Former U.S. cardinal defrocked by Vatican
Guilty finding against McCarrick for sexual abuse raises questions about what Pope knew
VATICAN CITY — Former U.S. cardinal Theodore McCarrick has been found guilty by the Vatican of sex abuse and defrocked, as calls rose over the weekend for Pope Francis to reveal what he knew about the once-powerful prelate’s apparently decades-long predatory sexual behaviour.
The announcement Saturday, delivered in uncharacteristically blunt language for the Vatican, meant that the 88-year-old McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, D.C., becomes the highest-ranking churchman and the first cardinal to be punished by dismissal from the clerical state, or laicization.
He was notified Friday of the decision, which was upheld upon his appeal and approved by Pope Francis.
The pontiff this week is leading a summit of bishops from around the world who have been summoned to Rome to help him grapple with the entrenched problems of clerical sex abuse and the systematic coverups by the Catholic Church’s hierarchy.
Decades of revelations about priests who have sexually preyed on minors, and their bosses who shuffled abusive clergy from parish to parish instead of removing them from access to children, have shaken the faith of many Catholics. They also threaten the moral authority of Francis and even the survival of his papacy.
McCarrick, who in his prestigious red cardinal robes hobnobbed with presidents, other VIP politicians and pontiffs, is now barred from celebrating mass or other sacraments, including confession, and from wearing clerical garb. He is to be referred to as Mr. McCarrick.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Holy See’s guardian of doctrinal purity, issued a decree on Jan. 11 finding McCarrick guilty of “solicitation in the sacrament of confession, and sins against the Sixth Commandment with minors and adults, with the aggravating factor of the abuse of power,” the Vatican said. That commandment forbids adultery.
On Feb. 13, Congregation officials considered his appeal and upheld the decree.
The Pope “recognized the definitive nature of this decision made in accordance with (church) law, rendering it as ‘res iudicata,’” the Vatican said, using the Latin phrase for admitting no further recourse.
The McCarrick scandal was particularly damning to the church’s reputation because it apparently was an open secret in some ecclesial circles that he slept with adult seminarians. Francis yanked McCarrick’s rank as a cardinal in July after a U.S. church investigation found credible an allegation he fondled a teenage altar boy in the 1970s.
McCarrick’s civil lawyer, Barry Coburn, said Saturday that his client had no comment on the defrocking.
Coburn declined to say if McCarrick would stay at the residence in Kansas where he moved after Francis ordered him to live in penance and prayer while the investigation into his actions continued.
But the Salina, Kan., diocese, said that “Mr. McCarrick will continue to reside at the St. Fidelis Friary in Victoria until a decision of permanent residence is finalized.”
Along with bishops, victims’ rights advocates are also converging on Rome for the sex abuse summit. They are demanding that Francis, other Vatican officials and bishops elsewhere come clean about how McCarrick managed such a meteoric rise through church ranks despite reports about his sexual life.
“The Pope has known from the earliest days of his papacy, or he should have known, that excardinal McCarrick was a sexual predator,” said Anne Barrett Doyle, an advocate at BishopAccountability.org.
“He has a resistance to removing bishops and he also has a tolerance for bishops who are sexual wrongdoers,” Doyle told The Associated Press on Saturday near St. Peter’s Square.
Of the defrocking, Doyle said: “Let McCarrick be the first of many. I can think of 10 other bishops who are substantively, credibly accused of sexual abuse with minor and sexual misconduct with adults, who should be laicized.”
A conservative lay group, The Catholic Association, said in a statement that much more must be done to hold accountable “those in the church hierarchy who looked the other way as McCarrick rose through their ranks” and to ensure that priestly celibacy is restored and youths are safeguarded from abuse.
Phil Saviano, a board member of BishopAccountability.org and a survivor of sexual abuse by a priest, said while McCarrick’s defrocking is “ultimately a good thing,” the punishment should have been meted out long ago.
He said he hoped Francis isn’t “throwing a bone to his dissenters in an attempt to quiet everybody down. And then McCarrick will be the one and only, because there are certainly many others who have allegations against them who should face some accountability.”
His account of being abused helped the Boston Globe produce a Pulitzer-winning investigation into church coverups, which was chronicled in the movie “Spotlight.”
Despite apparent common knowledge in church circles of his sexual behaviour, McCarrick, who was ordained in 1958, rose through the ranks, even serving as the spokesperson for fellow U.S. bishops when they enacted a “zero tolerance” policy against sexually abusive priests in 2002.