Cardinal Theodore McCarrick speaks throughout a memorial service in South Bend, Ind., on March 4, 2015. The once-powerful Catholic cardinal, who was defrocked by Pope Francis in 2019 after a Vatican investigation decided he had molested adults and youngsters, has died at age 94.
Robert Franklin/South Bend Tribune through AP
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Robert Franklin/South Bend Tribune through AP
WASHINGTON — Theodore McCarrick, a once-powerful Catholic cardinal who was defrocked by Pope Francis in 2019 after a Vatican investigation decided he had molested adults and youngsters, has died. He was 94.
Archbishop of Washington Robert McElroy issued a press release Friday confirming McCarrick’s loss of life a day earlier however supplied no particulars. His assertion centered on these McCarrick abused.
“At this second I’m particularly conscious of those that he harmed throughout the course of his priestly ministry,” McElroy mentioned. “Via their enduring ache, could we stay steadfast in our prayers for them and for all victims of sexual abuse.”
In latest court docket proceedings, it was disclosed that McCarrick had been identified with dementia. He had been dwelling in Missouri, and Vatican Information reported he died there.
The McCarrick scandal created a disaster of credibility for the church, primarily as a result of there was proof Vatican and U.S. church leaders knew he slept with seminarians however turned a blind eye as McCarrick rose to the highest of the U.S. church as an adept fundraiser who suggested three popes.
The Vatican’s report on its investigation put the lion’s share of blame on a lifeless saint: Pope John Paul II, who appointed McCarrick archbishop of Washington, D.C., in 2000, regardless of having commissioned an inquiry that confirmed he slept with seminarians.
The report discovered that John Paul believed McCarrick’s last-minute, handwritten denial during which he wrote: “I’ve made errors and should have generally lacked in prudence, however within the seventy years of my life I’ve by no means had sexual relations with any individual, male or feminine, younger or previous, cleric or lay.”
Over a number of many years, bishops, cardinals and popes dismissed or downplayed reviews of McCarrick’s misconduct with younger males as he rose by the ranks to change into a cardinal and archbishop, in accordance with the investigation.
The report contained heartbreaking testimony from individuals who tried to lift the alarm about McCarrick’s inappropriate conduct, together with with kids, within the mid-Eighties.
Whereas the findings supplied new particulars about what the Vatican knew and when, it did not straight blame or admit that the church’s inside “previous boys membership” tradition allowed McCarrick’s conduct to proceed unchecked.
Cardinals and bishops have lengthy been thought of past reproach. Claims of gay conduct are used to discredit or blackmail prelates that they typically are dismissed as rumor. There additionally has been a widespread however unstated tolerance of sexually lively males in what is meant to be a celibate priesthood.
The report drew on paperwork from Vatican departments, U.S. dioceses and seminaries and the Vatican’s U.S. Embassy. Investigators interviewed 90 folks, together with McCarrick’s victims, former seminarians and monks, and officers from the U.S. Convention of Catholic Bishops.
The Survivors Community of these Abused by Monks, or SNAP, responded to McCarrick’s loss of life expressing frustration that the ex-cardinal, though defrocked, by no means stood trial for “the huge hurt he inflicted.”
“McCarrick could also be lifeless, however his many victims will not be,” mentioned Peter Isely, a founding member of SNAP. “We’re nonetheless right here, nonetheless dwelling with the hurt he induced — and with the church’s failure to cease him. “
McCarrick, who was the archbishop of Washington from 2000 to 2006, was one of many highest-ranking U.S. church officers accused in a sexual abuse scandal that has seen hundreds of monks implicated. He traveled broadly, was a gifted fundraiser and spoke a number of languages.
He was a priest in New York Metropolis from 1958, when he was ordained, till 1981, when he turned bishop of Metuchen, New Jersey. He was archbishop of Newark from 1986 till 2000 and was elevated to cardinal in 2001.
McCarrick participated within the 2005 conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI, presided over the graveside service for Sen. Ted Kennedy at Arlington Nationwide Cemetery in 2009, and celebrated Mass with Pope Francis throughout his 2015 go to to Washington.
