Vatican City, Nov 10, 2020 / 10:30 am (CNA).- The Vatican’s report on Theodore McCarrick released Tuesday includes a letter written by an American cardinal in 1999, who objected to McCarrick’s potential appointment to higher office, on the basis of existing allegations of misconduct, including incidents involving sharing a bed with seminarians at a New Jersey beach house.
On Oct. 28, 1999, Cardinal John O’Connor of New York wrote a letter to the U.S. apostolic nuncio, Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, after the cardinal learned that McCarrick was under consideration to be appointed his successor as archbishop of New York. That letter was shared with Pope John Paul II shortly thereafter, the Vatican’s McCarrick Report states.
“With deep regret, I would have to express my own grave fears and those of authoritative witnesses cited above, that should Archbishop McCarrick be given higher responsibility in the United States, particularly if elevated to a Cardinatial See, seem[] sound reasons for believing that rumors and allegations about the past might surface with such an appointment, with the possibility of accompanying grave scandal and widespread adverse publicity,” O’Connor wrote.
He added that “while charity must prevail and the benefit of the doubt always given to the ‘accused,’ the good of souls and the reputation of the Church must be seriously considered and the potential for scandal given equally serious consideration.”
“I can not, therefore, in conscience, recommend His Excellency, Archbishop McCarrick for promotion to higher office, should this be the reason for your inquiry concerning him at this time. On the contrary, I regret that I would have to recommend very strongly against such promotion, particularly if to a Cardinatial See, including New York.”
O’Connor wrote in 1999 that authoritative sources had told him that stories about McCarrick frequently arranging for seminarians to visit a New Jersey beach house circulated in the dioceses of Newark and Metuchen, specifically that “the arrangement was for seven seminarians, six of whom shared the guestrooms and one of whom shared the bed with the Archbishop.”
He said that a key authority had informed him that he believed “that some problem did occur involving at least one person, perhaps a priest, and that Bishop Hughes handled that personally and secretly.”
O’Connor said that he had personally asked a priest psychologist of New York archdiocese to speak with the psychiatrist who was treating a priest involved.
“Both the priest psychologist and the psychiatrist seem convinced that the priests or priests (sic) in treatment were victimized, willingly or unwillingly, in their inappropriate relationship with the then Bishop McCarrick, while Bishop of Metuchen,” O’Connor wrote in the letter. He added that he did not find these findings “definitely persuasive,” but could not dismiss their findings “because of the gravity of the allegations.”
O’Connor also raised concerns about McCarrick’s “seemingly incessant need to travel outside of the archdiocese to different parts of the world,” saying that he questioned whether there could be “any relationship between this seeming need to travel outside the archdiocese and his apparently having put his former alleged inclinations behind him.”
Cardinal O’Connor led the Archdiocese of New York from 1984 until his death on May 3, 2000. He was a major figure of American Catholicism and an outspoken defender of the faith and Catholic moral teaching.
The report notes that O’Connor conducted “the first known inquiry related to concerns over McCarrick’s conduct.” In the early 1990s, O’Connor investigated anonymous complaints against McCarrick ahead of a potential papal visit to Newark. He concluded that allegations of possible misconduct with adults would not present an issue if the pope were to visit Newark.
In 1997, McCarrick was being considered to lead the Archdiocese of Chicago. While he was generally praised as a strong candidate, O’Connor questioned whether he would provide the “firmness necessary to ‘compensate’ for the prevailing permissiveness” following the tenure of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, the report said. However, it added that O’Connor “admitted” that McCarrick could be effective in addressing theological abuses. McCarrick was ultimately not selected for the role.
The 1999 letter from O’Connor is included in the 449-page McCarrick Report on pages 131-140. The report indicates that “it is reasonable to infer” that Bishop James T. McHugh, the former auxiliary bishop of Newark, and Bishop Edward T. Hughes, the bishop emeritus of Metuchen, were O’Connor’s sources of information regarding these allegations.
O’Connor wrote that John Paul II had made clear to him in a meeting early in the summer of 1999 that he was considering appointing McCarrick to another diocese, potentially as O’Connor’s successor in New York.
After this, O’Connor expressed concern to the nuncio Montalvo in late July, saying that he was aware of “some elements of a moral nature that advised against” McCarrick’s consideration. Montalvo requested that O’Connor put his concerns in writing.
O’Connor’s letter is dated Oct. 28, only weeks after the cardinal’s release from hospital following surgery to remove a brain tumor. O’Connor died from this tumor the following May.
In the letter, O’Connor wrote that he was concerned by events related to him by “absolutely impeccable authorities as occurring in the Archdiocese of Newark during this past year.”
Among these is that “after Archbishop McCarrick was appointed as Ordinary, it was said that he would frequently invite male visitors for dinner and to stay overnight. Usually they shared a bed, although there were sufficient guestrooms … This did not become known outside the house, but it was a cause of concern for those who live there.”
Cardinal O’Connor also recommended to the nuncio several people that he could follow up with for further information regarding McCarrick, including Bishop McHugh and the attorney of the Archdiocese of Newark, Thomas Durkin, noting that the lawyer had “spoken with him [McCarrick] very forthrightly about rumors and allegations cited above.”
Upon receiving the letter, Montalvo forwarded it to the Congregation for Bishops and to the Secretariat of State. Archbishop Giovanni Battista Re, at that time the Substitute of the Secretariat of State, informed Pope John Paul II of Cardinal O’Connor’s letter, according to the report.
Montalvo left it to Re to “inform the Holy Father as to the matter in the manner you deem appropriate,” according to a handwritten note sent to Re.
O’Connor’s letter was sent the day after a letter sent by Nuncio Montalvo to the Congregation for Bishops describing Washington Cardinal James Aloysius Hickey’s endorsement of McCarrick as his first choice for the New York see, and acknowledging concern from Cardinal Bernard Francis Law that “vague allusions are enough to damage the position of a person.”
At the request of John Paul II, in response to the allegations recorded in O’Connor’s letter, separate but “substantively identical letters” were sent to Bishops Vincent Breen and Edward Hughes of Metuchen, Bishop James McHugh of Rockville Centre, and Bishop John Smith of Trenton on May 12, 2000, asking for the truth about McCarrick.
“Three of the four American bishops provided inaccurate and incomplete information to the Holy See regarding McCarrick’s sexual conduct with young adults,” the report concluded.
The bishops presenting false information were Hughes, Smith, and McHugh.
The letter of Bishop Hughes, who succeeded McCarrick in Metuchen, told the Holy See that: “I have no factual information that would clearly indicate any moral weakness on the part of Archbishop McCarrick.”
Hughes’ letter dismissed the accounts of some priests who had reported to him being molested or abused by McCarrick, even when, in one case, a psychologist affirmed that the priest had been McCarrick’s victim. Hughes noted moral lapses on the part of the priests accusing McCarrick, while dismissing their claims against the archbishop.
In fact, the bishop’s letter did not mention at all some incidents of sexual abuse or coercion that had been reported to him by Metuchen priests, according to the report.
While in O’Connor’s letter written months before, O’Connor wrote that Hughes, then bishop of Metuchen, had handled the problem by the New Jersey beach house “personally and secretly.”
O’Connor added: “I, myself, recall talking with Bishop Hughes by telephone very privately, regarding this same case, which did in fact involve at least one priest, and perhaps two. As I recall, both where (sic) in psychiatric treatment.”
Smith, who had been an auxiliary bishop in Newark, told the nuncio that “I have never heard anyone make a substantiated accusation of immoral behavior against Archbishop McCarrick nor have I any evidence of ‘serious moral weakness shown by Archbishop McCarrick.’”
But according to the report, Smith himself had in 1990 witnessed McCarrick groping the groin of a young cleric during a dinner with several officials from the archdiocese of Newark. Smith’s letter made no mention of that incident.
McHugh, then auxiliary bishop of Newark, was present at the same 1990 dinner and also saw the groping, but he wrote in his letter that he “never witnessed any improper behavior on the part of Archbishop McCarrick.”
The misinformation presented by those bishops was part of what may have informed Pope John Paul II’s decision to appoint McCarrick archbishop of Washington in November 2000, the report said.
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JPII’s apologists like Archbishop Gadecki here or JPII’s hagiographer George Weigel got it wrong. JPII should never have been hastily made a saint. While he did many great consequential deeds for the church and the world, he had that blind spot in his mindset about and theology of the presbyterate (priesthood) and of human sexuality that prevented him from directly confronting the then emerging clergy homosexual predation sex abuse scandal during his reign. He hyper idealized both into mystical proportions leaving them delusional and out of touch with reality. See his Theology of the Body and Pastores Dabo Vobis, as example. That is why we now have this global scandal that greatly stained the church. An icon of this episode is the congenial but hyper homosexual predator Ted McCarrick who was promoted by JPII five times: Auxiliary Bishop of New York, Bishop of Metuchen, Archbishop of Newark, Archbishop of Washington, and Cardinal. Another one is Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legionaries of Christ and of Regnum Christi, who was a serial sexual predator of his own seminarians and priests and sired children with different women. JPII gave him a special preferential treatment and even exalted him as “a model of heroic priesthood.” Today, it is but right that all church institutions, facilities and schools named after JPII should be renamed.
I guess you didn’t read the article, “Lan.” John Paul was deceived by officials of the American hierarchy. When you have a church of a billion on the books, that can happen.
Absolutely right. JPII’s canonization was recklessly accelerated to such a degree that it ignored his catastrophic failures to recognize Maciel and McCarrick for the monstrous degenerates that they were as well as his horrendous episcopal appointments and promotions, including Daneels, Maradiaga, Errazuriz, Law, Schoenborn, McCarrick himself, and especially Bergoglio. It is absurd and offensive to claim that this is a “model” of sanctity and pope and chief shepherd.
And for those reasons you know he can’t be in heaven? Please provide us with your corrected list.
Lan Baode, Are you by any chance among the Traditionalists that have an evil hatred of of St. John Paul ll. I myself am a Traditionalist and I hear so much false information generated against Our Saint. There is no gratitude for the fact that St. John Paul ll worked feverishly to restore the Tridentine Mass. The Pope who through his Angelus talks and General Audiences crushed every Modernist Heresy. The Pope who called for the “Reform of the Reforms”, for the sole purpose of eradicating all Modernist heresies and errors the Modernists instilled in Christ’s Church after the Council. There are those who only search for fables that will distort the person of His Holiness. What ungrateful children of their father of lies. Magnum Subito!!!
A fashionable error is still and error, and you are in error.
Lawrence Mack Hall, I followed the Pontificate of St. John Paul The Great, from the moment he stepped out on the Loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica, till his final moments. I was not a calumniator against the Supreme Pontiff but one who pleaded with others to Hear Him in whom God is well pleased. The Holy Father was a perfect Alter Christus. His enemies are those who seek nothing but fables without truth about St. John Paul Magnus, I ask, what did I say that is an error of errors? Please answer!
Phil Lawler, editor of Catholic World News, is reported as remarking that “the question regarding whether McCarrick is protected by a homosexual network is one of two key unanswered questions in the [McCarrick] Report, the other being how he shaped Vatican policy and the U.S. hierarchy” (National Catholic Register, Dec. 6-19, pp. 7-8, NCR text).
Is the McCarrick Report yet another act of broad self-exoneration? Perspective is given by Fr. Rev. Enrique T. Rueda’s, THE HOMOSEXUAL NETWORK: Private Lives & Public Policy (1982!, some 680 richly-documented pages), which remains systematically unnoticed after nearly four decades–not even a footnote in the USCCB’s 2004 Dallas Charter.
The McCarrick Report short-story also comes in two parts: the dead make great scapegoats, and the king’s camp followers literally wear no clothes.
‘ Mary The Greek / The Crowned Lady ‘ – is after whom the parish church of
S.G .Luisa of the Divine Will revelations is said to be the named ..how apt too , since for many , the concept of the Will of God as the mercy of God can be rather like Greek ..
St.John Paul 11 is the one whom God chose to help make the Divine Mercy devotion known world over as a very needed aspect for our times ; was surprised to find through the booklet below as to how the Diary of St.Faustina is also about living in the Divine Will , similar truths mentioned in the writings and exhortations of St. John Paul 11 as well as that of his God appointed successors who have been leading us in the Divine Will –
https://issuu.com/fupehozo40505/docs/1686407343-the_crown_of_history_by_daniel_o_connor
Hope the attacks / fears about the issues can be well used to bring more focus and light to the Divine Will revelations as being a needed complement to help bring deeper trust that the paths of sanctity and its peace are not beyond the reach for the ordinary .
I see no real defense here. Just umbrage. No more convincing than Trump’s lawyers.
The Pontiff-Idolator-Bergoglio is the Protector and Liberator of homosexual predators.
As Archbishop of Buenos Aries and President of The Argentina Bishops Conference, he spent millions in Church funds orchestrating a legal defense for his friend “Rev.” Julio Grassi, the most notorious homosexual predator in modern history in Argentina, found guilty by the Argentina Supreme Court, and now serving 15 years in jail.
That’s just one big reason why the Pontiff-Idolator-Bergoglio has not visited Argentina, his very own country.
Bergoglio was twice a candidate for Pope in campaigns run by Cardinal Daneels and Cardinal McCarrick, both of whom publicly bragged about it.
In 2013, Bergoglio got his election won, and he restored Daneels to power in the Church, just 3 years after Daneels has retired in disgrace in 2010, after the Vangelhuwe family of Belgium exposed him in an audio recording trying to coverup the homosexual predation of their own uncle, Bishop Roger Vangelhuwe, “the Belgian McCarrick,” a man who raped his own little nephew.
Add to the Pontiff-Idolator-Bergoglio his liberation of the convicted and defrocked (2012) serial pedophile “Rev.” Mauro Inzoli, Who Bergoglio restored to priestly faculties in 2014.
Add to Pontiff-Idolator-Bergoglio his promotion and protection of sex abusing Bishops Zanchetta of Argentina and Barros of Chile.
And of course, Pontiff-Idolator-Francis liberated and promoted and restored to power McCarrick, who like Daneels, got him elected.
The men running Rome and it seems many Archdioceses in South America, Europe and North America are homosexual-ist frauds, running a counterfeit cult as parasite inside the Catholic Church.
They are to be opposed and exposed and held to justice and prayed for. They are not to be trusted or tolerated.
They profane the Brude of Christ Our Redeemer.
“John Paul II was a man so morally strict, of such moral rectitude, that he would never have permitted a rotten candidacy to move forward.”
But – he did. He made a terrible mistake – this is obvious, and attacking out of hand those who point it out does no good at all – better to admit it and move on.
True.