BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald
February 17, 2019
By Lisa Kashinsky
Former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick has been defrocked after the Vatican found him guilty of sex abuse, but attorney Mitchell Garabedian, a longtime critic of the Catholic Church’s handling of decades of misconduct, says the latest crackdown is just “damage control.”
“The Catholic Church is trying to deceptively convince the public that they’ve fixed the problem when they are the problem,” said Garabedian, an advocate for victims of sexual abuse by priests. “Take away the robes and religion, and the priests are just criminals who either sexually abused children or who covered up the sexual abuse of children.”
Zach Hiner, executive director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said McCarrick’s dismissal shows clergy preying on minors goes far beyond low-level priests.
“This problem exists at every level of the church. It’s not just bad priests here or there, it’s something that is systemic from the base-level staff to the highest level,” Hiner said.
McCarrick’s defrocking made the 88-year-old former archbishop of Washington, D.C., the highest-ranking clergyman and first cardinal to be punished by dismissal. Pope Francis last July removed McCarrick as a cardinal after a U.S. church investigation found credible an allegation that McCarrick fondled a teenage altar boy in the 1970s, reports state.
Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said McCarrick’s dismissal “is a clear signal that abuse will not be tolerated. No bishop, no matter how influential, is above the law of the church.”
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