In first interview, ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick denies charge of sexual abuse in the confessional

Washington Post

September 3, 2019

By Michelle Boorstein

Theodore McCarrick, one of the U.S. Catholic Church’s most influential clerics until he was accused a year ago of abusing boys and young men, denied in an interview published Tuesday that he abused someone in the confessional — a charge for which the Vatican defrocked him.

McCarrick spoke briefly to Ruth Graham of Slate for the piece, which profiles the life of the toppled church leader now that he’s been relegated to living in a friary in the small, western Kansas town of Victoria.

The once-popular globe-trotting fundraiser and diplomat has been almost silent publicly since the Vatican made global, shocking news in June 2018 by announcing he’d been suspended for a credible charge of fondling an altar boy decades ago. McCarrick that summer issued a simple denial but said he accepted the punishment — which became final in February this year when he was defrocked, the first cardinal laicized for alleged sexual misconduct.

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