Former Cardinal McCarrick Found Unfit for Trial Over Sexual Abuse
In the past when stories like this have come up, I have noted what a wonder it is to me, how an entity that provides comfort to so many people around the world, could on the other hand be the most successful and longest standing criminal organization the world has ever seen! As the King said to Anna in The King & I, “It is a puzzlement!”
Consider that as a Cardinal, this sick individual was one of the most prominent clerics in the U.S. Catholic hierarchy, holding a ranking second only to the Pope! It is unbelievable, but also true! In the end, he was found guilty of abusing countless children as well as adult seminarians. And now finally disgraced, with the sword over his head, he is found not competent to stand trial! Geez!!!
How do those things square? A global institution that provides comfort for sure! But primarily as a very effective cover for sexually abusing children! It raises the question, of “what mafia chieftain would not have loved to have the same cover as the abusing priests of the criminal, Catholic Church have had for centuries?”
Please note that this does not deny the “comfort” provided. But what a price has been paid!
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/30/us/cardinal-mccarrick-sexual-abuse-trial.html?smid=em-share
Find Rob’s book & ebook “What Goes Around Comes Around – A Guide To How Life REALLY Works” at Amazon or Audible
Kirkus Reviews says:
A stable, nonpreachy, objective voice makes the book stand apart from others in the genre. A successful guide that uses anecdotes of real human experiences to reveal powerful truths about life.
Former Cardinal McCarrick Found Unfit for Trial Over Sexual Abuse
The 93-year-old former prelate is the most senior cleric to face charges in the Catholic Church’s abuse crisis.
Theodore McCarrick, the highest-ranking Catholic cleric in the United States to face charges in the church’s ongoing sexual abuse crisis, is not competent to stand trial, a judge in Massachusetts ruled.
The disgraced former cardinal, who is 93, was declared unfit by a Dedham District Court judge on Wednesday.
Mr. McCarrick faced three counts of indecent assault and battery in Massachusetts, based on an accusation that he repeatedly sexually assaulted a teenage boy at a family wedding reception in 1974.
The charges in Massachusetts were seen as a milestone in victims’ efforts to hold abusers in Catholic settings accountable. Thousands of clergy members in the United States have been accused of crimes in the sprawling reckoning with sexual abuse, secrecy and cover-ups in the Catholic Church. But because most of the alleged assaults took place decades ago, successful prosecutions have been relatively rare.
Mr. McCarrick pleaded not guilty in the Massachusetts case in 2021. His legal team filed a motion to dismiss the charges in February, saying that its expert had assessed him as not competent to stand trial.
An expert for the state of Massachusetts came to the same conclusion this summer, after an assessment performed in person in Missouri, where Mr. McCarrick lives. The state’s conclusion was announced in July, but the report itself was not made public at the time.
At a hearing on Wednesday, a forensic psychologist employed by the state, Kerry Nelligan, testified that she had assessed Mr. McCarrick at his residence over the course of two days in June, and found significant cognitive problems and “deficits of his memory and ability to retain information.”
Mr. McCarrick was not in the courtroom on Wednesday, but he joined the hearing through a video conference. He appeared to be frail but alert. He did not speak.
Advocates for victims of clerical abuse expressed disappointment about the ruling.
“It would be a landmark decision to have a conviction of a cardinal in the Catholic Church in the United States of America,” Stephen Sheehan, an activist who attended the hearing, said in the hallway outside the courtroom.
Mr. Sheehan seemed skeptical of the idea that Mr. McCarrick was incapable of standing trial. “Losing words and names and short-term memory, I do that all the time,” said Mr. Sheehan, who is 90.
He pointed out that it has taken decades for victims of sexual abuse to come forward, and the perpetrators who are still alive are often very old.
Mr. McCarrick’s lawyers did not immediately comment on the ruling.
Mr. McCarrick was once one of the most prominent clerics in the U.S. Catholic Church, serving as archbishop of Newark, and then of Washington, D.C. In 2001 he was made a cardinal, a rank in the church that is second only to the pope. Mr. McCarrick was also a prolific fund-raiser for the Vatican, charming presidents, donors and celebrities.
The complaint in Massachusetts, filed in 2021, said that the assaults took place outdoors at the victim’s brother’s wedding reception at Wellesley College. It said that Mr. McCarrick had asked to take a walk with the victim outside to discuss his “mischievous” behavior, and then when the 16-year-old stopped to urinate, Mr. McCarrick assaulted him. A second assault took place that night inside a coat room near the reception area, the victim said in the complaint.
The victim told investigators that he had been assaulted repeatedly by Mr. McCarrick, a family friend, beginning when he was a young boy and continuing into adulthood.
The charges in Massachusetts were able to proceed after so many years because of a feature of Massachusetts law: Since Mr. McCarrick was not a resident of Massachusetts, the clock on the statute of limitations there stopped when he was not in the state.
Mr. McCarrick was expelled from the church in 2019 after a Vatican trial found him guilty of sexually abusing minors and adult seminarians over a period of decades.
Mr. McCarrick also faces a criminal sexual assault charge in Wisconsin, stemming from an accusation from the same victim that Mr. McCarrick and another man assaulted him in the water at Lake Geneva in 1977. Wisconsin prosecutors have charged Mr. McCarrick with one count of fourth-degree sexual assault, under the same strategy used to file charges in Massachusetts. That charge is a misdemeanor.
Kirkus Reviews, the gold-standard for independent & accurate reviews, has this to say about
What Goes Around Comes Around:
A successful guide that uses anecdotes to reveal powerful truths about life.
The stable, positive, non-preachy and objective voice makes the book stand apart from others in the genre.
~ Kirkus Reviews
“I’ve read a number of books that focus on sharing a similar message, including “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne, “The Answer” by John Assaraf & Murray Smith, “The Celestine Prophecy” by James Redfield, “Think and Grow Rich,” by Napoleon Hill, and I must say that I find Rob’s to be my favorite.” – Sheryl Woodhouse, founder of Livelihood Matters LLC
Former Cardinal McCarrick Found Unfit for Trial Over Sexual Abuse
Former Cardinal McCarrick Found Unfit for Trial Over Sexual Abuse
New research shows small gestures matter even more than we may think.
I wonder about when this train actually went off the rail and Balwani and Holmes both knew it. It reminds me somewhat of Bernie Madoff’s $20 Billion deception in that if Bernie had fessed up when his performance first went south and he tried to cover it up, only to make it worse, he might largely have been forgiven and returned to his original trading business. But he just couldn’t do that and as time went on…well we know the result.
Was there a similar trajectory for this pair? A time when they looked at each other and said, “Uh oh!” Not that it matters really. Somewhere along the way they knew what was going down and kept it going for as long as they could. Now have to face the music as eventually, always is the case. It is simply “The Law of Cause and Effect” unfolding. Hopefully for them there will be less tragic endings than Bernie. It depends on how they handle what they have wrought! We’ll see.