Theodore McCarrick dies at 94. What damage did he cause?

Catholics are now urged to pray for his soul, and also for the souls of all those who may have turned their back on the Church due to McCarrick’s influence and actions.

UPDATE: McCarrick whistleblower Archbishop Viganò has issued an exclusive commentary to this correspondent upon the death of the former cardinal — found on X here.

(PerMariam) — Ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick died Thursday at the age of 94, marking the end of the earthly life of a man who had such an immense and devastating impact on the Catholic Church and arguably many thousands of souls.

In a Friday report from the dissident outlet National Catholic Reporter, the news was broken that McCarrick had died on Thursday. “His death on Thursday was confirmed by two people briefed on the matter but who initially asked not to be named,” the outlet wrote.

He rose through the episcopal ranks, becoming bishop of Metuchen, New Jersey, in 1981, archbishop of Newark in 1986, and archbishop of Washington, D.C., in 2000. Pope John Paul created him a cardinal in 2001.

It was in the early 1970s, while serving as a priest in New York City, that McCarrick is alleged to have groped an adolescent altar boy in St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It was that accusation which launched the internal investigation by Church authorities.

In June 2018, the Archdiocese of New York announced that allegations that McCarrick molested an underage altar boy decades ago had been deemed “credible and substantiated.”

At the time of the accusations, McCarrick maintained he had “absolutely no recollection of this reported abuse and believe in my innocence.”

Since then, other alleged victims including former seminarians and priests came forward to detail the sexual abuse to which McCarrick subjected them. McCarrick’s most well-known victim, James Grein, also came forward and said McCarrick abused him for years starting when he was 11 years old.

McCarrick was laicized by the Vatican in February of 2019 with no possibility for appeal, having found him guilty of “solicitation in the Sacrament of Confession, and sins against the Sixth Commandment with minors and with adults, with the aggravating factor of the abuse of power.”

Civil court proceedings also ensued against the ex-cardinal. After his lawyers argued in early 2023 that McCarrick had dementia, the court decided that the ex-cardinal was not fit to stand trial in August 2023. McCarrick was never formally found guilty by a civil court.

McCarrick, abuse and homosexuality

In 2018, former papal nuncio to the U.S., Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, famously accused Pope Francis of knowing about McCarrick’s serial predation, about the restrictions imposed on him by Benedict XVI, and of deliberately repealing such restrictions. Viganò’s 2018 testimony took the Church and much of the world by storm, with the 11-page text naming numerous prominent prelates and accusing Francis of making McCarrick “his trusted counselor.”

Abp. Viganò said that McCarrick helped Francis in key appointments in the United States, including that of Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, whom Pope Francis previously tasked with organizing a Vatican summit on clerical sexual abuse.

The influential cardinal enjoyed the trust and friendship of Pope Francis, and was once described as Pope Francis’s “American kingmaker.”

In his 2018 testimony about McCarrick, Abp. Viganò also attested that now current D.C. archbishop, Cardinal Robert McElroy was aware of McCarrick’s abuses, and that Viganò was instructed by Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin to keep the San Diego episcopate open for McElroy. He, said the Nuncio, was just one of many prelates who owed their rise to McCarrick.

Viganò made more groundbreaking public statements in which he clearly pointed to widespread homosexuality in the clergy as a direct cause of sexual abuse. Writing in light of his accusations that Pope Francis rehabilitated Theodore McCarrick while knowing of his homosexual predations, Viganò stated:

This is a crisis due to the scourge of homosexuality, in its agents, in its motives, in its resistance to reform. It is no exaggeration to say that homosexuality has become a plague in the clergy, and it can only be eradicated with spiritual weapons. It is an enormous hypocrisy to condemn the abuse, claim to weep for the victims, and yet refuse to denounce the root cause of so much sexual abuse: homosexuality.

It is hypocrisy to refuse to acknowledge that this scourge is due to a serious crisis in the spiritual life of the clergy and to fail to take the steps necessary to remedy it.

“The underlying reason why there are so many victims” is “the corrupting influence of homosexuality in the priesthood and in the hierarchy,” the former nuncio attested, commenting on the link between homosexual clergy and clerical abuse.

Speaking to Dr. Maike Hickson in 2018, former Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Prefect Cardinal Gerhard Müller also pointed to the existence of “homosexual network” in the Catholic Church, saying “that (Theodore) McCarrick, together with his clan and a homosexual network, was able to wreak havoc in a mafia-like manner in the Church is connected with the underestimation of the moral depravity of homosexual acts among adults.”

When the much awaited McCarrick report was released in November 2020 – to a mixed reception as to its full inclusion of the truth – it nevertheless revealed that, contrary to Pope Francis’ statements, he had been informed of the immoral behaviour of Theodore McCarrick but did not act upon them.

As Dr. Hickson wrote:

“Pope Francis did know about the sex abuse allegations against McCarrick and that the Vatican had taken steps, from 2006 on, to remove him from the public, by telling him to move into a more remote residence and to hold back in his public appearances and travels. Pope Francis chose not to follow up.”

The McCarrick report also sought to blame Archbishop Viganò for part of the affair. Viganò responded by describing the report as presenting “unfounded accusations” against him.

Viganò was declared guilty of “schism” and automatically excommunicated by the Vatican last July – a verdict he has consistently rejected.

The McCarrick case is the stuff of international scandal, a prominent example of a predating cleric acting out a homosexual lifestyle.

His life is now central to the entire issue of sexual abuse in the Church, particularly homosexual abuse, which has now dominated so much of Church affairs in modern times. McCarrick’s influence on Church life will take many years from hence to be truly calculated and understood.

The damage which his actions have directly caused to so many souls and to the Church is immense.

What of the damage to the souls of those who he abused? What impact will be caused to those in the clerical state whom he abused, and what knock-on effects will they have passed on to others because of him?

What about the damage he has caused to souls who turned their back on the Church citing the abuse crisis, of which he is central? What about the role he played in securing the promotion of so many corrupt clerics in the Church, who are even now wreaking havoc in the Church?

Such are the questions which must be asked, but there are so many more needing to be answered, including the role of those still very active in the Church who owe their promotion to him.

Catholics are now urged to pray for his soul, and also for the souls of all those who may have turned their back on the Church due to McCarrick’s influence and actions, that they may convert.