BREAKING: McCarrick resigns from College of Cardinals

From the National Catholic Register: 

The full text of the Vatican statement:

“Yesterday evening the Holy Father received the letter in which Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Archbishop Emeritus of Washington (U.S.A.), presented his resignation as a member of the College of Cardinals.

Pope Francis accepted his resignation from the cardinalate and has ordered his suspension from the exercise of any public ministry, together with the obligation to remain in a house yet to be indicated to him, for a life of prayer and penance until the accusations made against him are examined in a regular canonical trial.”

By suspending his exercise of any public ministry and confining him to house for a life of prayer and penance, the Vatican is effectively placing the former cardinal on remand until his case is heard in an ecclesiastical court.

Read on to learn about other cardinals who have also resigned from the college.

NCR offers some context: 

While several U.S. cardinals have come under scrutiny in recent decades for their handling of abuse cases, none prior had set aside their red cardinalatial robes.

Global precedents are also difficult to find, with the last cardinal to fully renounce his position being French theologian Fr. Louis Billot over a political disagreement with Pope Pius XI in 1927.