NEW YORK (NY)
National Catholic Register
June 29, 2018
By Joan Frawley Desmond
The news that the cleric faces ‘credible and substantiated’ allegations of sexual abuse has reverberated throughout the Catholic Church.
The news that Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, 87, the retired archbishop of Washington, faces “credible and substantiated” allegations of sexual abuse of a minor for incidents dating back almost a half-century has reverberated throughout the Catholic Church.
And in light of the related disclosures that Cardinal McCarrick had engaged in questionable behavior with adult males during the period he served as bishop of two New Jersey dioceses, resulting in a pair of legal settlements, and that some media outlets had received disturbing information about his actions more than 15 years ago but declined to publish any articles, a pair of hard questions now are being asked: Why did the public silence about the cardinal’s behavior persist for so long? And why did he continue to move upward, into the highest ranks of the Church’s hierarchy?
Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York confirmed in a June 20 statement that he had received a report “alleging abuse from over 45 years ago by the now-retired archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who, at the time of the reported offense, was a priest here in the Archdiocese of New York.”
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