Ex-Cardinal McCarrick denies abuse of NJ man as criminal case hangs in balance

Theodore McCarrick outside Dedham District Court, Friday, Sept. 4, 2021.

BY Deena Yellin

Former Roman Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was defrocked after years of sexual abuse allegations, said in an exclusive interview that he did not assault a New Jersey man he is charged with abusing, though he did acknowledge knowing his accuser.

Once one of the most high-profile Catholic leaders in America, McCarrick, the former archbishop of Newark and bishop of Metuchen, has been reclusive in the four years since he was expelled from the clergy by Pope Francis. As of 2021, he was living in a Missouri rehabilitation center for troubled priests, court documents say.

McCarrick, also the former archbishop of Washington, D.C., was a prominent voice and prodigious fundraiser for the Vatican for decades. But he fell from grace amid multiple sexual abuse allegations, including one from a Bergen County native, James Grein, that has prompted a criminal prosecution in Massachusetts.

Grein, who now lives in Virginia, has filed a pair of lawsuits against McCarrick. But his role in the criminal case has been unreported until now. Prosecutors in Massachusetts say McCarrick assaulted Grein, then a teenager, during a 1974 wedding at Wellesley College.

On Monday, the former cardinal’s lawyers filed a filed a motion in the case arguing that McCarrick, now 92, isn’t competent to stand trial because of what they called irreversible dementia.

A brief interview

A day after the filing, a reporter for NorthJersey.com and the USA Today Network New Jersey reached McCarrick on his private phone line. The conversation was brief, lasting less than 10 minutes. The former prelate sounded calm and composed throughout.

“Do you remember James Grein?” the reporter asked. “Yes. I remember him,” McCarrick answered.

He denied the accusations, which involve 20 years of abuse that allegedly started when Grein was 11 years old.

“It is not true,” McCarrick said. “The things he said about me are not true.”

“If you want more information about it, you can talk to my lawyers,” he added.

According to Grein, who grew up in Tenafly and now lives in Virginia, McCarrick was a close family friend who baptized him but then went on to abuse him for years, starting when he was 11 years old. In a separate interview this week, Grein, now 64, said McCarrick would attend the family’s gatherings and vacations and was so close that he was given the nickname “Uncle Ted.”

“He sexually and spiritually abused me,” said Grein, who alleges that the abuse took place in his home, in hotels around the country and during confession.

In this 2019 file photo, James Grein, 61, speaks at his house in Sterling, Va. Grein says Cardinal Theodore McCarrick's exalted place in the family over three generations created pressure on him to visit with McCarrick during weekends away from boarding school and visits when he would be molested. “If I didn't go to see Theodore I was always going to be asked by my brothers and sisters or my dad, 'Why didn't you go see him?'"
 In this 2019 file photo, James Grein, 61, speaks at his house in Sterling, Va. Grein says Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s exalted place in the family over three generations created pressure on him to visit with McCarrick during weekends away from boarding school and visits when he would be molested. “If I didn’t go to see Theodore I was always going to be asked by my brothers and sisters or my dad, ‘Why didn’t you go see him?'”

The conversation with McCarrick on Tuesday came after several unanswered calls to his phone. Eventually, he returned the calls.

After asking about McCarrick’s well-being, this reporter identified herself as a journalist and made it clear she was asking about his accuser.

McCarrick said he was home in Missouri. He said he was “feeling well, considering that I am 92 years old. It’s not like I’m 40 or 50 anymore.”

‘I don’t want to speak of these things’

McCarrick answered questions about Grein politely but made it clear he didn’t want to discuss the case.

“I don’t want to speak of these things,” he said. “You can speak to my lawyer.”

“I hope you will not do a snow job on me,” he added, before hanging up.

McCarrick is charged with three counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over the age of 14. He faces up to five years in prison for each charge, according to Mitch Garabedian, Grein’s attorney. His client has also filed lawsuits against McCarrick in New York and New Jersey.

McCarrick pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges in 2021. In Monday’s filing, his lawyers cited a report by a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine that said McCarrick has “a severe cognitive disorder” and “everyday functional disability” that classifies as dementia, most likely due to Alzheimer’s disease.

Massachusetts prosecutors said they will bring in their own experts in April to assess McCarrick’s competency to stand trial.

Garabedian said McCarrick’s motion to dismiss the case also concedes that the former cardinal can still be “intelligent and articulate.” The dementia claim was “conveniently deceptive,” he said.

He said it could take months for the court to rule on McCarrick’s competency.

McCarrick’s attorney, Barry Coburn, declined to comment.

Complete Article HERE!

Sacramento Catholic Diocese facing insolvency due to ‘staggering number’ of sex abuse claims

The inside of Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament Monday, April 29, 2019 in Sacramento. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento will release a list this week naming priests and deacons determined to have been credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors, Bishop Jaime Soto said in a letter Sunday.

By Mathew Miranda

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento is facing insolvency following more than 200 lawsuits alleging the sexual abuse of minors.

Bishop Jaime Soto said in a letter Sunday night addressing the civil claims and acknowledging the possible financial impact. The majority of the lawsuits predate the 1990s as state law extends the statute of limitations on these cases.

“A vital aspect of owning and atoning for the sins of the past is resolving claims brought forward by victim-survivors in a fair and responsible manner,” Soto wrote. “I have committed to this principle and attempt to live it in every case.”

The bishop admitted that in the face of a “staggering number” of claims, the “financial challenge is unlike anything we have faced before.

“I must consider what options are available to us, should the diocese become insolvent,” Soto said.

The civil claims are being managed by an Alameda County judge. Soto said the diocese has begun early discussions with the court for a “workable claims resolution process.” The claims were made possible under Assembly Bill 218, the 2019 California law that gave victims a look-back window to file claims through the end of 2022.

“I am committed to resolving all claims as fairly as possible. Given the number of claims that have been presented, however, resolving them may overwhelm the diocese’s finances available to satisfy such claims.” Soto said.

Soto did not name bankruptcy as an option, but said he “must consider what options are available to us, should the diocese become insolvent.”

The list of dioceses that have filed for bankruptcy protection is long and growing. Santa Rosa’s diocese filed for Chapter 11 in December as its bishop, Robert Vasa, calling the move “the inevitable result of an insurmountable number of claims.”

That came after dioceses in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Rochester, New York, settled their Chapter 11 cases late last year. Both dioceses set aside millions for abuse survivors.

The dioceses in Stockton and San Diego have also previously sought federal protection in the face of claims.

In all, the Catholic Church in the U.S. has paid out more than $2 billion in legal expenses, according to the Bay Area News Group.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests responded to Soto in a statement Tuesday morning. The organization criticized the diocese and said for many years it “ignored cases of clergy sexually abusing and raping children.”

SNAP also asked that the judge demand three items before allowing the diocese to file for bankruptcy: audited financial statements with a 20-year history, a balance sheet that has been audited and includes the current values of the company’s stocks, bonds, annuities and ownership interests and secret files on abusers.

“Sacramento has tremendous cash flows in the form of weekly and monthly donations, all of it tax-free. It owns hundreds, if not thousands, of parcels of property,” SNAP wrote. “Whether or not it segregated those assets into separate holdings, as sophisticated corporations do, should not fool a bankruptcy judge. It all is controlled by the bishop. He alone decides what gets sold and what does not. Not one single transaction in a diocese can go forward without his stamp of approval.”

The list of accused priests and deacons who worked in Sacramento can be viewed at scd.org/clergyabuse/list.

The diocese encourages anyone who may be a victim of clergy sexual abuse, or who knows someone, to report it to law enforcement. The Diocese’s Pastoral Care Coordinator may be reached through a toll-free number at 866-777-9133.

Complete Article HERE!

Ex-cardinal McCarrick tells Massachusetts court he’s incompetent for trial

Defrocked cardinal Theodore McCarrick arrives at Dedham District Court on Sept. 3, 2021, in Dedham, Mass.

By Douglas Moser and  

Five years after allegations of child sex abuse against then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick first surfaced and rocked the U.S. Catholic Church, attorneys for McCarrick, 92, said Monday that he’s no longer mentally competent to stand trial and that the charges should be dismissed.

McCarrick was for decades one of the country’s most connected and powerful Catholic leaders. Now, many Catholics view him as an emblem of a rotten old-boy network in which the people at the top never face justice for their role in crimes involving sexual abuse by clergy.

The three counts of indecent assault and battery, based on allegations that McCarrick molested a 16-year-old family friend at a Wellesley College wedding reception in 1974, are the only criminal charges he faces. Fourteen minors and at least five adults — clergy and seminarians — have accused the former D.C. archbishop of sexual misconduct, according to the abuse-tallying site BishopAccountability.org. The first one came in 2018, shocking the church. But because of statutes of limitation for alleged incidents, it was long assumed that McCarrick would never be criminally charged. The Wellesley case was able to be prosecuted because, in accordance with Massachusetts law, the statute of limitations was put on hold after McCarrick left the state decades ago.

On Monday, attorneys for McCarrick, who was defrocked in 2019 and lives in Missouri, filed a motion to dismiss, saying he has had a mental slide and no longer can sufficiently participate in his own defense. In the motion filed Monday, the lawyers said that he has “significant, worsening and irreversible dementia” and that, thus, his constitutional rights would be violated if a trial went ahead.

“Although a jury trial would afford Mr. McCarrick the opportunity to confront his accuser, prove his innocence and vindicate his reputation,” he is unable to understand the nature and object of the proceedings, and to meaningfully help his attorneys, reads the motion from two members of his legal team, Daniel Marx and Barry Coburn.

Assistant District Attorney Lisa Beatty on Monday told Dedham District Court Judge Michael J. Pomarole that the state wants to do its own assessment of McCarrick. Pomarole set another hearing date for April 20. The defense’s competency report was sealed to the public.

“It’s not unusual for defendants to prolong a case so that memories fade, victims disappear, and witnesses become worn out,” said Mitchell Garabedian, the accuser’s attorney for civil matters. “This will not happen in this matter.”

“McCarrick is a sexual predator who charmed and duped his way out of accountability for decades,” Anne Barrett Doyle, a Massachusetts-based advocate and co-director of the archive BishopAccountability.org, said before the hearing. “The Vatican’s own report on McCarrick confirms this. As a result, we’re concerned that this could be just another ruse for evading responsibility. As the court assesses McCarrick’s claim of mental incompetency, we hope it factors in his long history of duplicity.”

McCarrick’s criminal lawyers had no comment.

McCarrick is believed to be the first cardinal ever laicized — removed from the priesthood — over sexual misconduct. In 2020, the Vatican released a report about his rise that experts say is the most extensive public investigation the church has done into a cleric of McCarrick’s stature. The former golden-boy fundraiser also faces multiple civil suits for alleged misconduct brought by men and boys over whom he had power as a high-ranking cleric. But the 1974 case is the only chance survivors have to see their alleged abuser potentially criminally convicted and incarcerated.

Doyle said that 49 American bishops have been accused publicly of abusing children and that only two have been criminally charged. One is McCarrick, and the other is Bishop Thomas Dupre, of the Springfield, Mass., diocese. Dupre retired in 2004, citing health reasons. Months later, he was charged with raping two boys, but the case was dropped because prosecutors determined the statute of limitations had expired. He died in 2016.

McCarrick’s removal from the priesthood set off a debate in Catholicism about how to best mete out justice. He is one of seven bishops who has been accused of similar crimes and dismissed from the priesthood, according to BishopAccountability.org. But in an era of rampant clergy scandals, experts predicted that many Catholics wouldn’t see McCarrick’s defrocking as sufficient punishment for his alleged victims. And in Catholic teaching, the “mark” of the priesthood is permanent.

Neither McCarrick nor his accuser were in court Monday.

McCarrick’s fall began in 2018, when a New York archdiocesan investigation found credible an allegation that McCarrick had groped an altar boy 45 years earlier. The Vatican suspended him. A drumbeat of allegations continued for two years, including that he had molested boys as young as 12, all the way up to priests and seminarians who said he pressured them to share beds on trips and to cuddle.

But what made McCarrick’s case even more explosive were conclusions found in reporting and in the 2020 Vatican report, including that Popes John Paul II, Benedict and Francis were aware of allegations that McCarrick may have acted inappropriately with young men. News emerged that New Jersey dioceses had, years earlier, quietly reached legal settlements with adult victims. McCarrick became a symbol of high-level corruption and of a 20-year-old sex abuse crisis in which people at the top were never held responsible. Because McCarrick was on the more progressive side of bishops, his scandal also became a rallying cry for conservatives who focus disproportionately on crimes by gay clerics.

Outside the Dedham court on Monday, Doyle said McCarrick’s trial — and the narrow legal pathway that made criminal charges possible — “shines a light on how inadequate the statute of limitations is. Prosecution shouldn’t depend on his travel plans.”

Also at the court was Robert Hoatson, a former priest, abuse survivor and victims’ rights advocate from New Jersey whom McCarrick ordained while he was Newark archbishop. Hoatson said McCarrick’s high-profile and prolific fundraising acted as a shield that protected McCarrick for decades. Accountability, he said, “was held up so long because he charmed the entire world.”

Complete Article HERE!

Church Sex Scandal Widens

— Hundreds More Catholic Clergy Accused Across CA

Plaintiffs’ attorneys say 1500 new lawsuits have been filed against the Roman Catholic Church in Northern CA alone. The Investigative Unit has independently reviewed nearly 700 of them.

By Candice Nguyen, Michael Bott, Mark Villarreal and Michael Horn

An NBC Bay Area analysis of nearly 700 lawsuits filed against Catholic institutions across Northern California over the past three years suggests the church’s child sexual abuse scandal in the region is significantly worse than the public previously knew.

More than 200 of the clergy and lay employees of the Catholic Church named in the wave of lawsuits have never been publicly accused of being sexually abusive towards children and teenagers until now, NBC Bay Area’s investigation found. Some of the newly accused continue to work as priests.

Other alleged perpetrators named in the civil filings have faced previous accusations but now face new claims, some of them dozens.

NBC Bay Area is in the process of reaching out to those accused in the lawsuits and anticipates publishing a complete list of names at the conclusion of that process.

While most local dioceses have released internal lists of suspected child predators in recent years, the new allegations threaten the credibility of those disclosures, according to victim advocates, who argue the dioceses’ lists should be significantly longer.

“I think it just shows what a pervasive, uncontrolled disaster was happening in the Catholic Church as far as children,” said East Bay attorney Rick Simons, who is serving as the plaintiffs’ co-liaison counsel for the coordinated civil cases hitting Catholic dioceses in Northern California.

In Northern California alone, Simons said more than 1,500 lawsuits were filed against Catholic dioceses during the state’s three-year lookback window, which closed at the end of December. In 2019, state lawmakers passed the lookback law allowing childhood victims of sexual abuse to file new lawsuits in civil court, no matter when the alleged abuse occurred.

“There are more accusations against previously unidentified perpetrator priests than I think most of us anticipated,” Simons said. The Diocese of Santa Rosa and the Diocese of San Diego have already stated the legal filings could lead them into bankruptcy.

Most of the alleged abusers are priests and other clergy, but they also include lay church employees, such as teachers and coaches at Catholic schools. Although rare, a handful of nuns have also been accused.

Among the newly accused priests are some high-profile names, such as Bishop Floyd Begin, the deceased founding bishop of the Diocese of Oakland.

A lawsuit filed in December accuses Begin of sexually abusing an unnamed 12-year-old girl on a single occasion in 1968, after he had already risen to bishop.

The plaintiff’s attorney did not respond to NBC Bay Area’s request to discuss the case.

Neither did a spokesperson for the Diocese of Oakland, which has told NBC Bay Area in the past it would not comment on any active litigation.

In a previous statement, however, the Diocese said, “As Bishop Barber has stated numerous times, he continues to work with leadership in the Oakland Diocese, both lay and clergy, to address the deep scars caused by sexual abuse of children, and how we can stop abuse.”

Like most dioceses in the area, NBC Bay Area found dozens of newly accused priests tied to the Oakland Diocese who are absent from its list of priests “credibly accused” of abusing children.

The list published by Oakland Bishop Michael Barber back in 2019 currently sits at 65 names, but NBC Bay Area’s review of lawsuits revealed recent accusations against more than 30 clergy absent from that list.

One such priest is Fr. John Garcia, a longtime priest who served at a handful of East Bay parishes, including Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Brentwood.

That’s the church Derek Lewis, 34, attended as a child in the late 1990s after his family moved to the small town.

“He was almost like a king or something,” Lewis said of the priest revered by many in the community.

After more than two decades of coping with painful memories, Lewis filed a lawsuit in November accusing Garcia of repeatedly sexually abusing him when he was just 8 years old.

It was the first time that Garcia, now dead, had been publicly accused.

“[He] raped me dozens of times,” said Lewis, standing outside the priest’s former living quarters where he says the abuse took place.

Lewis said he sometimes tried resisting the priest, but his father was battling cancer at the time, and he said Garcia turned that pain against him.

“He would tell me that and say, ‘OK, that’s up to you, that’s your decision’” Lewis recalls the priest telling him. “But just know that, if you go against God’s will this way, he might just punish you and take your dad.”

Terry Gross, Lewis’ attorney, said at least two others have since filed lawsuits alleging Garcia sexually assaulted them. The San Francisco Chronicle first reported the claims against Garcia.

“When these individuals come forward, it’s their first step on their healing recovery, finally being to stand up and say this was wrong,” Gross said.

Lewis said the abuse later led him down a path of addiction, incarceration, and homelessness.

“I think what you find with many of these victims and survivors of this type of clergy abuse is that their lives become a spiral,” Gross said.

Now sober, holding down a steady job, and raising his 2-year-old daughter with his girlfriend, Lewis said he’s finally in a place where he can fight back.

“I feel like the church has got away with all this stuff,” Lewis said. “Like Garcia won, he beat me. The church beat me. So now, I’m not that same little naïve boy anymore.”

Lewis is one of the rare plaintiffs who is suing the church using his real name, which he hopes might give others the courage to follow in his footsteps.

“I have to take my stand against [Garcia] and against [the church] and make it known to everybody that what happened was wrong in every sort of way,” Lewis said. “If me coming forward using my name and my face can help somebody, that’s what the whole objective is.”

Complete Article HERE!

Benedictine order admits keeping cleric at Marmion Academy for years after child sex abuse accusations

— The Catholic order’s Marmion Abbey has posted a list of “established offenders.” Unanswered: why Brother Jerome Skaja stayed with the order for years despite “multiple” credible accusations of molesting minors.

Marmion Academy in Aurora, a Catholic school run by the Benedictine religious order, whose leadership has posted a list of its clergy members found to have sexually abused minors. It has two names on it, both men now dead.

By Robert Herguth

The Catholic religious order that runs Marmion Academy in Aurora is acknowledging for the first time that one of its members had “established allegations” of child sex abuse in the 1970s and remained at the school for years.

During that time, Brother Jerome Skaja was accused of more sexual misconduct involving minors.

The Benedictines long hid the fact that Skaja, who died in 2016, had been accused of repeatedly sexually abusing a Marmion student in the 1980s, as the Chicago Sun-Times reported in October — and also that they reached a secret financial settlement with the accuser when he threatened to sue when he turned 18.

In December, the Rev. John Brahill, a Marmion leader, said the order planned to post its first public list of “established offenders,” as the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago has done and as many other Catholic religious orders have. Now, the order has done that. Its list includes two people: Skaja and the Rev. Augustine Jones, a twice-convicted sex offender who died in 2007.

Skaja — who oversaw intramurals and was involved in fundraising for the school — had “multiple” incidents in which he was accused of molesting minors in the 1970s and 1980s, according to the new list, which says the accusations have been deemed to be “true.”

Brother Jerome Skaja in the 1987 school yearbook at what was then called Marmion Military Academy in Aurora.
Brother Jerome Skaja in the 1987 school yearbook at what was then called Marmion Military Academy in Aurora. It’s now Marmion Academy.

“Established allegations are defined as such — based upon the facts and the circumstances, there is objective certainty that the accusation is true and that an incident of sexual abuse of a minor has occurred,” a note posted with the list says. “The names on the list . . . are based on a process of consultation with an independent review board and is not a legal judgement.”

The Benedictines’ leaders won’t say when they learned of Skaja’s sexual misconduct, what, if anything, was done about the accusations in the 1970s and why he was allowed to stay with the order until 1988.

That was the year Skaja was “dismissed,” the order’s posting says.

Brahill won’t say why Skaja was forced out at that point even though order leaders had known for years by then about the accusations from the Marmion student who got the settlement that Skaja had repeatedly sexually abused him.

That accuser, a former prosecutor now living out of state, says he was assigned to collect athletic equipment after intramural sporting events at Marmion, which at the time was a military-style Catholic boarding school, and take it to a secluded “basement area.”

A letter to the Marmion Academy community from the Rev. John Brahill in the wake of a Chicago Sun-Times investigation published last October that revealed decades of accusations of sexual abuse and coverups at the Aurora school.
A letter to the Marmion Academy community from the Rev. John Brahill in the wake of a Chicago Sun-Times investigation published last October that revealed decades of accusations of sexual abuse and coverups at the Aurora school.

The accuser, who spoke on the condition he be identified only by his initials, J.K., says he eventually reported what happened to the Rev. Vincent Bataille, then the dean of students.

“He told me to treat it as a dead subject — not to tell my classmates, not to tell my parents,” J.K. says.

The mother of one of the teenager’s classmates went to the abbot in charge after hearing about the accusations and was treated “as a hysterical woman,” the former classmate told the Sun-Times. Another former classmate said J.K. told him at the time he’d been sexually assaulted.

No records could be found to indicate Bataille ever notified police, though Illinois law requires school officials to report suspected child abuse.

J.K. says he wasn’t offered counseling or an apology and that no one from the school contacted his family.

The Rev. Vincent Bataille.
The Rev. Vincent Bataille.

Bataille has since been promoted to abbot overseeing Benedictine monasteries with nearly 500 monks across North America and beyond. He couldn’t be reached.

The Benedictines’ list calls clergy sexual abuse of minors “morally reprehensible” and offers a public apology.

That’s not enough, J.K. says: “My takeaway from this is they don’t care, whatever their message was on their website. It’s all platitude. It’s all part of their continuing effort at CYA.”

He says he wasn’t contacted by anyone from Marmion or the order during the internal review that led to the list being posted.

Another former Marmion student who says another now-deceased Benedictine at Marmion once got “touchy-feely” with him — putting his hand on his inner thigh — says he wasn’t contacted, either. That cleric isn’t on the list.

A official list of Marmion monks with “established allegations” of sexual misconduct.
The official list of Marmion monks with “established allegations” of sexual misconduct.

Brahill won’t discuss the order’s review board or say how many settlements the order has paid over accusations of abuse.

The Diocese of Rockford, the arm of the church that includes Aurora, won’t comment.

Another Benedictines group, long affiliated with Benet Academy in Lisle, hasn’t made public a list of predator clergy. The Rev. Austin Murphy, its abbot, won’t comment.

The Benet Lake Abbey, located in Wisconsin just over the Illinois state line, recently released its first public list of credibly accused members. There were six, most of them now dead.

Complete Article HERE!