Ex-Cardinal McCarrick charged with sexually assaulting teen

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

BOSTON (AP) — Former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was defrocked after a Vatican investigation confirmed he had sexually molested adults as well as children, has been charged with sexually assaulting a teenage boy during a wedding reception in the 1970s, court records show.

Court documents obtained by The Boston Globe shows that McCarrick is charged with three counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over 14.

McCarrick is the first cardinal in the U.S. to ever be criminally charged with a sexual crime against a minor, according to Mitchell Garabedian, a well-known lawyer for church sexual abuse victims who is representing the man alleging the abuse by McCarrick.

“It takes an enormous amount of courage for a sexual abuse victim to report having been sexually abused to investigators and proceed through the criminal process,” Garabedian said in an email. “Let the facts be presented, the law applied, and a fair verdict rendered.”



FILE - In this May 16, 2006 file photo former Washington Archbishop, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick pauses during a press conference in Washington. McCarrick, the once-influential American cardinal who was defrocked after a Vatican investigation confirmed he had sexually molested adults as well as children, has been charged with sexually assaulting a 16-year-old boy during a wedding reception at Wellesley College in the 1970s, court records show. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/lifestyle-religion-sexual-abuse-by-clergy-53924dd479cab20f7a11cb7eb47f686d

[underpants]

1. Now...about this communion for Democrats

[Lettuce Be]

2. There are literally hundreds of pedophile priests

This has been going on since the early 80s, yet, only a very very few are ever actually charged. What on earth do they expect? No women allowed? No marriage for a priest? Seriously, do they understand human beings at all?

[SunSeeker]

5. Exactly. Their inhuman sex rules invite inhuman people. nt

[AngryOldDem]

6. Been going on much longer than the '80s.

I’ve known survivors who were abused back in the early ‘50s. This has been going on perhaps since the dawn of the institution. It just blew up in the 1990s.

The reason why most are never charged is because of statutes of limitation. The Church also plays hardball with civil suits.

It’s disgusting for people who are supposedly “Christ’s resprentatives on earth”.

[Harker]

7. +33. n/t

[rurallib]

13. My assault took place in the early '60s

[AnnetteChaffee]

15. I get it

and to a point I agree, however not being allowed to marry does not a pedophile make. They come in that way and the only way I can see it, is that they see a way to carry out their perversions with protection. They are or can be surrounded by youth who put their FAITH in this person and look at them as if they are a representative of their God.

Honestly, this is one of the biggest forms of negative karma that I can think of. Complete Mind-F-ck of children. How anyone can still be a part of a "religion" that continues to cover this stuff up is beyond me. This is a perfect example of why I walked away from organized religion and never looked back.

You can be a highly spiritual person without a church - as a matter of fact, it seems to me that the churches are doing far more harm than good anymore. They are corrupted by greed, power, money, control. They are tainted and their influence is out there for the world to see.

A connection with your higher power should be a personal thing; you shouldn't have to pay for it, and it should never ever hurt you.

“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

Namaste
Annette

[olegramps]

19. It is not a new phenomena. It has been going on for centuries.

H.C. Lea, History of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church 1957, is an extensive investigation of the sexual abuse and failure of enforced celibacy. It is not a recent problem but been a plague that began with the acceptance of dualistic concepts that equated natural sexual response with evilness. This can be traced back to the influence of Plato and an a number of pagan philosophers.

In fact if any one is actually interested as to their heritage they should take out a very short time to read Plato's dialogue, the Phaedo written some 300 years before the birth of Jesus in which he develops the concept of the the immortality of soul, heaven, hell and purgatory. Plato was a lifetime celibate and shunned riches in any fashion, from clothing to meals. His dialogue is a basic outline of the fundamental concepts that Christians mistakenly believe are Christian developed concepts. It is unfortunate that most modern people have no acquaintance with the classics and are unaware of there influence on their our own lives. The quote over Nolan Library at the Colorado University, that "People who are aware of only their own generation remain forever a child" seems to ring true.
I have encouraged some of my fellow Christians to read Plato's dialogue and they are amazed that it formulates in detail what many accept as original Christian theology. The fact is that the followers who became known as Christians were in actuality converted to the acceptance Platonism the incorporation of its fundamental concepts.

[2Gingersnaps]

23. People who are aware of only their own generation remain forever a child"

Exactly, and this is why the push against teaching real history. Sadly, that includes the genius of the old masters. Christianity started as a revolt against Roman occupation and Roman slavery. The Romans coopted Christianity as their absolute power declined, when it became a big enough threat to their rule. As was always done, common folk practice and common holidays were repurposed to the new "religion." It spread throughout the Roman occupied territories.

Sacredotal celibacy goes against the law of nature. If, indeed, we were made in God' image, that is how we were made, as mammals we are hard wired as social animals. From Plato to Darwin, our purpose is the continuation of our species through healthy adaptive offspring. And might I add, degradation of women and abuse of children does not create healthy adaptive offspring. The world's oldest "good ole boy" network needs to rethink some issues.

[left-of-center2012]

3. "McCarrick was a family friend and began abusing him when he was a boy"

The man says McCarrick groped him when he was 16 in 1974 as they walked around the campus of Wellesley College, where his brother’s wedding reception was being held. The man also alleges that McCarrick led him into a room and
fondled the boy before telling him to “say three Our Fathers and a Hail Mary ... so God can redeem you of your sins,” according to the court documents.

[apnu]

16. What a twisted fuck!

Assaults a kid, then blames the kid for it.

[2Gingersnaps]

24. And to think our prisons are full of non violent pot offenders.

[AngryOldDem]

4. GOOD.

What the survivor alleged is absolutely disgusting and horrifying, and shows how these perverts use trust and their authority with both parents and kids to groom and then abuse. This, at a wedding reception, for God’s sake.

Quite frankly, I was surprised that he was not shuffled off to a nice, cushy job in the Vatican, a la Bernard Law, when all this began to come out about him years ago.

There are certainly many more survivors of this monster.

How the Church thinks it can still dictate how people live and then sit in judgment of them is beyond me. I accept no excuses, no rationales, no whattaboutery, no “the majority of priests are good men yadda yadda yadda” for this. Never have. The Roman Catholic Church is one of the most corrupt organizations in existence — has been for centuries.

to the brave man who came forward. May McCarrick be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

[Marcuse]

8. So we have a deal?

[Paladin]

9. Let's see the NY Times' hyper-Catholic Ross Douthat do a column about THIS!

Don't hold your breath waiting for it to happen...

[keithsw]

11. Kill him

All these pedophile Priest, ministers etc need exterminated

[Cornus]

12. My high school, St. Mary's, changed its name to honor him.

"On June 11, 2001, then Diocese of Metuchen Bishop Vincent Breen announced that Saint Mary's would close and reopen under a new name the following fall. In September 2001, the school was named Cardinal McCarrick High School, in honor of Theodore Edgar McCarrick, the first bishop of the Diocese of Metuchen.[5]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_McCarrick_High_School

[rurallib]

14. We had a few elementary schools in my diocese that were named for a bishop who

moved a lot of offenders around to keep them out of trouble. They all were renamed.

[2Gingersnaps]

25. Now there is some goddamn blasphemy.

[Skittles]

17. Pass the Plate for Pedophiles

[pnwmom]

18. The Catholic Church, the Southern Baptists, the Boy Scouts, the Olympics. . .

Child molesters become involved in organizations where they are trusted to have access to children.

[olegramps]

20. That is where they find their victims.

[TNNurse]

21. I am not Catholic.

If he was important enough that I know his name, he was a significant person. They cover for anybody, they are all guilty.

[Peregrine Took]

22. My parents were faithful Catholics (RIP) but they never put the clergy

on pedestals.

We were taught to be respectful and polite but we picked up the "keep your distance" attitude of my folks and never doted on them or wanted to hang around them, personally, as some people did.

I feel the same way now when I see women my age running up to embrace a priest and make much over them. With me its always, "Hi Father" and that's pretty much it

My dad used to work in our parish as a maintenance man and the pastor (big, fairly well to do parish) worked those guys to death with little pay even though they all had families. 6 days a week, long hours. No union.

My mom was an orphan and was sent to work in a convent when she was 14 as a scullery maid. One of her jobs was (and her in a new country and right off the farm) to make deliveries on foot in fog bound London. She had to hold onto the buildings to try to find her way. Also, she and her cousin (also orphaned) had the jobs of scrubbing down the steps and sidewalk early every morning on their hands and knees with wire scrub brushes - and they had hard task masters.

I guess that explains their lack of personal attachment to the clergy, parish and schools, that were in our lives at that time.