Lawsuits Bring Additional Sexual Battery Allegations Against Theodore McCarrick | Catholic National Register

[ad_1]

McCarrick, 91, is currently charged with three counts of indecent assault and assault and battery on a person over the age of 14, according to court documents filed July 28 in Dedham, Massachusetts District Court. .

Theodore McCarrick, a disgraced former cardinal, faces criminal charges of child sexual abuse, with his first court date scheduled for Friday. On Monday, a California law firm filed two more lawsuits against McCarrick.

The first of the new lawsuits, brought by an anonymous former employee of the Archdiocese of Newark, alleges that McCarrick had unauthorized sexual contact with the employee of the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Newarks in 1991.

The second lawsuit was brought by Father Lauro Sedlmayer, who alleges that McCarrick had unauthorized sexual contact with him, also in 1991.

Father Sedlmayer, an immigrant from Brazil, alleges that he was repeatedly invited to stay at the McCarricks beach house, and that he accepted the offer in the summer of 1991. Sedlmayer alleges that McCarrick has it sexually assaulted at least three times. McCarrick was then Archbishop of Newark.

Father Sedlmayer filed a complaint in 2011 alleging that he spoke to then-Bishop of Metuchens Edward Hughes about McCarricks’ misconduct, and that Bishop Hughes allegedly failed to act on the allegations and reportedly told Father Sedlmayer to forgive him. A spokeswoman for Metuchen told the Washington Post that the diocese had reviewed its files and had no record of a complaint from Fr. Sedlmayer to Bishop Hughes.

Around 2009, Father Sedlmayer himself was charged with inappropriate conduct, both sexual and financial, which he denies. He retired in 2018.

Among other charges, both lawsuits charge McCarrick with sexual violence and the Archdiocese of Newark with gross negligence. Father Sedlmayers’ lawsuit also accuses McCarrick of fraud and misrepresentation and of intentionally inflicting emotional distress.

McCarrick, 91, is currently charged with three counts of indecent assault and assault and battery on a person over the age of 14, according to court documents filed July 28 in Dedham, Massachusetts District Court. .

McCarrick is due in court on September 3 for his arraignment in order to answer the charges. Each of the three criminal charges carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

Long a powerful and high-level Catholic leader in the United States with an impressive international resume, McCarrick was removed from his clerical state post by Pope Francis in 2019, after the Vatican conducted an expedited canonical investigation and dismissed found McCarrick guilty of solicitation in the Sacrament of Confession, and sins against the Sixth Commandment with minors and with adults, with the aggravating circumstance of abuse of power.

The current charges of child abuse stem from a series of sexual assaults allegedly taking place on June 8, 1974 at the wedding reception of the alleged victim’s brother. McCarrick allegedly sexually assaulted a 16-year-old boy outside near bushes on a college campus and in a small locker room.

McCarrick was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of New York in 1958 and became Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese in 1977. He became in 1981 Bishop of Metuchen, then Archbishop of Newark in 1986, and in 2001 Archbishop of Washington, d ‘where he retired in 2006.

He became a cardinal in 2001, but resigned from the College of Cardinals after it emerged in June 2018 that he had been credibly accused of sexually assaulting a minor. Allegations of serial sexual abuse of minors, seminarians and priests quickly followed, and McCarrick was fired from the clerical state in February 2019.

McCarrick’s public disgrace in 2018 and dismissal from the clerical state a year later shocked Catholics in the United States and around the world, and sparked an international credibility crisis for the hierarchy of churches, leading Pope Francis to convene a meeting of the bishops of the world in 2019 to address the issues of sexual abuse and accountability in the Church.

[ad_2]