Five major Catholic leaders taken down by the church sex abuse scandal

By Lindsay Schnell
USA Today
February 26, 2019

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Cardinal George Pell, who helped elect popes and ran the Vatican's finances, has been found guilty of sexually assaulting two choirboys, becoming the most senior Catholic cleric ever convicted of child sex crimes. Photo by ASANKA BRENDON RATNAYAKE

Former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick is pictured speaking during a memorial service in South Bend, Indiana. Photo by Robert Franklin

The Catholic Church continues to find itself in crisis. 

Just days after Pope Francis wrapped up the first-ever Vatican summit on sex abuse –where more than 175 bishops from around the world discussed the clergy sex abuse scandal and how better to respond to victims – the church again drew negative headlines with the news that Australian Cardinal George Pell had been convicted of molestation. 

Here are five major players taken down by the scandal. 

Pell, the pope's top financial adviser, was convicted this week of molesting two 13-year-old choir boys in late 1996. The church’s third-most-powerful official, Pell, now 77,  is the most senior Catholic cleric ever charged with child sex abuse. Right before the alleged abuse took place, Pell had been named the highest-ranking Catholic in Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city. 

Neither victim has been identified, though one, who is now 34, told the court Pell orally raped him at the time of the incident. The other victim died of a heroin overdose in 2014. Until Tuesday, Australian courts had forbidden the publication of any trial details. Pell’s sentencing hearing begins Wednesday. He faces a maximum of 50 years in prison.

The first senior official convicted in the U.S. for covering up a sex abuse scandal while working at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Lynn served 33 months of a three- to six-year prison sentence. He was released in August 2016 after the state Supreme Court vacated Lynn’s child endangerment conviction, determining that jurors were “prejudiced.” 

In his original trial, the jury acquitted Lynn of conspiracy and a second count of child endangerment. His conviction was considered a major turning point in the U.S. Catholic sex abuse crisis. Now 68, Lynn is expected to be retried sometime in 2019. 

Expelled by Francis after the church found him guilty of sexually abusing minors and adult seminarians over decades, McCarrick is the first American cardinal to be removed from the priesthood, also known as defrocked or laicized. The move came after the church found McCormick, formerly the cardinal and archbishop of Washington, D.C., guilty of several crimes, including soliciting sex during confessions.

This move was notable because while the church has laicized dozens of priests, few high-ranking leaders have been punished or held accountable in the sex abuse scandal. The Vatican announced McCarrick’s expulsion on Feb. 16. Allegations against McCarrick, 88, first surfaced in summer 2018, and he resigned from the College of Cardinals in July 2018. 

The former archbishop of Boston, Law resigned from his position in December 2002 after The Boston Globe broke open the Catholic sex abuse scandal. The Globe’s investigation proved Law had done little to punish abusers and protect children despite extensive knowledge of sex abuse within his archdiocese. 

His inclusion on this list comes with a caveat: Two years after Law resigned from his position in Boston, Pope John Paul II appointed him archpriest of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, an office that consisted mostly of ceremonial duties. Still, it was reported that Law had major influence in Rome and was often considered a sympathetic figure in the eyes of other Catholic clergy. He died in Rome on Dec. 20, 2017, at age 68.

In November, Pierre de Castelet, a priest from the town of Orleans in France, was sentenced to two years in prison after being convicted of sex abuse of multiple young boys at a summer camp in 1993. He must also register as a sex offender. Andre Fort, his superior and the former bishop of Orleans, was given a suspended prison sentence of eight months for his role in failing to report the crimes. 

The convictions were notable because prosecutions of bishops are rare in France: Before de Castelet and Fort, the last time a bishop was sentenced was in 2001. France, which is estimated to be roughly 80 percent Catholic, has not faced a reckoning with the child abuse scandal in the same way as in the U.S., but the convictions could encourage more victims to come forward.