotidiano may bring light to Farrell’s involvement in what has rapidly become the most high-profile abuse case in the Catholic Church. The Italian report, translated by Giuseppe Pellegrino for OnePeterFive, says there is a “violent and unprecedented civil war” in the Church that now involves even the pope. Following Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò’s bombshell testimony about cover-ups of the abuse of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick that included Pope Francis, Fagnani says that “soon another bomb could break out.”

Image courtesy of blog.messainlatino.it Image courtesy of blog.messainlatino.it

“According to reliable sources close to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,” says Fagnani, “there may be a similar dossier on Cardinal Kevin Joseph Farrell.”

“Farrell was specifically nominated as Auxiliary Bishop of Washington,” writes Fagnani, “because Cardinal Theodore McCarrick wanted him as his assistant, and these two men became part of Pope Francis’ ‘magic circle.’ Farrell and McCarrick also lived together for years, sharing the same apartment. How could Farrell possibly not know all about McCarrick’s sexual behaviors?”

Fagnani then asks the obvious question without providing a specific answer:

What is contained in this new dossier on Farrell? The Pope and the Secretariat of State know about every single new thread of every investigation that is opened by the Tribunal of the CDF, so how could they possibly now know about this? Did Farrell’s nomination to such a high post precede or follow the opening of this investigation? The historian Roberto de Mattei, among the most knowledgeable of Vatican experts, known for his traditionalist positions, adds this little comment: “The link between the two prelates [McCarrick and Farrell] was known but never clarified. There may be something else behind the silence of Pope Francis and Cardinal Parolin.” And what exactly might that “something” be? “I know Vigano personally. He is an honest and prudent man. I am certain that everything he says is true. He probably knows more. We know that the famous ‘report of the three cardinals’ [from Herranz, Tomko, DiGiorgi in 2012] exists on the moral and other corruption within the Roman Curia, which was given to Ratzinger prior to his resignation. This report has been seen by Francis and select number of others. What would happen if it was published?”

This report of the three cardinals, said to comprise 300 pages, was delivered to Pope Benedict XVI in December 2012 and kept under pontifical secret. It was this document that some believe influenced the former pope to abdicate his position. According to a report published at Rorate Caeli in February 2013:

For the largest Italian daily La Repubblica, the key part of the “300-page” cardinalatial report (“relatio“) on the Vatican leaks (“in two red hardbound tomes”) … was the identification of a hugely powerful and highly influential “homosexual underground” in the Curia and in the universal Church.

This same report was mentioned by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò in a follow-up interview last week after the release of his his testimony:

I spoke because now more than ever, corruption has spread to the highest levels of the hierarchy of the Church. I ask the journalists: why are they not asking what happened to the cache of documents that, as we all saw, were delivered at Castel Gandolfo to Pope Francis from Pope Benedict? Was that all useless? It would have been enough to read my report and the transcript that was made of my deposition before the three cardinals charged with the investigation of the Vatileaks case (Julian Herranz, Jozef Tomko, and Salvatore De Giorgi) in order to begin some cleaning up in the Curia.

If indeed a dossier similar to that of McCarrick exists on Cardinal Farrell, another of the pope’s handpicked men, it will truly be explosive. Even more stunning would be the revelation of this long buried report uncovering the working of the so-called “Lavender Mafia” within the Church.