A new allegation of sexual abuse of a minor was levelled against Cardinal Theodore McCarrick last week, and new details emerged about settlements made with seminarians, who were not minors, whom McCarrick allegedly abused in the 1980s when he served as Bishop of Metuchen, New Jersey, and later as Archbishop of Newark.
The new reports come weeks after McCarrick was removed from public ministry with the approval of the Vatican after the Archdiocese of New York announced a “credible and substantiated” report of abuse of a minor when McCarrick was a priest there in 1971.
A 60-year old man, identified only as James, told the New York Times that McCarrick began abusing him when he was only 11-years-old and the abuse continued for twenty years. The cardinal was a close friend of the man’s family. He described explicit sexual contact, such as masturbation, the then-priest performed on him when he was still a minor.
Robert Ciolek, a former priest who had obtained one of the two settlements disclosed in June, told the Times that McCarrick had inappropriately touched him and sexually harassed him when he was a seminarian. Though not a minor at the time, as a seminarian, he felt powerless to resist the then-bishop’s advances.
The new revelations produced universal revulsion, but also prompted alternative interpretations of the scandal. Rod Dreher of the American Conservative, argued that the “darkest truth” revealed by the McCarrick episode is “there are secretive cabals of gay priests who protect and advance each other, and who depend on the protective culture of secrecy within the Catholic Church to shield them.” Liberal writer Robert Mickens, at La Croix, blamed the crisis on the psycho-sexual immaturity of gay clergy forced into the closet by the Church’s homophobia.
Nicholas Cafardi, a canon and civil lawyer at the forefront of the Church’s efforts to confront the clergy sex abuse, disagrees. “The John Jay studies done for the USCCB's National Review Board found that it was a matter of access and vulnerability, and not because our clergy are gay,” Cafardi told The Tablet. “I think vulnerability is the key explanation myself. These perpetrators were all on power trips and they took the most available vulnerable victims.”
Cafardi noted sexually harassing a subordinate who is not a minor is still a violation of church law. “The church already has a law for this: ‘Canon 1389 §1,” explained Cafardi. “Bishops, and priests, who use their ecclesiastical power to molest anyone, child or adult, have violated this penal canon and should be punished accordingly with loss of office or worse, depending on the nature of the crime.”
Kurt Martens, Professor of Canon Law at the Catholic University of America told The Tablet, “McCarrick's case will be an interesting test case. Unfortunately, you see that not the interests of the victims are put first by some, but an ideological agenda, in the sense that some are using McCarrick as a tool to attack Francis. Ironically, McCarrick was appointed by Paul VI and John Paul II.”
In Washington, where McCarrick concluded his ecclesial career, Stephen Schneck, former politics professor at Catholic University, said he felt betrayed by the revelations. “I yearn to hear a lengthy expression of the guilt and shame that I trust McCarrick must feel, to hear compelling words of his repentance,” said Schneck. “He no longer deserves the honour of his cardinalate and should ask the Holy Father that it be withdrawn. Recognising his declining health, his remaining years should be spent in prayer for all those harmed and betrayed by his actions and by his years of efforts to keep those sins and crimes secret.”
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