Tony Gentile/Reuters
Pope Francis is calling on Catholics worldwide to pray every day “to protect the church from the devil,” in what appears to be an indirect response to mounting scrutiny facing the church over sexual abuse and cover-up allegations. In a statement released by the Vatican on Saturday, the pontiff warned of “attacks by the devil,” who he said is “always looking to divide us from God and from one another.” He went on to say daily prayers are also necessary for the church to be aware of its “guilt, errors and abuses committed in the present and the past.” The statement comes shortly after the Archdiocese of Washington announced that disgraced cardinal Theodore McCarrick will be moved to church housing in Kansas after resigning over sexual abuse allegations. McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, D.C., was removed from all public ministry in June after several years-old allegations of sexual abuse against altar boys surfaced. He will now reside in a “very remote” friary “in the middle of nowhere” in Victoria, Kansas, according to Bishop Gerald Vincke, the leader of the diocese where the friary is located. Vincke told The Washington Post that although the friary is near an elementary school, McCarrick will be “very restricted.”