[Click here to see CNN’s interview of attorney Mitchell Garabedian on the significance of McCarrick’s arraignment to victims.]

Former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was defrocked by The Vatican in 2019 over sex abuse allegations, pleaded not guilty to three counts of indecent assault and battery on a person 14 or older at an arraignment in Dedham District Court in Massachusetts Friday.

A judge set a $5000 cash bail, ordering McCarrick to have no contact with the alleged victim or any minors under the age of 18.

A Norfolk County prosecutor told the judge that McCarrick “immersed himself into the fabric of the victim’s family, and then used his status as a priest to access and prey upon the victim.”

“He specifically used the act of confession to get the victim away from his parents and from his siblings and then would sexually assault the victim during that…