Pope Francis made history Saturday on McCarrick
Rome, Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who once led the Archdiocese of Washington and was a force in American politics, after a decades-old allegation of sexual abuse of a teenage altar boy forced the Vatican to remove him from public ministry.
Father Theodore McCarrick was a New Jersey priest, whose charisma and intelligence had already set him on a clear course to rise in the Catholic ecclesiastical hierarchy. But at age 11, to James, whose story the New York Times reported last week (using only his first name), “Teddy” was a close family friend, an advisor, and a mentor.
He was also, James said, the man who exposed himself to James for the first time when he was 11. The man, James said, who first molested him when he was 12. And the man, James said, who got him drunk, took him to a hotel room, and assaulted him when James was 15. According to the Times report, James attempted to tell his family of the persistent abuse, only to be met with denial and disbelief.
