DFormer Cardinal Theodore McCarrick is undergoing trial in the District Court in Dedham, Massachusetts, for coercion and sexual abuse of minors. The Boston Globe reported on Thursday that the former Washington Archbishop was charged with three counts of sexual assault on a 16-year-old boy during a wedding reception at Wellesley College in Massachusetts in 1974.
The lawyer for the alleged abuse victim declined to comment on the details of the allegations. “Boston Globe” lawyer Mitchell Garabedian (Mitchell Garabedian) said that his client worked with the prosecutor’s office to “give other victims the courage to make the children’s world safer.” Garabedian reiterated that McCarrick was “the first cardinal in the United States to be prosecuted for sexual assault on a minor.” According to the criminal proceedings, the victim said McCarrick harassed him, took him into a room, and touched his genitals during prayer. After the attack, McCarrick told him “Pray for three or four of our fathers and a rosary, so that God will forgive you for your sins.” According to court records, the abuse victims were allegedly married at the Wellesley College campus. Brother of the young man.
It was considered unlikely before a state court filed a criminal case against the 91-year-old pastor, because many states in the United States-including Massachusetts-have a statute of limitations for sexual assault. In specific cases, McCarrick can still be prosecuted because he was working in the parish of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City and living in New York State at the time of the alleged behavior. New York abolished the statute of limitations for sexual violence.
First hearing on August 26
Pope Francis forced the once influential Archbishop of the Washington Capital Diocese to resign from the Cardinals Academy in July 2018. After the trial in the church court in February 2019, McCarrick was promoted to a non-professional. The proceedings in the church court involved another case of sexual abuse of a young man.
McCarrick’s attorney Barry Coben said after the indictment report, “We are studying this matter and will state our position in court.” Dedham District Court’s first hearing is scheduled for August 26. Several alleged McCarrick victims have also sought criminal trials in state courts in New York and New Jersey, but these have not yet occurred due to the recent abolition of the statute of limitations. The former cardinal denied that he had abused minors. In 2019, he told a reporter who followed him in a Kansas monastery that he was not as bad as he was portrayed: “I don’t think I did what I was accused of.”
In recent years, the Catholic Church in the United States has been affected by numerous abuse scandals. Between 1950 and 2016, under the “Bishop Accountability System” organization, a total of 18,500 complaints against 6,700 church representatives were received. In a study commissioned by the Conference of American Bishops in 2004, the John Jersey College of Criminal Justice found that since 1950, approximately 4% of priests in the United States have been accused of child abuse and young people under 18 years of age.
