McCarrick was one of the most recognized American cardinals in the world and a prolific fundraiser, and was considered a power broker in Washington, D.C., where he was connected to prominent politicians.[1] Within the church, McCarrick was variously regarded as a moderate[3][4] or progressive.[5] McCarrick was a champion for progressive Catholics active in social justice causes,[6] but was also "orthodox in his adherence to Roman Catholic dogma," opposing abortion and same-sex marriage and supporting the all-male priesthood.[7]
McCarrick has been accused of engaging in sexual conduct with adult male seminarians over the course of decades, and this was alleged to be an open secret in some ecclesial circles.[8] Though multiple reports about McCarrick's alleged conduct with adult seminarians were made to American bishops and the Vatican between 1993 and 2016,[9][10] allegations of sexual abuse against male minors were not publicly known until 2018. In June 2018, the Vatican removed McCarrick from public ministry because of credible sexual misconduct allegations.[11] In July 2018, the New York Times published a story detailing a pattern of sexual abuse of male seminarians and minors.[1] The emergence of these reports and the lack of action from the church hierarchy infuriated Catholics and sparked demands for action against church leaders believed to be responsible.[2][12]
McCarrick submitted his resignation from the College of Cardinals in July 2018, which was accepted by Pope Francis.[13] Francis ordered McCarrick to a life of prayer and penance until a canonical trial could be held.[14] After a church investigation and trial, he was found guilty of sexual crimes against adults and minors and abuse of power, and was dismissed from the clergy in February 2019.[15] McCarrick is the most senior church official in modern times to be laicized[16] – commonly referred to as defrocking – and is believed to be the first cardinal ever laicized for sexual misconduct.[17]
McCarrick and Admiral William Fallon, September 16, 2001, in Washington, D.C.
McCarrick served as president of the Catholic University of Puerto Rico from 1965 to 1969, and was raised to the rank of Domestic Prelate of His Holiness in 1965.[18] In 1969, Cardinal Terence Cooke recalled McCarrick to New York. McCarrick was an associate secretary for education and an assistant priest at Blessed Sacrament parish from 1969 to 1971.[18] He was Cooke's secretary from 1971 to 1977.[18][26] He was later accused of sexually abusing a male minor during this period.[27]
In 2001 a Catholic high school, originally established in 1885 and renamed multiple times through the years, was named Cardinal McCarrick High School in honor of McCarrick as the first bishop of the diocese. The school permanently closed in June 2015 for financial reasons.[29]
Archbishop of Newark
On May 30, 1986, McCarrick was appointed the fourth Archbishop of Newark. He succeeded Peter Leo Gerety, and was installed at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart on the following July 25. During his tenure, he established the Office of Evangelization, ministries for Hispanics and victims of HIV, and a drug prevention program.[30] He also promoted vocations, and ordained a total of 200 priests for the Archdiocese.[20]
McCarrick in June 2006
McCarrick became known as an advocate for social justice, once saying, "[T]he Church cannot be authentic unless it takes care of the poor, the newcomers, the needy."[20] During the 1980s, he served as an official observer to the Helsinki Commission and the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, serving at the behest of the State Department.[30] In 1988, he participated in an interfaith meeting with Fidel Castro to promote religious freedom in Cuba, the first meeting of its kind subsequent to the fall of the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. McCarrick, as a representative of Irish immigrant families, was chosen to be placed in the Ellis Island Hall of Fame on December 8, 1990.[30]
President George W. Bush and Laura Bush welcome outgoing Archbishop of Washington McCarrick, left, the incoming Archbishop of Washington Donald Wuerl, far right, and Papal Nuncio Pietro Sambi to the White House.
In June 2004, McCarrick was accused by conservative Catholics of intentionally misreading a document from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, recommending that Catholic politicians who supported abortion be denied the Eucharist. McCarrick led a successful push to have the USCCB allow the bishops of individual dioceses to make a determination on who was or was not eligible to receive the sacrament rather than forbid all pro-abortion American politicians from doing so. Fr. Richard John Neuhaus said, "The bishops I have talked to have no doubt that [McCarrick's] presentation did not accurately represent the communication from Cardinal Ratzinger."[38] McCarrick said that he did not want to cause "a confrontation with the Sacred Body of the Lord Jesus in my hand," and added that "the individual should be the one who decides whether or not he is in communion with the Church" and therefore eligible to receive the sacrament. McCarrick later had a meeting with John Kerry, a Catholic and the Democratic nominee in that year's presidential election. Some Catholics felt that due to Kerry's pro-choice position, he should not have been allowed to receive Communion.[7]
Although McCarrick was sometimes labelled a liberal, he was noted for adhering to church teaching on abortion, same-sex marriage, and the male-only priesthood.[7]
Retirement as archbishop
On May 16, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI accepted McCarrick's resignation as Archbishop of Washington, upon the latter's reaching the customary age limit of 75, and appointed Donald Wuerl, Bishop of Pittsburgh, as the 6th Archbishop of Washington, DC. From May 16, 2006, until Wuerl's installation on June 22, 2006, McCarrick served as the Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese of Washington, an interim post.[39]
Within the church, McCarrick "was always seen as a moderate, centrist presence in the hierarchy, a telegenic pastor who could present the welcoming face of the church, no matter what the circumstances."[3]The Washington Post identified him in a 2014 article as "one of a number of senior churchmen who were more or less put out to pasture during the eight-year pontificate of Benedict XVI," adding that after the election of Pope Francis he found himself put "back in the mix."[3] During his retirement, McCarrick pressed House Speaker John Boehner to take up immigration reform. McCarrick spent a significant amount of time traveling and engaging in inter-religious dialogue. In April 2014, at the request of the U.S. State Department, McCarrick (along with a Muslim and an Evangelical cleric) made a trip to the Central African Republic, a country suffering from ethnic and interreligious violence.[3] In May 2014, he traveled with Pope Francis to the Holy Land.[3] McCarrick also traveled to Armenia to discuss Syria with Eastern Orthodox clerics, the Philippines to visit typhoon victims, China for discussions on religious freedom, Iran for talks on nuclear proliferation,[3] and served as a Vatican intermediary for the U.S.-Cuba talks.[48]
Accusations of sexual abuse, investigations, and punishments
Cardinal Agostino Cacciavillan said that during his time as papal nuncio to the United States in 1994, prior to Pope John Paul II's visit to the United States in 1995, he received a phone call from a woman who was concerned that there would be a "media scandal if the Pope goes to Newark" because of "voices (rumors) about McCarrick's behavior with seminarians." Cacciavillan then told Cardinal John O'Connor, Archbishop of New York, about the woman's call. O'Connor reportedly conducted an "investigation, an inquiry" and eventually told Cacciavillan that "there was no obstacle to the visit of the Pope to Newark." Cacciavillan stated that he did not attempt to contact the Vatican.[49] According to the 2018 book Il giorno del giudizio (The Day of Judgment), Italian journalists Andrea Tornielli and Gianni Valente state that Cardinal O’Connor, in fact, ..".objected strongly to John Paul II's idea of rewarding McCarrick and the diocese of Newark with a stop during his papal visit to the United States in 1995." But according to Tornielli and Valente, John Paul's personal secretary, Msgr. Stanisław Dziwisz (later Archbishop of Krakow) was able to intercept these objections before they reached the pope. The authors suggest that this was because as bishop, McCarrick was an efficient fundraiser for the pope's causes, including anti-Communist efforts in Poland.[50]
Richard Sipe stated that he wrote a letter to Benedict XVI in 2008 saying that McCarrick's activities "had been widely known for several decades."[1] Sipe sent a letter to Bishop Robert W. McElroy in 2016 concerning sexual misconduct by McCarrick. McElroy asked if Sipes would be willing to share corroborating material that would substantiate his allegations. Sipe said that he was precluded from sharing specific documentary information. McElroy said "[T]he limitations on his willingness to share corroborating information made it impossible to know what was real and what was rumor."[10]
Mike Kelly of the New Jersey Record reported that in a conversation with Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Newark, Tobin said that around the time he became Archbishop of Newark in 2016, he heard "rumors" about McCarrick having slept with seminarians, but chose not to believe them, stating that at the time they seemed too "incredulous" to be true. Kelly also mentioned that in 1998, based on a tip, he himself had attempted to investigate the rumors, "but no seminarians would talk".[54]
Allegations involving seminarians and priests
In 2018, multiple media outlets reported that a number of priests and former seminarians under McCarrick had come forward alleging that McCarrick had engaged in inappropriate conduct with seminarians. These included reports that he made sexual advances toward seminarians during his tenure as Bishop of Metuchen and Archbishop of Newark. Rumors of McCarrick conduct towards seminarians dates back to his tenure as secretary to Terrence Cardinal Cooke (1971-1977.)[55] McCarrick reportedly routinely invited a number of seminarians to a house on the shore with limited sleeping accommodations, resulting in one of them sharing a bed with the bishop. According to former seminarian Desmond Rossi, he and a friend later realized that the archbishop would cancel weekend gatherings "...if there were not enough men going that they would exceed the number of available beds, thus necessitating one guest to share a bed with the archbishop."[56] Rossi subsequently transferred before ordination from the Diocese of Newark to a diocese in New York State.
Between 2005 and 2007, the Dioceses of Metuchen and Newark, and the Archdiocese of Newark paid financial settlements to two priests who had accused McCarrick of abuse. [57] These settlements totalled $180,000.[58]
In 2005, the Archdiocese of Newark and the Dioceses of Trenton and Metuchen paid a total of $80,000 to a former priest, who stated that McCarrick would touch him in bed, but only above the waist, and that they never kissed. The Diocese of Metuchen's contribution was not in reference to McCarrick, but to an allegation regarding previous conduct of a teacher at a high school located at that time in the diocese.[59]
Documents obtained by The New York Times reveal that in 1994 a priest wrote a letter to Bishop Edward T. Hughes, McCarrick's successor as Bishop of Metuchen, stating that McCarrick had inappropriately touched him.[1] In 2006, $100,000 was paid in 2006 by the Diocese (where McCarrick had been bishop from 1981 to 1986).[59] The payments were authorized by Metuchen bishop Paul G. Bootkoski, who also reported the offenses to law enforcement.[59] According to Donald Cardinal Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, nobody from these dioceses informed him of these settlements, even after the retired McCarrick began living on the grounds of a seminary in the Archdiocese of Washington.[60][40] In 2010, clerical abuse expert Richard Sipe published excerpts from the 2005 and 2007 settlement documents.[61]
Removal from ministry and resignation as cardinal
In a 2008 letter to Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, McCarrick wrote that he had shared his bed with seminarians. He said that "this was never done in secret or behind closed doors," and that he had never "had sexual relations with anyone, man, woman or child, nor have I ever sought such acts."[62]
On June 20, 2018, Cardinal McCarrick was removed from public ministry by the Holy See after a review board of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York found an allegation "credible and substantiated" that he had sexually abused a 16-year-old altar boy while a priest in New York.[63] Patrick Noaker, the attorney for the anonymous complainant, alleged two incidents at St. Patrick's Cathedral, one in 1971 and the other in 1972.[64] Noaker stated that when measuring the teen for a cassock, McCarrick "unzipped [the boy's] pants and put his hands in the boy's pants."[65] McCarrick stated that he was innocent of these charges: "I have absolutely no recollection of this reported abuse, and believe in my innocence." He also stated, "In obedience I accept the decision of The Holy See, that I no longer exercise any public ministry."[65][66] Also on June 20, 2018, Cardinal Tobin revealed that during McCarrick's ministry in New Jersey, there had been accusations of sexual misconduct with three adults, and that two of the allegations had resulted in confidential financial settlements with the complainants.[67][68]
On July 5, Fordham University rescinded an honorary degree and other honors it had granted Cardinal McCarrick.[69][70][71]The Catholic University of America, where McCarrick earned two degrees and served in a variety of spiritual and administrative positions, revoked the honorary degree it awarded him in 2006.[72] On July 16, 2018, The New York Times published a front-page article describing McCarrick's abuse of adult seminarians.[1][73] On July 19, The New York Times published an article based on the story of a man named James, whose last name was withheld. A New Jersey man whose uncle had known McCarrick since high school, James alleged that McCarrick had sexually abused him beginning at age 11. James had been the first boy McCarrick had ever baptized. James claimed that McCarrick had exposed himself to him when he was 11 and had sexually touched him beginning when he was 13. He explained that he tried to tell his father a couple of years later but was not believed.[74][75] On November 13, James revealed himself as James Grein, and gave a public speech at the "Silence Stops Now Rally" in Baltimore, where he called on Catholics to "reform and reclaim the Church." Speaking about alleged mishandling of allegations by Catholic bishops, he said, "Our bishops must know that the jig is up."[76]
On July 27, 2018, Pope Francis ordered McCarrick to observe "a life of prayer and penance in seclusion" and accepted his resignation from the College of Cardinals.[77] McCarrick became the first person to resign from the College of Cardinals since Louis Billot, a French prelate, resigned in 1927 when he refused an order to withdraw his support of Action Française, a monarchist movement that Pope Pius XI had condemned.[78] He is also the first cardinal to resign following allegations of sexual abuse.[57] The Pope took this action before the accusations were investigated by church officials, the first time an order of penance and prayer has been issued before a church trial.[79] McCarrick was not laicized (removed from the priesthood) pending the completion of a canonical trial.[57] The Vatican announced on July 28, 2018, that Pope Francis had ordered Archbishop McCarrick (as he then became known) to obey an "obligation to remain in a house yet to be indicated to him" and also observe "a life of prayer and penance until the accusations made against him are examined in a regular canonical trial."[80]
On August 25, 2018 ArchbishopCarlo Maria Viganò, former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, released an 11-page letter describing a series of warnings to the Vatican regarding McCarrick.[81] Viganò stated that Montalvo, then nuncio to the United States, had informed the Vatican in 2000 of what Vigano characterized as McCarrick's "gravely immoral behaviour with seminarians and priests." He further stated that Archbishop Pietro Sambi (nuncio from 2005 to 2011) had also informed the Vatican. Viganò says that I 2006 – when working at the Vatican – he wrote his own memo regarding McCarrick. However, he says, nothing was done to stop McCarrick.[81] In 2008, Viganò says he wrote a second memo, including material from Sipe.[81]
In 2009 or 2010 according to Vigano, Pope Benedict XVI placed severe restrictions on McCarrick's movements and public ministry, not allowing him to travel beyond the grounds of the seminary where he was living and not permitting him to say Mass in public.[81] However, according to Viganò, Pope Francis subsequently removed these sanctions and made McCarrick "his trusted counselor," even though Francis "knew from at least June 23, 2013 that McCarrick was a serial predator. He knew that he was a corrupt man, he covered for him to the bitter end."[81]
However, Italian journalists "Tornielli and Valente report that it was in 2007—not 2009, as Viganò has claimed—that Pope Benedict XVI issued his “instructions” to McCarrick."[50]
Viganò called on Pope Francis and all others who covered up McCarrick's conduct to resign.[81] It was quickly noted that during the time McCarrick was allegedly under sanction, he maintained a "robust public presence" full of international travel, public masses, speeches, and the acceptance of awards.[82] Viganò also stated that he discussed McCarrick's conduct and the penalties surrounding it with McCarrick's successor as Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Wuerl, who through a spokesperson initially denied that he was aware of the allegations but subsequently acknowledged that he had been aware of certain accusations against McCarrick.[83][84]
In October 2018, the Vatican announced that it would conduct an investigation into how allegations against McCarrick were handled.[85] On May 28, 2019, McCarrick's private secretary Msgr. Anthony J. Figueiredo released letters written by McCarrick suggesting that while senior Vatican officials placed restrictions on the former Cardinal after abuse allegations surfaced, they were not official sanctions and were not strictly enforced under the papacies of either Pope Benedict XVI or Pope Francis.[86][87][88] In an interview published on May 28, 2019, Francis directly addressed the accusations made in Viganò's letter for the first time. He stated that he "knew nothing" about McCarrick's conduct.[89]
Vatican trial and laicization
On February 16, 2019, the Vatican announced that McCarrick had been laicized.[16] The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF),[90] in a church penal process, found McCarrick guilty of "solicitation in the Sacrament of Confession, and sins against the Sixth Commandment with minors and with adults, with the aggravating factor of the abuse of power."[90] The guilty verdict was issued by the CDF on January 11, 2019, and McCarrick appealed.[90][16] The CDF rejected the appeal on February 13 and McCarrick was notified on February 15.[90][91] Pope Francis "recognized the definitive nature of this decision made in accord with law, rendering it a res iudicata (i.e., admitting of no further recourse),"[90][92] meaning it is final and McCarrick has no further opportunity to appeal.[16] The CDF used an expedited judicial process designed for cases in which evidence is overwhelming. McCarrick's ordination as a priest cannot be undone according to sacramental theology, but McCarrick cannot licitly perform any priestly duties, including celebrating Mass, although he may administer the sacrament of Penance to a penitent in danger of death; McCarrick can be stripped of the right to financial support from the church;[93] and his laicization is permanent.[17][91] McCarrick is the most senior church official in modern times to be laicized.[16]
Honorary degrees
McCarrick was awarded at least 35 honorary degrees,[94] many of which have now been revoked or are currently under consideration for revocation.[95][96]
^ abcdefConconi, Chuck (October 1, 2004). "The Man in the Red Hat". The Washingtonian. Retrieved February 18, 2019. ((cite web)): Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
