In a copyrighted story by Kelly Heyboer and Ted Sherman, writing for NJ Advance Media for NJ.com, the Catholic dioceses in New Jersey are said to have paid two former Priests a total of $180,000 after they said Cardinal Theodore McCarrick sexually abused them.
The settlements included $80,000 paid to a former Priest turned lawyer from New Jersey who said Cardinal McCarrick would invite him and other young seminarians and priests to a shore house in Sea Girt where they would be expected to share a bed with the former Archbishop of Newark.
Robert Ciolek, the former Priest who said he was abused by McCarrick for years, said he felt unable to say “no” when the then-Bishop would rub his back and touch him in bed.
Cardinal McCarriack has been removed from public ministry after he was accused of sexually abusing a teenage boy 50 years ago while he was a Priest in New York.
The Cardinal is one of the highest-ranking American Church officials to have been removed from ministry over sex abuse allegations.
On the day he was removed, the Archdiocese of Newark revealed for the first time he had been previously accused of sexual misconduct with adults during his time in New Jersey and two resulted in settlements. But Church officials would provide no details.
What is known is this: Robert Ciolek was in his early 20s and studying to be a Priest when McCarrick allegedly singled him out and began inviting him on overnight trips.
McCarrick would touch him in bed, but only above the waist. They would never kiss. The alleged abuse lasted for several years.
McCarrick rose from Bishop of Metuchen to Archbishop of Newark, then eventually Archbishop of Washington, D.C. He was eventually appointed a Cardinal by Pope Saint John Paul II.
Ciolek, who later became a Priest, told no one about the abuse until he started to get counseling after he left the Priesthood, married and became a lawyer. Then, in 2004, he filed for a settlement from the church and received $80,000 from the Archdiocese of Newark and the Dioceses of Trenton and Metuchen the following year.
Ciolek said he could not speak publicly about the settlement until the Church released him from a confidentiality agreement after McCarrick was removed from ministry.
McCarrick's second alleged adult victim was a Priest who received a $100,000 in a 2007 settlement.
The Priest, who has not been named, alleged McCarrick asked him to put on a striped sailor shirt and a pair of shorts and join him in bed, where McCarrick put his arms and legs around him. The Priest also alleged he saw McCarrick having sex with another young Priest during a fishing trip.
The priest who accused McCarrick of abuse was later forced to resign from the priesthood himself after he allegedly abused teenage boys.
Cardinal McCarrick has not spoken about the settlements or the allegations by the adult victims.
When he was removed from ministry last month, McCarrick said he had no memory of abusing a teeenager 50 years ago while he was a Priest in New York.
"While I have absolutely no recollection of this reported abuse, and believe in my innocence, I am sorry for the pain the person who brought the charges has gone through, as well as for the scandal such charges cause our people," McCarrick said in a June 20th statement.
"I fully cooperated in the process," McCarrick said. "My sadness was deepened when I was informed that the allegations had been determined credible and substantiated."
Unbelievable!
The man who accused McCarrick of abusing him as a teenager nearly 50 years ago is a married New Jersey businessman who does not want his name revealed.
The man said he was a 16-year-old attending Cathedral Prep Seminary in Manhattan when he was measured for a special cassock for altar servers at the 1971 Christmas Mass at St. Patrick’s .Cathedral. He alleged, McCarrick, then a monsignor, unzipped the teenager's pants him while measuring him for the garment. The boy pulled away. The following year, McCarrick allegedly cornered the same teenager in a bathroom and put his hand down the boy's pants.
Now 62, the New Jersey businessman contacted the Archdiocese of New York when he heard there was a panel considering settlements for alleged victims. He stated that he is relieved to hear the Vatican used his complaint to remove McCarrick from ministry.
Because there are statutes of limitation in New York, it is unlikely the Cardinal will be charged and prosecuted for the sexual abuse of the teenage boy. It is even more unlikely that he will be charged with any crime involving his sexual antics with the adult former Priests.
But Cardinal McCarrick has disgraced himself and the Church.
Yet, he is not the only one at fault in these horrific stories of perversion and predation.
The Archdiocese of Newark has yet to explain why the settlements it executed with the former Priests were never disclosed.
In a statement to the New York Times, Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin, the current head of the Newark Archdiocese, said he was disturbed by the reports about McCarrick.
“I recognize without any ambiguity that all people have a right to live, work and study in safe environments,” Cardinal Tobin said in a statement. “I intend to discuss this tragedy with the leadership of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in order to articulate standards that will assure high standards of respect by Bishops, Priests and Deacons for all adults.”
Nice gesture, Cardinal Tobin, but still not good enough! That strategy is out of the old Dallas playbook which doesn't cut it any longer.
Serious questions remain and need answering by the local churches of Newark, New York, Metuchen and Washington, DC.
Erin Friedlander, a spokeswoman for the Diocese of Metuchen, said the allegations of sexual misconduct by McCarrick were reported to authorities.
"At the time each claim was received, each was reported to law enforcement. When the two settlements were reached, each within a few months' time, they were reported to representatives of the Holy See in the United States," Friedlander said.
But all this was kept secret in the continuing grand conspiracy of silence responsible for so much of the suffering attendant to these horror stories.
One must wonder how McCarrick could have been promoted to the College of Cardinals with all this baggage that was clearly known within the dioceses where the sexual predation of the Priests occurred.
Wasn’t McCarrick vetted at all? And, if he was, who protected his sordid past from being revealed and who continued to advance his promotion?
These are the unsettling questions which no one in Church authority has yet to explain.
But silence won’t serve to quell the voices of inquiry into what I predicted will be a watershed moment in the vulnerability to which all Bishops in America will be subject.
The scandal in Chile worsens, even as Pope Francis (sadly only after his public gaffes related to allegations against Bishop Barros) personally called the entire Chilean Conference of Bishops to Rome to read them the riot act, in response to which the entire Conference submitted their resignations.
How long before Pope Francis engages the Bishops in the USA. How long before USCCB members board jetliners for their rendezvous with the Holy Father?
And if not, why not?
Can the scandal in Chile possibly be worse than that in the US Church? Than in Australia? Spain? Argentina? Mexico?
How can the Church survive the onslaught of such waves of corruption and scandal?
Dear Holy Spirit, come to our aid. Jesus entrusted the Church to Your protection and guidance. Come, Holy Spirit, come!
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