(LifeSiteNews) — According to an expert hired by the prosecution, disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick is not competent to stand trial for sexually abusing a young teenage boy in 1974, raising doubts that the 92-year-old will ever be held accountable for the homosexual pederast assault.
The charges against McCarrick — who served as Archbishop of Washington, D.C. from 2001 to 2006 and who enjoyed a high profile in the Catholic Church and easy access to the Vatican — include three counts of indecent battery and assault on a person age 16.
The judge in the case is expected to make a decision about McCarrick’s competency and the fate of the criminal trial at an upcoming August 30 hearing.
While the findings of the expert for the state of Massachusetts have not been made public, those of an expert hired by the defense earlier this year reached ostensibly the same conclusion.
In February, McCarrick’s attorneys requested that the case be dismissed because of their client’s “significant” and “worsening” dementia.
“While [McCarrick] has a limited understanding of the criminal proceedings against him, his progressive and irreparable cognitive deficits render him unable to meaningfully consult with counsel or to effectively assist in his own defense,” his attorneys argued, per the Associated Press.
In recent years, 14 minors and at least eight adult clergy and seminarians have come forward to accuse McCarrick of sexual misconduct, according to BishopAccountability.org.
In April, McCarrick was charged in Wisconsin with sexually assaulting an 18-year-old boy at a lakeside cabin in the southeastern region of the state in 1977. According to Associated Press, the alleged victim told investigators that McCarrick had been sexually abusing him since he was 11 years old. He also alleged that McCarrick took him to parties where other men sexually assaulted him.
McCarrick has always denied all sex-abuse allegations against him.
Defrocked in 2019, McCarrick now lives in Missouri.