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WASHINGTON, June 22, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) — The alleged accounts of molestation by Cardinal McCarrick which have been deemed credible and sustained are truly disgusting. It is alleged that in preparation for the holiest of celebrations, Christmas Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, McCarrick strategically attacked an altar boy in the Cathedral sacristy and a year later, in a lavatory. One can’t imagine a more blasphemous, sordid, and degenerate depiction of clerical sexual abuse of a minor than this of Cardinal Ted McCarrick.

The Crime Scene:

What manner of man, a consecrated priest no less, chooses for his sexual attack the most beautiful Gothic Cathedral in the New World, St. Patrick’s Cathedral in NY City? The crime scene for his sexual assault is the magnificent Cathedral dedicated “for the glory of Almighty God, for the honor of the Blessed and Immaculate Virgin, for the exaltation of Holy Mother Church, for the dignity of our ancient and glorious Catholic name, to erect a Cathedral in the City of New York that may be worthy of our increasing numbers.”

The Victim:

A faithful and innocent teen boy, excited by the honor to serve Christmas Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, tragically met the face of evil, in the person of Fr. Ted McCarrick, who was lurking in the Sacristry where he sexually assaulted the altar boy.

For 50 years, this hideous assault remained hidden in the dark. Yet, truth has a way of finding the light. When the vile allegations emerged, few were surprised.

McCarrick’s Sexual Assaults: 

No details of the assaults were released in Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s sanitized legalese press release, but the victim’s attorney Patrick Noaker spoke to CNN.

“Both alleged incidents, Noaker said, occurred at St. Patrick's Cathedral as his client, an altar boy, was being fitted for a cassock for Christmas Mass!  At the time, McCarrick was secretary to Cardinal Terence Cooke, New York's top churchman.”

“As McCarrick started measuring him, then he unzipped his pants, stuck his hand in and grabbed his genitals,” Noaker said. The lawyer said his client, who was about 16 at the time and a student at a Catholic high school in New York, pushed McCarrick away. “One thing he distinctly remembers is that McCarrick told him not to tell anyone about it,” Noaker said.

The second alleged incident occurred the following year, again during a fitting for cassocks before the big Christmas Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral. Noaker said his client was unsure about whether to go, but that McCarrick was not in charge of the fittings. But the future cardinal confronted his client in the bathroom, Noaker said, again molesting his client, sticking his hands down his pants.

“He brushed him away and avoided McCarrick like the plague from then on,” Noaker said.

These allegations of McCarrick’s aggressive and forcible sexual predation suggest a flagrant arrogance and criminal recklessness of dangerous proportions.  He acted with seemingly impunity brazenly confident of his position of power and freedom to assault.  The description of his pattern of sexual predation has all the hallmarks of a serial predator, forcibly violating sexual prohibitions, randomly, at anytime and anywhere.

Shocked?

And what was the response from Cardinals Dolan and McCarrick? Both men were “shocked” about the allegations. Really? It’s reminiscent of the famous line of Capt. Renault in Casablanca, “I’m shocked, shocked that gambling is going on here.”  

Dolan’s statement is insulting to Catholics: “While saddened and shocked, this archdiocese awaits the final outcome of the canonical process and in the meantime asks for prayers for all involved,” the Archdiocese of New York said in its statement.

Under canon law, McCarrick has the right to appeal his case to the Vatican. The NY statute of limitations bars any criminal prosecution of these allegations. Cardinal McCarrick said he was informed several months ago that the Archdiocese of New York, where he was an ordained a priest in 1958, was investigating an allegation of abuse from a teenager “from almost fifty years ago.” Cardinal McCarrick, also said was “shocked” by the report but cooperated with the investigation.

The McCarrick allegations demonstrate that little has changed in the Catholic Church since the fanfare of the 2002 USCCB Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

Why does Church hierarchy continue to protect clerics with clout, like Ted McCarrick?

Why didn’t the Church hierarchy create “a safe environment” for minors and seminarians who met Ted McCarrick?

Why didn’t the Church hierarchy treat Ted McCarrick, as his victim did, like the “plague” that he was?

Why didn’t the Church expel McCarrick from the priesthood at the first instance of his homosexual predation?

Why did the Church hierarchy gamble with young innocent lives, minors and seminarians, who were to cross paths with Ted McCarrick during his 60 years as a priest?

Why did the Church hierarchy protect, reward, and elevate the predatory McCarrick?

Why did the Church hierarchy look the other way with moral indifference and negligent disinterest to the obvious danger to children of homosexual priests?

By their indifference, silence, and complicity, this plague spread throughout the Church as the hierarchy covered up for the crimes of their fellow brothers with confidential settlements from the church coffers.

The homosexual clerical sex scandal is a pestilence that has plagued the Catholic Church for decades. This infestation has killed many young victims, destroyed countless victims’ lives, bankrupted the Church, sent millions fleeing from the faith, ravished souls, leaving a barren landscape of empty and closed Churches and moral devastation.

The bats in the Church’s belfry have infested and polluted everything. They were free to multiply and thrive in the darkness of evil.

It’s time to shine the light on every last one of them.

Elizabeth Yore is an international child advocate attorney who has investigated many clergy child abuse cases.