Crime

How A Sex Abuser Rose To Become Cardinal

He clearly wasn’t practicing what he preached.

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Theodore E. McCarrick (Photo by NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images)

Newark, New Jersey, is the home of one of the largest dioceses in the country, an estimated one million Catholics.  The archbishop of that diocese works from a basilica, the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart, that rivals the most beautiful in the world.  It stands out as a beacon sandwiched between Branch Brook Park and neighborhoods still blighted by the Newark riots of the 60s.  It’s the fifth biggest cathedral in North America, houses the largest pipe organ ever built by Schantz Organ Company, and has been a routine stop for popes visiting the United States.

Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick served there as archbishop in the 1980s and 90s after rising through the ranks of the Catholic church following his ordination as a priest in 1958.  In 2000, he was transferred from the Newark diocese to the even-more prestigious post of archbishop of Washington, where he was made a cardinal in 2001.

He was said to be a brilliant man, a scholar, who held multiple advanced degrees, spoke several languages, and worked tirelessly to promote the church’s efforts in favor of the poor and disenfranchised.  When then-Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict) wrote a papal recommendation that priests not provide eucharist to politicians who supported abortion, McCarrick ignored the directive.  In 2009, he was asked to pray at the gravesite service of U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy in Arlington National Cemetery. He was known to be independent, fair-minded, and a magnet for recruiting young men to the priesthood.

In June 2018, he also became the highest-ranking member of the church to be removed from active ministry following credible accusations that he sexually assaulted men and boys.  Most of the charges against him relate to seminarians (priests in training) who, over the decades, had been under his watch.  At least two accusations, however, involved charges of molesting teenage altar boys.

While a bishop in Metuchen, New Jersey, McCarrick would regularly invite seminarians for overnight “retreats” to a beach house in Sea Grit, N.J.  One of the group would be asked to share his bed.

According to reports, church higher-ups knew of the abuse for decades but did nothing. McCarrick climbed the ranks of the catholic hierarchy and even spoke at meetings set to address the U.S. bishops’ “zero-tolerance” policies against sex abuse by priests.

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Clearly, he wasn’t practicing what he preached.

One priest who’d claimed he’d been sexually assaulted by McCarrick in the 1980s used the incident as an explanation as to why he, himself, inappropriately touched two 15-year-old boys.  The priest was sent to therapy and transferred to another diocese.

The chickens have now come home to roost.

A meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) will be held in Baltimore on Nov. 12 -14 to set new standards.  According to the press release: “During the assembly the bishops will discuss and vote on a series of concrete measures to respond to the abuse crisis, including those approved for the agenda at the September meeting of the Administrative Committee, such as a third-party reporting mechanism, standards of conduct for bishops, and protocols for bishops resigned or removed because of abuse.”

Concrete measures are a good start.  Seminarians who have been subjected to sexual abuse say they didn’t know to whom they could report the inappropriate behavior.  Often when they did, nothing was done anyway.  In addition, there was a political cost. McCarrick was a rising star, a celebrity among priests. Reporting on someone of his caliber could end their own careers.

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McCarrick is now residing in a Kansas monastery and has been prohibited by the Pope from “exercising public ministry,” according to a Vatican communique.  The Pope has also obliged McCarrick to “lead a life of prayer and penance,” as the Vatican continues to “investigate” the matter and determine if further sanctions, such as stripping him of his clerical status, are warranted.

The first tremors of the church sex-abuse scandal surfaced in the early 2000s thanks to an investigative series done by the Boston Globe.  Those revelations encouraged complainants to come forward not only in the United States but in Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Based on those reports, the USCCB held a meeting of bishops in 2002 to address the scandal.  Ironically, McCarrick was among the speakers.  He used his time at the mic to exhort the audience that “there might be the possibility of a forgiveness” for abuser-priests if it concerned “a man who had done something in the past but had lived a great life and the people know about it and they still want to give him a chance.”

I wonder if he foresaw his own, very public, fall from grace.

Toni Messina has tried over 100 cases and has been practicing criminal law and immigration since 1990. You can follow her on Twitter: @tonitamess.

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