Ex-cardinal accused in ’90s molest

Former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who resigned in disgrace amid sexual abuse allegations, is accused in a new lawsuit of molesting a teenage boy in the 1990s when the prelate led Newark’s archdiocese.

In 2018, McCarrick, 89, became the first cardinal in nearly a century to resign from his position following his suspension from the ministry after a sexual abuse allegation was deemed credible that involved a teen altar boy nearly 50 years ago in New York.

Pope Francis accepted the resignation and ordered him to a life of “prayer and penance.”

But the abuse scandal, which has rattled the Catholic Church, continues to dog McCarrick (inset) in the wake of a newly enacted New Jersey law that gives accusers more time to make legal claims.

The latest charge against McCarrick involves a man who says McCarrick sexually assaulted him when he was 14.

In a lawsuit filed Monday, John Bellocchio alleges McCarrick molested him when McCarrick was visiting Bellocchio’s parish in Hackensack. The lawsuit also names as a defendant the Newark Archdiocese that McCarrick ran.

The lawsuit does not name the Vatican as a defendant, but does claim Vatican officials were aware of McCarrick’s behavior, yet continued to promote him to higher positions, including the Washington Archdiocese.

“He never would have been able to do the things he did and rise up the ranks the way he did without their complicity or consent, implied or otherwise,” Bellocchio, now 37, said at a news conference.

The lawsuit against McCarrick, once one of the most powerful figures in the U.S. Catholic Church, said the alleged abuse occurred in “approximately 1995 or 1996” and that the cleric “inflicted unpermitted harmful and offensive bodily sexual contact” on the accuser, who was 13 or 14 and did not consent.