The year 2018 was a stark and, in many ways, defining one for the Catholic Church. Still slowly recovering from the ongoing revelations of the devastating clerical child sex abuse scandal and its widespread coverup by bishops, another major revelation rocked the Church in the U.S. and across the globe, shaking the faith of millions: … Read more
At 93 and apparently suffering from dementia, former cardinal Theodore McCarrick is unlikely to be tried on criminal charges of sexual abuse. It’s likewise doubtful he’ll ever testify in court in pending civil lawsuits against him. And the Vatican seems to have moved on, having issued a long report about him almost three years ago, … Read more
A Massachusetts judge on Wednesday dismissed a criminal case charging former Roman Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick with molesting a 16-year-old boy in 1974, saying the 93-year-old was not competent to stand trial after psychological experts found he had dementia. McCarrick, a former archbishop of Washington, D.C., who was defrocked by Pope Francis in 2019, became … Read more
The Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed fresh charges against former cardinal Theodore McCarrick this week relating to an alleged sexual assault that took place in the state in April 1977. The state’s DOJ issued a press release on Sunday, April 16 with the allegation that the former cardinal, now 92, had sexually assaulted … Read more
Former cardinal Theodore McCarrick is in “significant” mental decline and may not be fit to stand trial for allegedly sexually abusing a 16-year-old boy, his attorneys say in a new court filing. The legal team for the 92-year-old ex-prelate said it plans to file a motion to dismiss the case, citing a neurological exam conducted … Read more
From George Neumayr on Facebook: In 2018, Knestout selected Fr. Wayne Ball pastor of St. Augustine parish in the Richmond diocese despite Ball’s 2003 guilty plea in public sex case. “Leave me out of your article,” Fr Wayne Ball, pastor of St. Augustine parish in Virginia’s Richmond diocese, barked at me. I had called Ball … Read more
It is impossible to overstate the tone-deafness of America’s Catholic bishops in recent years. They seem determined to give the Catholic Church a black eye. The Theodore McCarrick scandal — he was a prominent cardinal in Washington, D.C., who preyed on boys, seminarians, and priests in plain sight for decades — marks one of the … Read more
The Vatican acknowledged Thursday that it imposed restrictions in 2020 on the ministry and residency of Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who is accused of sexually abusing teenage boys decades ago. But Vatican officials will almost certainly face more questions about those restrictions, and about the bishop’s past, as details of … Read more
Story from 2019: Over two decades, Theodore McCarrick helped lay the groundwork for the 2018 China-Vatican accord recognizing Communist-appointed bishops; now, with new data suggesting the disgraced ex-cleric may have been a Communist plant, his efforts to normalize relations between Beijing and Rome are attracting renewed interest. Beginning in the 1990s, McCarrick, then-archbishop of … Read more
Just more than a year after ex-cardinal and ex-priest Theodore McCarrick was arraigned in a Massachusetts criminal court on assault and battery charges, proceedings continue on without an imminent conclusion. RELATED: STILL No Justice In The Case Of Theodore McCarrick Another status update in the case came and went in Dedham District Court on Sept. … Read more