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The former Roman Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was expelled from the clergy for sexual abuse. The once powerful American bishop gave a wedding reception in Massachusetts nearly 50 years ago. Pleaded not guilty to the sexual assault of a 16-year-old boy.
On Friday, 91-year-old McCarrick entered the Dedham District Court in the suburbs of Boston wearing a mask, bending over the walker. “You are too shameless!” a protester shouted.
He did not speak at the hearing. The court pleaded not guilty on his behalf. The bail was $5,000, and he was ordered to stay away from the victim and not have contact with minors.
McCarrick is the only American Catholic cardinal who has ever been criminally charged for child sex crimes, both current and former.
McCarrick’s lawyer, Catherine Zimmer, said afterwards that they “look forward to resolving these allegations in court” and will not immediately make other comments.
The next hearing is scheduled for October 28th.
Former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick (Theodore McCarrick) was a powerful member of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, but was removed in 2019 after an investigation found credible allegations of abuse against him [File: Joshua Roberts/Reuters]According to court documents, McCarrick, who currently lives in Dittmer, Missouri, faces three charges of molesting and assaulting a person over the age of 14.
On Friday, demonstrators gathered outside the courtroom. One of them held a sign that read “appointed and betrayed.”
Susan Renehan, 73, said that she was sexually assaulted by a priest when she was a teenager. She hoped that McCarrick’s case was “the beginning, not the end.”
She said outside the courthouse in Dedham, Massachusetts: “So many children have lost their lives and innocence.” “No one in the Catholic Church seems to care.”
Although other abuse cases against Catholic clergy in the United States have not been prosecuted because they have taken too long, McCarrick may still face charges because he is not a resident of Massachusetts and has left the state, thus ending the statute of limitations.
He was accused of sexually harassing a 16-year-old boy at a wedding banquet in 1974. The plaintiff accused McCarrick of abusing him for many years, beginning when he was a little boy, in several states including New York, California, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.
McCarrick’s fall began in 2017, when a former altar boy stood up and said that he was fumbled by a priest when he was a teenager in New York.
The following year, the Archdiocese of New York announced that McCarrick was removed from office after discovering that the allegations were “credible and well-founded.” Two New Jersey dioceses revealed that they had resolved past accusations of sexual misconduct involving adults.
After a Vatican investigation determined that McCarrick had sexually abused minors and adults, Pope Francis removed him in 2019.
A two-year internal investigation of McCarrick found that the bishops, cardinals and popes over the past three decades have downplayed or ignored reports of sexual misconduct. The letter shows that they repeatedly rejected the information directly as rumors and justified it on the grounds of “indiscretion.”
The findings released last year attributed most of the blame to Pope John Paul II, who appointed McCarrick as the Archbishop of Washington, D.C., although he commissioned an investigation that confirmed that McCarrick had slept with the seminary students .
According to court records, in the Massachusetts case, after the plaintiff’s lawyer Mitchell Garabedian wrote to the District Attorney’s Office accusing McCarrick of abuse, the authorities began investigating McCarry. gram.
The unnamed plaintiff told the authorities in an interview in January that McCarrick had a close relationship with his family when he was growing up, and the priest would hold wedding masses, baptisms and funerals for them.
The man said that during the 1974 wedding, the two of them were walking on campus, and McCarrick fumbled for him before they returned to the party. Authorities wrote in the document that the man stated that McCarrick had sexually assaulted him in a “cloakroom closet” after they returned to the reception.
The man told the investigator that before leaving the room, McCarrick told him “say three of our fathers and one haunted Mary, or one of our father and three haunted Marys, so that God can redeem your sins. ,” the report said.
According to court records, he also described McCarrick’s other cases of sexual abuse over the years, including the man’s adulthood.
McCarrick was appointed a priest in New York City in 1958. Although the leadership of the United States and the Vatican apparently knew that “Uncle Ted” had slept with seminary students, he elevated the status of the church.
The case against McCarrick and other Catholic clergy is particularly serious in Boston, where the global priest sexual abuse scandal was first exposed in Boston.
Reports by the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team helped uncover the 2002 scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston. The report exposed how dozens of priests in the archdiocese have harassed and raped children for decades, and the church officials covered up and abused priests from parish to parish.
A film about Universal Reporting, “Spotlight”, won the 2016 Oscar for Best Picture.
McCarrick became one of the most high-profile Catholic Church officials in the United States, and even served as a spokesperson for fellow bishops in the United States when they enacted a “zero tolerance” policy on sexual abuse of priests in 2002.
Cardinal George Pell was convicted of sexual abuse in his hometown of Australia, but his conviction was eventually dismissed. French Cardinal Philippe Barbarin was found guilty, but was later acquitted on charges he covered up for the notorious pedophile priest.
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