NEWARK (NJ)
NorthJersey.com via Asbury Park Press
December 8, 2019
John Bellocchio was an altar boy at St. Francis of Assisi Roman Catholic Church in Hackensack when Cardinal Theodore McCarrick abused him during a visit to the parish, the businessman told reporters on Monday.
Bellocchio, a 14-year-old at the time, who had grown up in a devout Roman Catholic family, initially felt “honored” to be in the presence of the leader of the Newark Archdiocese, he said at a Newark news conference.
But then McCarrick, one of the most influential Catholic prelates in the U.S., assaulted him in the vestibule of the church, Bellocchio alleged in a lawsuit filed this weekend. Now 37, Bellocchio said he has suffered from anxiety ever since, including panic attacks that sometimes demand medical intervention.
His lawsuit was one of at least eight filed against the Newark Archdiocese or the neighboring Paterson Diocese as of Monday, the day after a new state law temporarily lifted New Jersey’s statute of limitations on sex abuse complaints. Hundreds more are expected against the state’s five Catholic dioceses, the Boy Scouts of America and other institutions long accused of covering up such cases.
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