Vatican defrocks former U.S. cardinal McCarrick over abuse
Pope FranVATICANCITY— cishas defrockedformer U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick after Vatican offifficials found him guilty of soliciting for sexwhile hearing confession and of sexual crimes against minors and adults, the Holy See said Saturday.
McCarrick, 88, is the highest-ranking Catholic churchman to be laicized, as the process is called. It means he can no longer celebrate Mass or other sacraments, wear clerical vestmentsor be addressed by any religious
title. He is the fifirst churchman who reached the rank of cardinal to be defrocked in the church’s sex abuse scandals.
The punishment for the once-powerful prelate, who hadservedas the archbishop ofWashington, spent years in New Jersey dioceses and hadbeenaninflfluential fundraiser for the church, was announced fifififififive days before Francis leads an extraordinary gathering of bishops fromaround the world to help the church grapple with the crisis of sex abuse by clergy and the systematic cover-ups by church hierarchy. The decades-long scandals have shaken the faith of manyCatholics andthreaten Francis’ papacy.
The scandal swirling aroundMcCarrick was particularly damning to the church’s reputation because it apparently was an open secret insome churchcircles that he sleptwith adult seminarians. Francis removed McCarrick as a cardinal in July after aU.S. church investigation determined that an allegation he fondled a teenage altar boy in the 1970s was credible.
The Vatican’s press offiffice said theHoly See’s doctrinal watchdog office, the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, found McCarrick on Jan. 11 guilty of “solicitation in the sacrament of confession, and sins against the Sixth Commandment withminors andadults, with the aggravating factor of the abuse of power.” The commandment forbids adultery.
The offifficials “imposed on himthe penalty of dismissal from the clerical state.” It
considered his appeal on Wednesday and upheld its
ruling, tellingMcCarrick Friday of that decision, the Vatican said.
McCarrick, when he was ordaineda priest inhis native NewYork City in 1958, took a vow of celibacy in accordance with church rules on priests.
Thepope “has recognized the defifinitive nature of this decisionmade inaccordance with (church) law, rendering it as ‘res iudicata,’” the Vatican said, using the Latin phrase for admitting no further recourse.
One victim, James Grein, the son of a family friend of McCarrick’s, had testifified to church offifficials that, among other abuses, McCarrick had repeatedly groped him during confession. He said the abuse, which went on for decades, beganwhen he was 11.
“Today I am happy that thepopebelievedme,” Grein said in a statement issued through his lawyer.
Grein also expressedhope thatMcCarrick “will no longer be able to use the power of Jesus’ church to manipulate families and sexually abuse children.”
Adding that it’s “time for us to cleanse the church,” Grein said pressure needs to be put on state attorney generals and senators to change the statute of limitations for abuse cases.
“Hundredsof priests, bishops and cardinals are hiding behindman-made law,” he said.
McCarrick’s civil lawyer, Barry Coburn, told The Associated Press that for
the time being his client had no comment on the defrocking. Coburn also declined to say if McCarrick was still residing at the Kansas friary where he had moved to when Francis ordered him to live in penance and prayer while the investiga- tion continued.
The archdiocese of Washington, D. C., where McCarrick was posted at the pinnacle of his clerical career, from 2001-2006, said in a statement it hoped that the Vatican decision “serves to help the healing process for survivors of abuse, as well as thosewho have experienced disappointment or disillusionment because of what former Archbishop McCarrick has done.”
Complaints were also made about McCarrick’s conduct in the New Jersey dioceses of Newark and Metuchen, where he previously served.
Francis’ move marks a remarkable downfall for the globe- trotting powerbroker and inflfluential church fundraiser who mingled
with presidents and popes but preferred to be called “Uncle Ted” by the young men he courted.
The Vatican summit, which starts Thursday and runs through Feb. 24, will draw church leaders from around the world to talk about preventing sex abuse.
It was called in part to respond to the McCarrick scandal as well as to the explosion of the abuse crisis in Chile and its escalation in theUnited States last year.
Despite the apparent common knowledge in church circles of his sexual behavior, McCarrick rose to the heights of church power. He even actedas the spokesman for U.S. bishops when they enacted a “zero tolerance”
policy against sexually abusive priests in 2002.
That apparent hypocrisy outraged many who had trusted church leaders to reform how they handled sex abuse after 2002.