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Ex-Cardinal McCarrick pleads not guilty to sex assault
Published September 04. 2021 07:46AM
BY ALANNA DURKIN RICHER
ASSOCIATED PRESS
DEDHAM, Mass. (AP) - Former Roman Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the once-powerful American prelate who was expelled from the priesthood for sexual abuse, pleaded not guilty Friday to sexually assaulting a 16-year-old boy during a wedding reception in Massachusetts nearly 50 years ago.
McCarrick, 91, wore a mask and entered suburban Boston’s Dedham District Court hunched over a walker. “Shame on you!” a protester shouted.
He did not speak during the hearing, at which the court entered a not guilty plea on his behalf, set bail at $5,000, and ordered him to stay away from the victim and have no contact with minors.
McCarrick is the only U.S. Catholic cardinal, current or former, to ever be criminally charged with child sex crimes.
McCarrick’s attorney, Katherine Zimmerl, said afterward that they are “looking forward to addressing the allegations in court” and would have no other immediate comment.
The next hearing was set for Oct. 28.
McCarrick, who now lives in Dittmer, Missouri, faces three counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over 14, according to court documents. He can still face charges in the case because he wasn’t a Massachusetts resident and had left the state, stopping the clock on the statute of limitations.
“Today’s arraignment provides hope for many clergy sex abuse victims and survivors that justice will prevail, truth will be told and children will be kept safe,” said Mitchell Garabedian, an attorney for the victim who has represented dozens of others who allege they were abused by clerics.
“My client, in coming forward, has shown an enormous amount of courage, and he’s ready to see this trial through the end,” he said.
McCarrick’s fall began in 2017 when a former altar boy came forward to report the priest had groped him when he was a teenager in New York. The next year, the Archdiocese of New York announced that McCarrick had been removed from ministry after finding the allegation to be “credible and substantiated,” and two New Jersey dioceses revealed they had settled claims of sexual misconduct against him in the past involving adults.
Pope Francis defrocked McCarrick in 2019 after a Vatican investigation determined he sexually abused minors, as well as adults.
Investigation
A two-year internal investigation into McCarrick found that three decades of bishops, cardinals and popes downplayed or dismissed reports of sexual misconduct. Correspondence showed they repeatedly rejected the information outright as rumor and excused it as an “imprudence.”
The investigative findings released last year pinned much of the blame on Pope John Paul II, who appointed McCarrick archbishop of Washington, D.C., despite having commissioned an inquiry that confirmed McCarrick slept with seminarians.
In the Massachusetts case, authorities began investigating McCarrick after the accuser’s attorney, Mitchell Garabedian, sent a letter to the district attorney’s office alleging the abuse, according to the court records.
The man told authorities during an interview in January that McCarrick was close to his family when he was growing up and that the abuse started when he was a young boy.
The man said that during his brother’s wedding reception at Wellesley College in June 1974 - when he was 16 - McCarrick told him that his father wanted him to have a talk with McCarrick because the boy was “being mischievous at home and not attending church.”
The man said that the two of them went for a walk around campus and McCarrick groped him before they went back to the party. The man said McCarrick also sexually assaulted him in a “coat room type closet” after they returned to the reception, authorities wrote in the documents.
He also described other instances of sexual abuse by McCarrick over the years, including when the man was an adult, according to the court records. The Associated Press generally doesn’t identify people who report sexual assault unless they agree to be named publicly.
Ordained in New York City in 1958, McCarrick ascended the church ranks despite apparently common knowledge in the U.S. and Vatican leadership that “Uncle Ted,” as he was known, slept with seminarians.
The case against McCarrick and other Catholic clerics is especially raw in Boston, where the global priest sex abuse scandal first was exposed.
Actually, it was first exposed at Mount Cashel, Newfoundland.
Reporting by The Boston Globe’s Spotlight team helped break open the scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston in 2002. The reporting uncovered how dozens of priests in the archdiocese had molested and raped children for decades while church higher-ups covered it up and shuffled abusive priests from parish to parish.
McCarrick became one of the most visible Catholic Church officials in the U.S. and even served as the spokesman for fellow U.S. bishops when they enacted a “zero tolerance” policy against sexually abusive priests in 2002.
Cardinal George Pell was convicted of sexual abuse in his native Australia, but his conviction was ultimately thrown out. And French Cardinal Philippe Barbarin was convicted, but later acquitted of charges that he covered up for a notorious pedophile priest.
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Associated Press writer Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.
4 NJ PRIESTS NAMED IN NEW SEX ABUSE LAWSUITS
Dino Flammia
Published: September 9, 2021
Attorney Jeff Anderson announces lawsuits against four priests from the Archdiocese of Newark.
Two now-deceased priests and two whose whereabouts are unknown are the subjects of new child sex abuse lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Newark.
The lawsuits, filed Thursday morning by Jeff Anderson & Associates, relate to alleged abuse from decades ago, and fall under the New Jersey Victims' Rights Bill that offers past survivors a window for filing civil claims.
The accused priests include:
Monsignor Harold V. Colgan — St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church (66-year-old unnamed plaintiff alleges unpermitted sexual contact from approximately 1957 to 1958)
Father Edmund P. Murphy — St. Aloysius (65-year-old unnamed plaintiff alleges unpermitted sexual contact when plaintiff was 14 years old)
Father Francis A. Hennessey — St. Paul of the Cross (63-year-old unnamed plaintiff alleges unpermitted sexual activity over the course of years when the plaintiff was approximately 5 to 12 years old)
Father Dante M. DiGirolamo — St. John's Church (64-year-old unnamed plaintiff alleges unpermitted sexual contact from 1968 to 1970)
All suits claim that the culture of the Catholic Church over the plaintiff created pressure on the individuals not to report the abuse suffered.
According to attorney Jeff Anderson, Colgan and DiGirolamo are deceased. Hennessey's and Murphy's whereabouts are not known, Anderson said.
"Where they are is also important because the reality is, kids are at risk until this is disclosed," Anderson said during a virtual press conference held on Thursday.
His firm has filed dozens of suits under the New Jersey Victims' Rights Bill, which expires at the end of November.
In addition to announcing charges, Anderson called on the Archdiocese of Newark to make public the names of all priests who've been subject to private settlements, as well as the names of priests who have been identified in lawsuits under the Victims' Rights Bill.
"Cardinal Tobin — you have that list, you have those names, release them now," Anderson said.
The Archdiocese emailed the following comment to New Jersey 101.5:
“It would be inappropriate to comment on matters in litigation, but it’s important to note that the Archdiocese of Newark remains fully committed to transparency and to our long-standing programs to protect the faithful and will continue to work with victims, their legal representatives and law enforcement authorities in an ongoing effort to resolve allegations and bring closure to victims.”
Good grief!
Catholic organisations admit liability for now-deceased
paedophile priest Bryan Coffey
ABC South West Vic / By Matt Neal
Posted Tuesday 17 Aug 2021 at 7:09am
The Catholic Diocese of Ballarat has admitted liability in a compensation case involving now-deceased paedophile priest Bryan Coffey.(ABC Ballarat: Sarah Jane Bell )
Two Catholic organisations have admitted liability in the Supreme Court related to the actions of a now-deceased paedophile priest.
An expert says the admission removes a massive legal hurdle for abuse survivors and victims of Father Bryan Coffey who are now seeking compensation.
Coffey, who died in 2013, was found guilty in 1999 of 14 charges relating to indecent assaults on seven boys and one girl that took place across four Victorian parishes between 1960 and 1975.
Two civil cases are underway in the Supreme Court from abuse survivors seeking compensation for Coffey's actions in the 1960s and 70s in Ouyen in north-west Victoria and Port Fairy in south-west Victoria.
The Catholic Diocese of Ballarat and the Trustees of the Sisters of Saint Joseph have admitted liability in the matter involving the abuse of a boy at Ouyen in 1973 and 1974 but not the case in Port Fairy.
Six more similar cases are lined up to proceed in the coming months relating to Coffey's actions in Ouyen and Port Fairy, as well as the south-west Victorian communities of Terang and Yambuk.
The ABC understands there are at least six more cases involving Coffey that are in their early stages.
The list of named defendants on the court documents includes Bishop Paul Bernard Bird as the nominated defendant of the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat, the Trustees of the Sisters of Saint Joseph, Mercy Support Limited, the Trustees of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan, and the Sisters of the Good Samaritans of the Order of Saint Benedict.
In all of the matters before the court, the plaintiffs allege the diocese and associated organisations knew or should have known that Coffey had sexually abused or was sexually abusing children.
It is the first time the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat has admitted liability in relation to the actions of Coffey.
The plaintiff in Tuesday's case will still be expected to prove the level of "injury" Coffey's actions caused, and the amount of compensation is yet to be decided by the court.
Judy Courtin, a lawyer who represents victims of institutional abuse, says the admission of liability "removes a huge hurdle" for abuse survivors.
"It's a great victory," Dr Courtin said. "It's a day where you really respect and take your hat off to the [abuse survivors].
"They're the ones who've had to suffer and be completely re-traumatised by having to go through this process. It's good news that others won't have to go through these particular legal hurdles.
"It's a vindication. Finally, these people can say at least partly they're being heard and it's being admitted. That's huge because they've been denied forever and [the church] have fought it forever."
And they would continue to fight it if they thought they could win. Their complete lack of moral integrity and fear of God is simply astounding!
‘White martyrdom’: Mel Gibson blasts Catholic bishops for
persecuting priests who preach traditional beliefs
13 Sep, 2021 18:39
Movie star and ‘The Passion of the Christ’ director Mel Gibson has blasted Catholic bishops for ‘canceling’ priests who dare to teach traditional doctrine, suggesting they represent a “parallel counterfeit church.”
Gibson delivered his rant in a video message posted on Sunday for a rally held by the Coalition for Canceled Priests (CFCP), a group set up to support clergymen who have been run out of the church or persecuted for teaching orthodoxy. The Hollywood star said it’s not hard to believe such a coalition exists because he personally knows many priests who have been canceled.
“But not for the reasons you’d think,” Gibson said. “It’s not like they did a hit-and-run drive and left the scene of the crime, or embezzled church funds, stole the altar wine, or committed some other heinous crime. No, not at all. And who’s persecuting them? Well, their own bishops.”
Gibson went on to describe the bishops as “a pack of men who generally, passively sit by and tolerate any kind of nonsense, but if one of their priests utters something that resembles orthodoxy, well then they spring into action, they reprimand him and they bully him and do their best to cancel him.”
Such crackdowns typically succeed, as the offending priest is forced out of the service, Gibson said, adding, “I’m really sorry about that. It’s a grave injustice, and it’s a kind of white martyrdom.”
The actor called the trend a “symptom of a very deep sickness that afflicts the Church.” He quoted Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano as saying the “seeds of erosion of the church” were sown with the Second Vatican Council reforms of the 1960s.
Gibson recalled that when he directed ‘The Passion of the Christ’, the 2004 box-office sensation that depicted the crucifixion of Jesus, he sought support from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, but “those men couldn’t get away from me fast enough.”
“All but a few of them turned their back on me,” Gibson said, “and it was pretty telling about who they were – pretty insipid bunch. And it doesn’t look like anything’s changed.”
Catholics can discern “the good guys from the bad guys” by judging the fruits of church leaders, Gibson said. “Anybody seen any good fruit lately?” he asked. “It’s tough.”
He added that he’s “a pretty sinful guy, I’m as venal as the next guy, but I know the difference between a shepherd and a hireling. And I think that the vast majority of these bishops are just a bunch of hirelings.”
My question is, who’s hiring them? I don’t think it’s Jesus. Is it (Pope) Francis? Who’s hiring Francis? Is it Pachamama?
Gibson again quoted Vigano, saying, “There was a parallel, counterfeit church set up to eclipse the real one. He’s suggesting usurpation or an inside job. It seems that way.”
The message came amid rising tensions in the Church over prominent Catholic politicians, such as President Joe Biden and US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who have been accused of violating core teachings when they supported abortion rights. Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco earlier this month criticized such leaders, saying they sought to expand “a government-approved right to kill innocent human beings.”
The CFCP said 61 US bishops stood in the way last May when some church leaders sought to discuss withholding Holy Communion from politicians who support abortion. “Such churchmen bring to mind the image of a commanding officer who, when the battle turns against his troops, goes over to the enemy and betrays his men,” the coalition said. “Or perhaps the apostle who left the Last Supper early for urgent business elsewhere.”
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