Defrocked and disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the subject of a new sexual abuse lawsuit filed in New Jersey, is now living in an undisclosed location as the public waits for the Vatican’s McCarrick report to be completed and released.

The report was ordered by Pope Francis. It is expected to offer some explanation of how a man with so many credible allegations against him could have risen through the ranks of the Catholic Church to the point he became a spokesman of sorts for the church’s response to the first national wave of the sex abuse scandal.

Who is Theodore McCarrick?

McCarrick grew up in New York City, was ordained in 1958 and began his clerical career in the Archdiocese of New York. He later became the bishop of the Diocese of Metuchen, New Jersey and served in that capacity through the mid-1980s until he was appointed the archbishop of Newark.

In February 2001, McCarrick was made a cardinal and that same year he was appointed archbishop of Washington D.C., where he stayed until his retirement in 2006 at the age of 75.

The Washington Post in February 2019 described McCarrick as “a globe-trotting diplomat, representing the Vatican abroad, advocating for human rights and religious freedom.” During his years in Washington, he was a regular visitor at the White House and testified before Congress multiple times.

He also became the “de facto lead spokesman among U.S. cardinals” when the first wave of the Catholic church sex abuse scandal crashed in America in the early 2000s.

“(McCarrick) helped draw up rules in the United States for how the church would handle abuse, rules that provided zero tolerance for predator priests,” The Post reported, “but did little to improve oversight of bishops or cardinals.”

What Crimes Did Theodore McCarrick Commit?

Despite his high station, McCarrick couldn’t avoid the allegations of sexual abuse that were finally leveled against him starting in the summer of 2018: that he fondled an underage altar boy in the 1970s. He was removed from all public ministry by Pope Francis that June on the basis of claims he molested a minor when he was a New York priest, claims the pope said were credible.

A month later, he became one of only six cardinals in history to fully resign, and only the second since the 20^th century.

The Vatican took things a step further in February 2019, defrocking the 88-year-old McCarrick after finding him guilty of two charges –soliciting sex during the sacrament of confession and committing sins and abuse of power with minors and adults.

McCarrick has been accused of sexually abusing at least four minors and harassing adult seminarians, but is not expected to face criminal charges in any of the cases because of statutes of limitations in the states they are said to have occurred – primarily New Jersey and New York.

Civil lawsuits and claims have been filed in at least some of those cases though.

The dioceses of Metuchen and Newark paid $180,000 to settle two lawsuits filed by two former seminarians who accused McCarrick of sexual assault, including $80,000 to a former priest turned lawyer in 2004 “who said McCarrick would invite him and other young seminarians and priests to a shore house in Sea Girt where they would be expected to share a bed with (McCarrick),” NJ.com reported.

The other settlement was reportedly paid in 2007.

Most recently, a man filed a civil lawsuit in New Jersey Superior Court in July claiming McCarrick and several other clergy sexually abused him at McCarrick’s beach house north of Atlantic City in the 1980s.

Where is Theodore McCarrick Now?

At that time McCarrick resigned, Pope Francis ordered him to live the rest of his life in “prayer and penance” and McCarrick moved to a friary in the Diocese of Salina in the central plains of Kansas.

According to reporting by the Associated Press in September 2018, the facility McCarrick is housed at is the St. Fidelis Friary in the town of Victoria, a rural community located 250 miles west of Kansas City.

After more than a year there, McCarrick left the friary in January moved to “a residential community of priests who have been removed from ministry,” the Catholic News Agency reported, but his actual location has not been disclosed.

“It is not a secret where he is, but it is private and for the good of the community I don’t think there will be a public announcement of it at this point,” the news agency quoted an unnamed church official as saying.

The Catholic News Agency also reported McCarrick has been in poor health since at least June 2019.

Was the Catholic Church Aware of the Crimes?

In August 2018, a month after Theodore McCarrick resigned, former Vatican ambassador Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano accused Pope Francis of covering up McCarrick’s deviant behavior and “rehabilitating McCarrick from sanctions imposed by Pope Benedict XVI over reports he slept with seminarians,” the Associated Press reported.

In a letter he made public, Vigano insisted “more than two dozen current and former Vatican officials, as well as a host of U.S. bishops and papal advisers, of being part of the cover-up and called for Francis to resign over the scandal.”

Vigano was the Vatican’s ambassador to Washington from 2011 to 2016.

Pope Francis dismissed the Vigano letter and The National Catholic Reporter found that “at least several of the letter’s accusations appear contradicted by the historical record.”

Why Was Nothing Done For Years?

It remains unclear who, if anyone, knew about Theodore McCarrick’s wrongdoing before the first claims of sexual abuse by him were settled out of court in 2004.

Pope Francis ordered the Vatican to conduct an investigation of the former cardinal in 2018, including an analysis of all documents in Holy See offices related to McCarrick. The results, along with those from separate investigations by the four American dioceses where he served, were to be compiled in a McCarrick report by the Vatican.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, told a reporter from Reuters in February the report was done or nearly done, and that Pope Francis would have the final word on when and how much of the report was released to the public.

An editorial published by the National Catholic Reporter on Aug. 11 called for the report to be released.

“If there are legitimate grounds for delay in releasing the report on how such a man was able to win promotion, again and again, the Vatican should say so,” the opinion piece reads.

Later, it goes on to say “(Pope) Francis may have sensibly wondered about the propriety of releasing a text expected to reopen a multitude of old wounds for U.S. survivors of sexual abuse as Americans, like others across the world, deal with an unprecedented era of death, suffering, and loss. “But we are quickly reaching the point where continued delay becomes unexplainable.”

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