Archbishop Theodore McCarrick was laicized this week, after he was found guilty of sexual abuse and other canonical crimes. Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, ... (Before the 1983 revision to the code of canon law, priests who were laicized were often referred to as being “reduced” to the lay state.) Call Us 24/7 1-800-748-7115

He earned a master’s degree in history there and was ordained a priest of the New York Archdiocese May 31, 1958. But what does it mean […] He dined with President George W. Bush and Laura Bush, chatted education policy with President Richard M. Nixon In addition to wielding enormous political and ecclesiastical influence, McCarrick was able to reward his benefactors and potential enemies with financial gifts. But for McCarrick, the penalty represents a dizzying, precipitous fall from grace. Marc A. Thiessen: Suddenly I understand how the Reformation happened. He's also been the chairman of the NAC's board since 2006.

Theodore McCarrick, the disgraced former cardinal-archbishop of Washington, D.C., who is alleged to have sexually abused minors and seminarians for several decades, has been removed from the clerical state, the Holy See announced Saturday.. 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. Senator Edward M. Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery, where he read from a letter Kennedy had written to Pope Benedict XVI. The pope approved the guilty verdict and the penalty of laicization, making the decision impossible for McCarrick to appeal. McCarrick spent a significant amount of time traveling and engaging in inter-religious dialogue. "The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, at the conclusion of a penal process, issued a decree finding Theodore Edgar McCarrick, archbishop emeritus of Washington, D.C., guilty of the following delicts while a cleric: 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," the Vatican confirmed in a statement. prelates such as McCarrick have been dismissed from the clerical state for sexual misconduct much more rarely — until now. In 2004, Donald Wuerl, then bishop of Pittsburgh, forwarded an abuse allegation against McCarrick to the apostolic nuncio — again, to silence. © Copyright 2020 | Saunders & Walker PA | All right reserved. A spokesman for Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, who received $6,500 from McCarrick, told the Post the money “never had any effect on the Cardinal’s decision-making as an official of the Holy See.”. The Church body "imposed on him the penalty of dismissal from the clerical state," the statement said, using the formal description of defrocking.

McCarrick spoke at length of his involvement in the election of Pope Francis as pontiff after the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, and liked to reminisce about his friendship with Francis, which, he said, went back years before his papacy. According to a statement issued by the Vatican, McCarrick was found guilty of “solicitation in the Sacrament of Confession, and sins against the Sixth Commandment” involving both minors and adults, with “the aggravating factor of the abuse of power.” These findings are based on allegations brought by a reported three accusers in 2018 during a penal process initiated by Rome. Get the latest breaking news delivered straight to your inbox. Though laicized, McCarrick does not cease to be a bishop, sacramentally speaking, since once conferred the sacrament of ordination and episcopal consecration cannot be undone.

The move to strip him of his Catholic clergy status is called being laicized by the Church, and means McCarrick can no longer present himself as a Catholic priest in any way. Before news of the allegations against him broke last summer, McCarrick was among the most powerful, well-connected prelates in America.

He told CBS News by phone last year that he had informed the college about McCarrick, though would not say when.

As head of the Papal Foundation, a nonprofit that fundraises for the Vatican, McCarrick raised millions for Rome, in part thanks to his capacity to make fast friends with the well-to-do. Last year, the pope and other church officials were accused of covering up McCarrick's misconduct. Former American Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who resigned last summer after being accused of sexual misconduct, has been defrocked by the Vatican, a move Pope Francis personally signed off on. How do I vote in my state in the 2020 election? 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. While the archbishop of Newark, McCarrick also oversaw the Immaculate Conception Seminary in South Orange, New Jersey. has been laicized by the Vatican, stripping him of all rights and obligations as a member of the clergy. The Archdiocese of Washington said that Wuerl did not intend to be “imprecise” in his earlier denials, and that they referred only to claims of abuse against minors, not adults. A 2006 letter revealed that the Vatican's ambassador to the U.S. was informed back in 2000 of "serious matters involving some of the students" at a seminary in New Jersey where McCarrick was archbishop. The plain-spoken priest from Washington Heights gave a warm homily at the funeral of Bing Crosby in 1977, and then offered the funerary mass for Beau Biden, Vice President Joe Biden’s son, in 2015. Pope Francis has rendered the verdict “definitive.” There will be no appeal.

As the archbishop of a major See, McCarrick gained more power and influence not only along the Eastern seaboard but across the country as one who could make or break ecclesiastical careers.

McCarrick may always have been honest about one thing: He always called himself a sinner. During his retirement, McCarrick pressed House Speaker John Boehner to take up immigration reform.

Rome’s decision on McCarrick marks the first time a U.S. bishop has been laicized due to sexual abuse. The two letters were received by the nuncio and O’Malley’s secretary, respectively, but again: nothing. The punishment was officially handed down by the Church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and announced by the Vatican on Saturday morning. Days later, Wuerl himself apologized, stating that his earlier denials were the result of a “lapse of memory.”. / CBS News. There are evil spirits in the world, but we have to hope that there’ll always be — for everybody, even the worst of us — a moment when the Lord will say, ‘Tell me, do you really not love me?’ And the answer will be, ‘I love you, and I am sorry.’ ”. His insatiable thirst for power and influence was only surpassed by his perverted sexual appetite and we still only have part of the story. Reports on the Vatican’s inquest list three individuals who submitted testimony of abuse by McCarrick, but I have learned in subsequent reporting of at least four others who testified, all of them from the same extended family. There are other questions, too, that now seem destined to go largely unanswered: Did McCarrick simply perpetrate abuse, or was he involved in its coverup in any of his illustrious posts? Cardinal McCarrick’s interest in Islam and involvement with relations between Christians and Muslims went back many years. In 1993, Father Boniface Ramsey, now a priest in New York, spoke to Archbishop Thomas Kelly of Louisville, warning him about McCarrick. In early 2001, McCarrick was installed as archbishop of Washington and shortly thereafter was made a cardinal by Pope John Paul II. But there were so many chances. He sent $600,000 donated to the church by wealthy donors to more than 100 Catholic officials, including two popes, according to financial records obtained by the Washington Post. McCarrick declared his innocence when the allegations against him were first publicized last summer and hasn’t spoken on the charges since. In 1981, he was the founding bishop of the Diocese of Metuchen which had been carved out of what had been the Diocese of Trenton.

A former student at the Pontifical American College, or NAC, Bishop Steven Lopes, said in September that he didn't believe the "parade of cardinals and bishops" who denied knowing about the sexual misconduct allegations swirling around McCarrick.

joe@saunderslawyers.com. He spent a year from January 2011 to January 2012 as a visiting scholar at the Library of Congress, working out of an office in the library’s historic Thomas Jefferson building. Copyright © 2020 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. I hope there aren’t too many people going there. 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. Theodore McCarrick, a former cardinal and archbishop of Washington, has been laicized by the Vatican, stripping him of all rights and obligations as a member of the clergy. Are there more who hesitated to come forward?

After the allegations of sexual abuse publicly surfaced concerning McCarrick, archbishops and bishops across the country (and the globe) were questioned about what they knew and when they knew it.

Theodore McCarrick, Uncle Ted as he urged his sexual prey to call him, has left a trail of destruction and human misery behind him. Maybe McCarrick will repent at the very last, when all wrongs are finally accounted for. As an ordinary, McCarrick was the top official of the fledgling diocese and was quickly promoted to the Archdiocese of Newark in 1986 where he would remain until another promotion in 2000. While many U.S. priests have been laicized for the same, More than 800 Catholic priests have reportedly been laicized since the sexual abuse scandal broke out into public view. 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.” Rossi subsequently transferred before ordination from the Archdiocese of Newark to a diocese in New York State.

Denver, Colo., Feb 16, 2019 / 06:43 am MT ().-Archbishop Theodore McCarrick was laicized this week, after he was found guilty of sexual abuse and other canonical crimes. He was an advisor to popes and presidents, he testified before Vatican committees and in the halls of Congress.

Be in the know. One of his alleged victims was an 11-year-old boy. Why?

Opinion columnist focusing on politics, religion and morality in public life.

Which was the real McCarrick: “Uncle Ted,” the avuncular, easygoing, liberal priest with a heart for the developing world, or the jet-setting prelate intimate with money and power, who seemed finally to care so little for the vulnerable people he himself abused? He spent seven years there, earning a master’s degree in social sciences and a doctorate in sociology while serving first as an assistant chaplain and later dean of students and director of development. Archbishop John Myers ran the Newark archdiocese and oversaw the pay out of settlements in 2005 and 2007 to quiet allegations involving McCarrick.