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SThere were already different judgments about the timing of the publication of the “McCarrick Report”: Should the report presented in the week after the turbulent presidential elections in the United States and shortly before the fall meeting of the United States Bishops’ Conference on October 16 be earlier? and 17 to receive too much or little attention? The 450-page Vatican investigation released Tuesday deals with the life and work, the rise and fall of Theodore McCarrick, now 90, and above all, who knew when of his countless crimes.
Matthias Rüb
Political correspondent for Italy, the Vatican, Albania and Malta, based in Rome.
The former ecclesiastic, who was handed over to the laity by Pope Francis in February 2019, was Archbishop of Washington from 2001 to 2006. The position, which is of great importance in the Catholic Church of America, as well as in political life and socialization of the American capital, usually brings with it the elevation of the Pope to cardinal status. In short, you cannot rise higher than McCarrick in the Catholic Church in the United States. And you can’t go lower than McCarrick.
Past by altar boys
The official title of the study is “Report on the institutional knowledge of the Holy See and its decision-making in relation to former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick (from 1930 to 2017)”. So it is a period of almost nine decades. From McCarrick’s birth in New York City to his promotion from priest in New York to bishop in New Jersey and archbishop in Washington to the first serious investigation in his local archdiocese into allegations of sexual abuse.
In May, Daniel Deckers described how pedophiles could wreak havoc under the protection of John Paul II. You can read his essay here.
The investigation, led by the current Archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan, concluded in early 2018 that the victim’s allegations were “credible and well founded.” Consequently, McCarrick had repeatedly attacked in 1971 in the sacristy of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York an altar boy, then 16 years old, whom he claimed to adapt the chasuble. The result of the investigation was communicated to the Holy See, and in June 2018, Pope Francis urged McCarrick to resign from the College of Cardinals and shortly afterwards suspended him from the priesthood.
This was followed by further revelations of incidents in the Dioceses of New York and Metuchen, New Jersey, where McCarrick was active in the 1970s and 1980s. The image of a clergyman who systematically exploited his growing power for the sexual exploitation of seminarians and Future priests emerged in front of the public. Most of his victims were no longer minors, but were subordinate to him. McCarrick used to call himself “Uncle Ted.” He had two beach houses bought in the diocese of Metuchen, where the sociable “uncle” regularly invited his “nephews” from seminaries to spend the summer or on other occasions. And abused there.
An eleven page letter of fire
From 2004 to 2006, while McCarrick was at the height of his power as archbishop and cardinal in Washington, the dioceses of New Jersey paid compensation of up to $ 100,000 to two victims of “Uncle Ted” awarded out of court. Money never seemed to be a problem for McCarrick. The archbishop and cardinal, with excellent connections in church, politics and society, found patrons everywhere. Did America’s wealthy Uncle Ted buy benevolence and look the other way with generous donations to high-ranking Curia personnel at the Vatican?
An 11-page open letter from August 2018 from Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who was nuncio to Washington from 2011 to 2016, launched the McCarrick case at the Vatican. In the letter, Viganò accused a score of bishops in America and cardinals of the Holy See of knowing about McCarrick’s misdeeds and covering them for decades. Viganò named the cardinal secretaries of state Angelo Sodano (1991 to 2006), Tarcisio Bertone (2006 to 2013) and the current incumbent Pietro Parolin as the most important accomplices in the Vatican.
