In a petition filed on 29 July in Dedham District Court, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was accused of sexually assaulting and sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy three times in 1974.
The 91-year-old US citizen McCarrick, who is stated to be living in Missouri at the moment, was requested to appear before a judge in the relevant court on August 26.
It is noted that McCarrick was the first cardinal to be prosecuted for sexual harassment in the United States. McCarrick, who began his ministry in 1958, was promoted to archdiocese in Washington D.C. in 2000, and in 2001 to the rank of cardinal, a six-position papacy.
McCarrick was barred from all religious duties and titles by the Vatican on February 16, 2019, after his name was frequently mentioned in the allegations of sexual abuse against children in churches, which began to be discussed in public in 2018.
On October 2018, Addressing about 100 French priests in the Vatican, Pope Francis said the church was weathered by strong winds, referring to child sexual abuse scandals. The Pope said, “The Church today is weathered by strong and contrary winds, especially because of the grave sins committed by some of its members.” Calling on the need to take care of “the wounds of the Church” at the point of reorganizing the dioceses, the Pope stated that they should not hesitate to look at these wounds and not complain.
Two months prior to the Pope’s statement, Former Vatican Ambassador to Washington, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano had demanded the Pope’s resignation. “Pope Pope Francis has known since June 23, 2013 that McCarrick was a serial abuser. The Pope is the first to have had to resign to set a good example for the cardinals and bishops who covered up Cardinal McCarrick’s abuses,” said Vigano.
The United Nations (UN) published a report on widespread sexual harassment and child abuse cases in the Catholic Church in 2014. In the report, the Vatican was accused of turning a blind eye to the abuse of tens of thousands of children by covering up allegations of sexual harassment against priests in many countries with churches affiliated with it.