as president of the Commission for Confidential Matters, a new office in the Roman Curia. Controversies Association with Theodore McCarrick After former cardinal Theodore McCarrick was laicized in 2018 for credible allegations of sexual abuse against a minor, further reports of accusations and legal settlements emerged, dating back years. These revelations led to public questions about whether bishops and clerics closely associated with McCarrick, including Farrell, had been aware of these accusations and settlements. McCarrick had asked the Vatican to appoint Farrell as auxiliary bishop in Washington. Over the next six years, Farrell served as vicar general there. During this time, he shared a four-bedroom apartment with McCarrick and two priest secretaries. Journalist Michael Sean Winters termed McCarrick as Farrell's "mentor in the episcopacy." According to information on Farrell's website, the lion rampant on his coat of arms "honors" McCarrick and the yellow and red coloring at the top right of his coat of arms is also derived from that of McCarrick. In September 2018, the Italian daily newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano claimed to have a dossier on Farrell that was part of a 300-page report on financial corruption, gay influences, and blackmail within the Vatican. Il Fatto Quotidiano asserted that the dossier came from the investigation conducted by cardinals Julián Herranz, Salvatore De Giorgi, and Jozef Tomko in response to the 2012 Vatican leaks scandal. The newspaper never released the document. World Meeting of Families 2018 In September 2015, the Vatican announced that the World Meeting of Families would be held in Phoenix Park in Dublin, Ireland in 2018. In August 2016, Pope Francis announced that Farrell was the new head of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life. As a result, Farrell took charge of the 2018 WMOF. Farrell said that Pope Francis' visit to Ireland would be "inspirational" and "counter negativity" towards the Irish church. On August 18, 2018, former Irish President Mary McAleese, a critic of the WMOF, said she and her family were not invited to any of the events. Speaking on RTE's The Marian Finucane Show in August 2018, McAleese said of the WMOF: "It's always been essentially a right wing rally... and it was designed for that purpose, to rally people to get them motivated to fight against the tide of same sex marriage, rights for gays, abortion rights, contraceptive rights." On August 16, 2018, Cardinal Sean O'Malley, who was scheduled to