In June 2019 Elder told CNA that McCarrick, 89, "is in poor health and remains under a supervision plan."
"At this point, the length of his stay is indeterminate, but he is looking for lodgings closer to his family. There is no timetable for when or if that might happen," Elder said in June of McCarrick's residence at the friary.
"Mr. McCarrick follows the everyday life and routine of a friar with the exception of public ministry; he lives in the same type of room as the friars, joins in the community prayers and the celebration of the Mass, and participates in community meals and interactions," the priest added at that time.
In August, McCarrick told Slate magazine that "I'm not as bad as they paint me."
"I do not believe that I did the things that they accused me of," McCarrick told Slate, in the only interview he has given since allegations regarding his sexual abuse of minors emerged in June 2018.
McCarrick was Archbishop of Washington from 2000 until 2006. He resigned from the College of Cardinals in July 2018, and took up residence in the friary that September.
In February 2019, he was found by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith "guilty of the following delicts while a cleric: solicitation in the Sacrament of Confession, and sins against the Sixth Commandment with minors and with adults, with the aggravating factor of the abuse of power."
McCarrick was laicized in February 2019, but remained in residence at the friary.
McCarrick told Slate in August 2019 that didn't ever leave the friary while he resided there, even to enter the adjoining Basilica of St. Fidelis; a condition of his residence was that he remain on the grounds of the friary. He indicated that he spendt much of his time in the chapel and the library.
McCarrick discussed in particular the accusations that he had solicited James Grein during confession: "The thing about the confession, it's a horrible thing. I was a priest for 60 years, and I would never have done anything like that … That was horrible, to take the holy sacrament and to make it a sinful thing."
The former cleric told Slate that he thinks men who said he abused them while they were seminarians during weekend trips to his New Jersey beach house "were encouraged" to develop similar stories, attributing this encouragement to unnamed "enemies."
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"There were many who were in that situation who never had any problems like that," he said.
This story has been updated since publication.
Ed Condon is a canon lawyer and worked as Catholic News Agency's Washington DC editor until December 2020.
J.D.Flynn served as Catholic News Agency's editor-in-chief from August 2017 to December 2020.