Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 2, 2021 / 16:35 pm
Disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick is expected to appear in a Massachusetts court on Friday morning for his arraignment.
It will be a historic moment, as McCarrick, 91, is the first current or former U.S. cardinal to be criminally charged with sex abuse. It will also mark the first time McCarrick has appeared in public since 2018, when accusations of longstanding sexual misconduct by him first came to light.
On July 29, McCarrick was charged with three counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over the age of 14, in Dedham District Court in Massachusetts. The charges stemmed from an incident in 1974 when he allegedly sexually assaulted a 16 year-old male.
McCarrick had already been living at a then-undisclosed location since early 2020, and before that, a private residence at a Capuchin friary in rural Kansas. He was sentenced to a life of prayer and penance by Pope Francis in July 2018, after the New York archdiocese deemed sex abuse accusations against him to be credible.