Salina, Kan., Sep 3, 2019 / 13:17 pm
In an interview last month with Slate staff writer Ruth Graham, Theodore McCarrick said he doesn't believe he committed the acts of which he has been accused.
McCarrick, 89, has been in public disgrace since June 2018, when credible allegations of sexual abuse of a minor were made known. He was dismissed from the clerical state in February 2019, after an administrative penal process by which the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith found him guilty of solicitation in the confessional, and sexual abuse of minors and adults, aggravated by abuse of power.
"I'm not as bad as they paint me," McCarrick told Graham Aug. 14 at the St. Fidelis Friary in Victoria, Kan., about 90 miles west of Salina, where he resides. "I do not believe that I did the things that they accused me of."
Graham wrote in an article published Sept. 3 that when she challenged McCarrick saying he "makes it sound as if he's leaving it an open question," and that it sounded as though he thought it was possible he had committed the acts, he responded no.