Four alleged victims of former Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick have filed a lawsuit against the Holy See—the central government of the Catholic Church—demanding documents about what the church knew about McCarrick and his role in Catholic Church abuse over the past few decades.

McCarrick was ordained in the Archdiocese of New York, New York in 1958. Sixty years later, in 2018, Pope Francis opened an investigation into McCarrick following sex abuse allegations and in January 2019, McCarrick was found “guilty of solicitation during the Sacrament of Confession and sins against the Sixth Commandment with both minors and adults, ‘with the aggravating factor of the abuse of power.’” A month later, he was defrocked.

The Catholic Church recently released a report about what its high-ranking officials knew about McCarrick, who many feel is the face of the Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal.

Holy See Under Fire Over Cardinal McCarrick

Following the release of the report, the four plaintiffs came forward to file a federal lawsuit against the Holy See. One of the plaintiffs is a working priest who alleges that McCarrick abused him in New Jersey in the 1990s. When the priest told Metuchen, N.J. Bishop Ed Hughes about the abuse in 1994, Hughes purportedly told the man to forget about it “for the good of the church,” according to the report. The priest noted that Hughes “was not acting like it was something that surprised him. He acted like it was something normal or something he heard about before.”

Neither the priest nor the other plaintiffs were named in the lawsuit, but an attorney for the plaintiffs noted that he believes the priest is the first “sitting cleric” to sue the Vatican.

According to the lawsuit, McCarrick “engaged in a similar course of conduct and pattern of sexual predation of devout members of the Roman Catholic Church, including youth, under his control.”

Two of the plaintiffs allege that McCarrick abused them as minors, starting when they were 14 years old. The two other plaintiffs (including the priest) said their abuse occurred as adults.

The lawsuit alleges that the Holy See has a “practice and policy” of not reporting suspected abuse to law enforcement, as well as requiring secrecy of its agents who receive abuse reports.

“There are children today who are in imminent danger of abuse because Defendant Holy See has failed to report or release the names of agents that have either been convicted or credibly accused of molesting children or that Defendant Holy See itself has found guilty of abuse,” the lawsuit alleges.

A slew of high-ranking Catholic officials helped cover up McCarrick’s abuse or were otherwise complicit, including three popes, 33 cardinals, and hundreds of bishops, according to a plaintiff’s lawyer. The recent report was a change from this pattern of cover-up and the church’s “strict adherence to secrecy.”

But some of those affected by McCarrick’s alleged abuse don’t see this move as a drastic change. “Buzzwords like transparency, compensation, accountability, responsibility…I don’t believe the Church will let these ‘notions’ get very far,” wrote a distressed mother in an email to the Washington Post. “The institution before the people!”

The unnamed mother, now in her mid-80s, says McCarrick abused multiple men in her family when they were boys. These alleged victims were interviewed for the Vatican’s report on McCarrick. The mother claims that on multiple occasions, she saw McCarrick inappropriately touch boys in her family. She says she sent anonymous letters about McCarrick’s alleged abuse to every U.S. cardinal.

“Ted McCarrick is the devil in my mind — the devil personified,” she said in an interview. “It felt like there was no getting away from this man’s evil, living in our midst, injecting himself into our family and into other families. It was frightening because there was no pushing him back.”

Even after the Vatican’s unprecedented 461-page investigation report, and in the interest of further transparency, the plaintiffs are asking for additional information. The lawsuit includes an injunction demanding the release of names and documents related to Catholic sex abuse offenders.

“Had Plaintiffs or their families known what Defendant Holy See knew or should have known—that McCarrick was a suspected abuser and child molester and a danger to members of the Roman Catholic Church, including children, before Plaintiffs were first molested by McCarrick—Plaintiffs would not have been sexually molested,” it states.

The Catholic Church abuse lawsuit was filed against the Holy See (the jurisdiction of the pope) on Nov. 18, 2020, in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. The lawsuit was filed on multiple counts, including breach of contract, breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, consumer fraud, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and violation of customary international law of human rights, among others.

The Cardinal McCarrick Catholic Sex Abuse Lawsuit is Case No. 2:20-cv-16503, in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.

This article is not legal advice. It is presented
for informational purposes only.