Gulf News

How ex-cardinal became highest figure to be dismissed from priesthood

Ruling comes ahead of next week’s meeting at Vatican to discuss global abuse crisis

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Disgraced former US Cardinal Theodore McCarrick has been expelled from the Roman Catholic priesthood following allegation­s against him, including sexual abuse of minors, the Vatican said yesterday.

McCarrick, who in July became the first Roman Catholic prelate in nearly 100 years to lose the title of cardinal, has now become the highest profile church figure to be dismissed from the priesthood in modern times.

The decision comes as the church is still grappling with a decades-long sexual abuse crisis that has exposed how predator priests were moved from parish to parish instead of being defrocked or turned over to civilian authoritie­s in countries across the globe.

Sending a signal

With the ruling, Pope Francis appears to be sending a signal that even those in the highest echelons of the hierarchy will be held accountabl­e.

The ruling, made by the Vatican’s Congregati­on for the Doctrine of the Faith, was announced ahead of next week’s meeting at the Vatican between the heads of national Catholic churches to discuss the global abuse crisis. McCarrick appealed the decision but it was upheld earlier this week and the pope has ruled that no further appeal would be allowed.

Defrocking means McCarrick can no longer call himself a priest or celebrate the sacraments, although he would be allowed to administer to a person on the verge of death in an emergency.

The allegation­s against McCarrick, whose fall from grace stunned the US church, date back to decades ago when he was still rising to the top of the hierarchy there.

McCarrick, who became a power-broker as Archbishop of Washington, D.C. from 2001 to 2006, has been living in seclusion in a remote friary in Kansas. He has responded publicly to only one of the allegation­s, saying he has “absolutely no recollecti­on” of an alleged case of sexual abuse of a 16-year-old boy more than 50 years ago.

A Vatican statement said McCarrick was found guilty of the crimes of sexual abuse with minors and adults and the separate crime of solicitati­on, both with “the aggravatin­g factor of the abuse of power.”

 ?? AFP ?? Theodore Edgar McCarrick
AFP Theodore Edgar McCarrick

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