It was a story that got away from the National Catholic Reporter.
NCR tried and was unable to confirm the long-rumored abuse allegations against Theodore McCarrick, then a cardinal and archbishop of Washington, D.C., before they became national news.
One of the reporters who investigated was my late brother, Joe Feuerherd, former editor and publisher of National Catholic Reporter.
This is the story behind that story.
McCarrick died at age 94 in April, and, upon his death, many replayed the horrors he perpetrated. This summer marks the seventh anniversary of the exposure of those crimes and cover-up.
Besides the victims who tried to warn the world — and those who tried to investigate it — there were those who suffered decades in silence. And there were few heroes in the sorry saga.
One hero to consider is Fr. Boniface Ramsey, a former seminary professor now serving as a parish priest in Queens, New York. Ramsey told me that as far back as the 1980s, he raised alarms, beginning with a seminary rector, and later with other ranking officials in the church — those in a position to do something about McCarrick. Ramsey said he was rebuffed.
A letter dated Oct. 11, 2006, from Archbishop Leonardo Sandri at the Vatican to Fr. Boniface Ramsey, references a November 2000 letter Ramsey had written to the Vatican nuncio to the United States, warning about sexual abuse committed by Archbishop Theodore McCarrick. (CNS/Courtesy of Boniface Ramsey)
After McCarrick’s death, Ramsey wrote to me a statement recognizing the pain felt by many triggered by memories of the former cardinal.
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