In a new lawsuit, the former archbishop of Washington, Theodore McCarrick, has been charged with touching and raping a teenage boy. This writes a number of American media.
Never before has an archbishop in the American Catholic community risked prosecution for a similar type of incident.
Repeated accusations
Attorney Mitchell Garabedian is leading the victim’s case, and is known for assisting victims of sexual abuse in the church.
“It takes an enormous amount of courage from a victim of sexual assault to report it, to report it and follow the process further,” Mitchell told the news agency. AP.
The abuse is said to have taken place over several years, he writes BBC.
According to the man who reported the incident, McCarrick must have been a close friend of the family. One of the episodes took place in the brother of the anonymous wedding in the US state of Massachusetts back in 1974.
The victim has said that McCarrick took him into a room where he touched him, so to speak to the boy that he had to pray for his sins.
In 2019, the former archbishop was stripped of his status from the Vatican after several allegations of sexual assault. The Vatican report contained 450 pages of interrogations from several sources, and letters from the archives of a number of churches.
Former popes have denied the allegations
With this he becomes the oldest Catholic figure who in modern times has been dismissed from the priesthood. However, he is not the only one – hundreds of leaders in Catholic churches have been prosecuted for sexually abusing minors, especially younger boys.
Former Pope John Paul II learned of the charges against McCarrick, but chose to believe in American bishops who denied the allegations.
Pope Benedict XVY, who resigned in 2013, is also said to have rejected the idea of a possible investigation into McCarrick, as he believed there was a lack of what he called “credible accusations”.
McCarrick is due to appear in court in Massachusetts next month.
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