Boston, Mass., Feb 27, 2023 / 16:57 pm
Former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, 92, filed a motion in a Massachusetts court claiming he is “legally incompetent” to stand trial for sex abuse charges, citing “significant, worsening, and irreversible dementia.”
McCarrick is charged with three counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over the age of 14 relating to allegations that he sexually abused the teenager who was a family friend at a wedding ceremony in the 1970s at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts.
McCarrick, laicized by Pope Francis in 2019, held one of the highest offices in the Catholic Church and has been accused of serially abusing his priestly authority by sexually abusing minors and seminarians.
The state of Massachusetts told CNA that it wants an opportunity to examine McCarrick’s competency to stand trial.