The Vatican’s highly anticipated investigative report about the church’s handling of disgraced former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, accused by several former altar boys and seminarians of New Jersey church sexual abuse, was released Tuesday and levels considerable blame on the late Pope John Paul II.

Investigators found clergy at all levels of the Catholic church either looked the other way, dismissed or downplayed the numerous allegations against McCarrick, who at one point even served as a church spokesman of sorts, speaking out against sexual abuse when the first wave of allegations crashed down on hundreds of other priests nationwide. Pope John Paul II appointed McCarrick archbishop of Washington D.C. in 2001 despite having him investigated and being informed McCarrick had sexual relations with seminarians under him, the Vatican’s new report says.

McCarrick was defrocked in 2018 on allegations of sexually abusing at least four minors and sexually abusing adult seminarians.

Origins of the Vatican’s McCarrick Report

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 him. The results, along with those from separate investigations by the four American dioceses where he served – New York, Metuchen and Newark in New Jersey, and Washington, D.C. – comprise the 449-page McCarrick report.

According to the report, Pope Francis inherited McCarrick when he took over the papacy in 2013 and received no new documentation about him until 2017. In the intervening years, he continued handling McCarrick as his predecessors had.

In August 2018, former Vatican ambassador to the U.S. Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano said he told Pope Francis about sexual abuse allegations against McCarrick in 2013 and accused the pope and more than two dozen current and former Vatican officials, several American bishops and papal advisers of covering up McCarrick’s deviant behavior. Pope Francis dismissed Vigano’s claims.

McCarrick’s History

McCarrick was ordained in 1958 and began his clerical career in the Archdiocese of New York. He became the bishop of the Diocese of Metuchen, New Jersey, in 1981 and was appointed archbishop of Newark in 1986. In late 2000, McCarrick was appointed archbishop of Washington D.C., where he stayed until his retirement in 2006. He was made a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in February 2001.

According to the Vatican’s new report, then-archbishop of New York Cardinal John O’Connor warned the Vatican in 1999 that naming McCarrick archbishop of Washington would be a mistake. At that point, McCarrick’s file included “a 1994 letter by one priest to the Metuchen, N.J., bishop providing eyewitness testimony of McCarrick and other seminarians engaging in sexual acts” and claiming McCarrick tried to fondle him as well, the Associated Press reported. Anonymous letters had also been sent to the Vatican claiming McCarrick had sexually abused minors and had sexual relations with young men in his residence and at his beach house.

John Paul II ordered an investigation that ultimately confirmed McCarrick’s sexual relations with young men, but was inconclusive about the sex abuse of minors claims. The findings reportedly convinced John Paul to reconsider McCarrick’s appointment, but McCarrick wrote a personal letter to the pope denying all the allegations and the pope was satisfied, the new Vatican report says.

The First Action Taken Against McCarrick

The new McCarrick report says that in 2005, Pope Benedict XVI was presented with documentation from the former Metuchen seminarian who had previously claimed McCarrick abused him. The accuser was putting his name to the charges, but his allegations were tainted in the minds of some church officials because he, too, was accused of sexually abusing minors, the report found.

Because the Vatican’s legal code lacked the framework to prosecute old allegations of sexual relations between priests and young men, Benedict chose instead to informally direct McCarrick to “maintain a lower profile and minimize travel for the good of the church.” McCarrick disregarded that request, routinely, which prompted Benedict to put the command in writing. The written order had little effect, the Vatican’s McCarrick report says, and Benedict did nothing to enforce it.

During that time, The Washington Post reported, McCarrick acted as “a globe-trotting diplomat.” 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.”

McCarrick’s Alleged Victims Speak Out, Taking Him Down

In the summer of 2018, a former altar boy came forward publicly to say McCarrick fondled him in the 1970s, forcing the Vatican to react. McCarrick was removed from all public ministry by Pope Francis, who found the claims credible. A month later, McCarrick became one of only six cardinals in history to fully resign, and only the second since the 20^thcentury.

The Vatican defrocked 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 – in February 2019.

Civil Lawsuits Against McCarrick

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

So where is Theodore McCarrick today? Pope Francis ordered McCarrick to live the rest of his life in “prayer and penance” in 2018. The disgraced former archbishop lived first at a friary in the central plains of Kansas, then moved to a “residential community of priests who have been removed from ministry” in an undisclosed location, the Catholic News Agency reported.

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