(ZENIT News / Washington, D.C., 09.04.2025).- Theodore Edgar McCarrick, Archbishop Emeritus of Washington, D.C., died last April 3 at 94 in Missouri, where he lived in isolation after being convicted of sexual abuse and of power against adults and minors, and expelled from priestly exercise in 2019 by Pope Francis.
Theodore Edgar McCarrick served in the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. from 2000 to 2006, after serving as Auxiliary Bishop of New York. He faced accusations of abuse, particularly involving seminarians, and was suspended a divinis. In 2018, he submitted his resignation from the College of Cardinals to Pope Francis, who ordered him suspended from all public ministry and required him to live a life of prayer and penance in 2019.
The Vatican investigation has admitted the abuses committed by McCarrick in the 1980s and 1990s.
McCarrick stood out in the Catholic Church in the United States for his fundraising skills and pastoral services in the Dioceses of Metuchen and of Newark, in New Jersey. In 2002, he was appointed Archbishop of Washington, D.C.
The current Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Robert McElroy, issued a statement saying: «At this time, I am especially concerned for those he harmed during the course of his priestly ministry. Despite their enduring pain, let us remain steadfast in our prayers for them and for all victims of sexual abuse.»
Reports of McCarrick’s inappropriate behaviour surfaced in 1994. The New York Times reported that McCarrick had sexually abused an 11-year-old boy named James Grein in 1969.
The civil criminal case against McCarrick was suspended since January 2024, after the defendant was declared incompetent due to dementia; however, he was laicized in the canonical trial.
Cardinal Joseph Tobin, who now heads the Newark Archdiocese, described McCarrick as «a private individual, unaffiliated with the Newark Archdiocese for many years.» And added: «I am deeply aware of the trauma this news may revive for Mr. McCarrick’s victims.»
Newark’s Cardinal said: «As a Church, we remain steadfast in our commitment to listen to survivors, support their healing, and ensure that such traumas never happen again.»
The death of the elderly Cardinal has been reported by many media outlets, along with the reminders of his failures. Had it been another Cardinal, without scandals and with great dedication to ecclesiastical work, it would have gone unnoticed.
