TENAFLY (NJ)
NorthJersey
July 20, 2018
By Rodrigo Torrejon
Amid tears and decades of buried trauma, a former Tenafly resident recalled 20 years of sexual abuse by a once-trusted priest and close family friend who became a dark, looming figure in his childhood in a recent New York Times report.
The 60-year-old man, who identified himself as James, detailed years of sexual abuse by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, 88, one of the most prominent faces in the Roman Catholic Church, in the Times report. McCarrick, a longtime family friend the family called “Uncle Ted,” had baptized James at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church.
“I was the first guy he baptized,” James told the Associated Press Friday. “I was his little boy. I was his special kid. I was the kid he always sought out.”
It was in James’ Tenafly home where the years of sexual abuse began, Patrick Noaker, James’ attorney told NorthJersey.com. When James was 11, as he was changing out of his bathing suit, McCarrick, then 39, walked into the room and took his own pants off.
“McCarrick came into the boy’s room and he was naked,” Noaker said. “McCarrick told him to turn around and said ‘See? we’re the same.'”
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