By Damien Fisher

(OSV News) — Disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick is not competent to stand trial in Massachusetts on charges that he sexually abused a teenage boy nearly 50 years ago, according to the prosecution’s expert brought in to examine the now 92-year-old.

On Thursday, Norfolk County Assistant District Attorney Lisa Beatty submitted the state’s report to Dedham District Court Judge Michael Pomarole, which stated that the Commonwealth’s medical examiner found MCarrick not currently competent to participate in the criminal trial. A defense expert made the same assessment in February. This could result in the dismissal of the charges in this case, in which McCarrick faces three counts of indecent assault and battery of a person over the age of 14.

The prosecution’s report itself is not being made public, and Pomarole has yet to make the final decision on McCarrick’s status. It is unlikely there are medical treatments that can restore McCarrick to competency, given the claims he has dementia.

Pomarole will consider both the prosecution and defense reports at an upcoming Aug. 30 hearing.

If convicted, McCarrick could have been sentenced to up to five years in prison on each individual count. McCarrick pleaded not guilty in September 2021.

McCarrick was recently charged with sexual assault in Wisconsin over an alleged incident that took place in 1977. It’s not clear if the eventual Massachusetts decision on his ability to stand trial will impact the Wisconsin case.

Even if he is determined to be unable to go to trial on the criminal charges, that does not end the legal jeopardy for a man once considered to be the one of the most powerful clerics in the American Church.

Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who represents the Massachusetts victim, still plans to pursue civil lawsuits filed in other states against McCarrick. The alleged victim is reportedly disappointed with the prosecution’s report.

Garabedian said he does not believe McCarrick being found incompetent will prevent the civil cases from proceeding. “By proceeding with the civil lawsuits my client is empowering himself, other clergy sexual abuse victims, and making the world a safer place for children,” he said.

McCarrick’s lawyers, Barry Couburn and Daniel Marx, first raised the competency issue in February when they filed a motion to have the charges dismissed based on a report from a medical expert they hired. The defense attorneys claimed McCarrick was incompetent to stand trial due to advancing and irreversible dementia.

“While he has a limited understanding of the criminal proceedings against him, his progressive and irreparable cognitive deficits render him unable to meaningfully consult with his counsel or to effectively assist in his own defense,” Coburn and Marx wrote.

The defense report, prepared by Dr. David Schretlen, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, is also under seal.

Prosecutors responded to the Schretlen report by hiring their own medical expert. That expert flew to Missouri to examine McCarrick, and also reviewed his medical records, before coming to the conclusion he cannot go to trial.

The Massachusetts case started in 2021, when McCarrick was charged for the alleged assaults. According to court records, McCarrick was close to the victim’s family, celebrating Masses for them and even going on family trips. The victim told investigators that McCarrick abused him during trips out of state. It was also under the guise of providing spiritual direction to the victim that the abuse took place, according to the criminal complaint.

One incident allegedly took place in the 1970s at the wedding reception for the victim’s brother, which was held on the Wellesley College campus. McCarrick allegedly got the victim, 16 at this time, to go outside with him to talk about the victim not attending Mass. During this encounter, McCarrick fondled the victim, according to the criminal complaint.

Allegedly, the pair went back to the reception, where McCarrick told the victim he had to go to confession, using a closet for privacy. Then, using the sacrament as cover, McCarrick continued to abuse the boy, according to the complaint. McCarrick gave the boy three Our Fathers and a Hail Mary as penance, according to the complaint.

McCarrick, known for his charm and his fundraising prowess, has been accused of sexually abusing dozens of child and adult victims over decades, a scandal that finally became public in 2018. After the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (now dicastery) found McCarrick guilty of abuse in 2019, he was laicized by Pope Francis.

(Damien Fisher writes for OSV News from New Hampshire.)

By Gina Christian

(OSV News) – Abuse allegations against Catholic clergy and religious in the U.S. declined last year, but challenges remain regarding protecting vulnerable adults and ensuring online safety, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

On July 14, the USCCB’s Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection released the “2022 Annual Report – Findings and Recommendations on the Implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.”

USCCB President Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of Military Services said in his preface the report was “a milestone accounting of the continued efforts in the ministry of protection, healing, and accompaniment.”

The document – covering the period July 1, 2021, to June 30, 2022 – consists of a progress report from the secretariat; an audit report conducted by the Rochester, New York-based consultants StoneBridge Business Partners; and a survey of abuse allegations and costs by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University.

Now in its 12th year of performing the audit, StoneBridge visited 62 dioceses and eparchies, 48 in person and 14 virtually.

The report itself is the 20th of its kind since 2002, when the U.S. bishops established the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” as a number of clerical abuse scandals emerged.
Commonly called the “Dallas Charter” for the city in which the bishops met at the time of its ratification, the document lays out a comprehensive set of procedures for addressing allegations of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy. The charter also includes guidelines for reconciliation, healing, accountability and prevention of abuse.

During the 2022 report period, 1,998 individuals came forward with 2,704 allegations of abuse, with claims down 399 from 2021 and 1,548 from 2020. The decrease was largely due to resolutions of allegations received through lawsuits, compensation programs and bankruptcies. Most allegations (83%) were initially brought to diocesan officials by an attorney.

Sixteen reports during the period involved current minors, with all other allegations made by adults citing abuse as minors.

The CARA portion of the report said that 194 responding dioceses and eparchies had judged 245 allegations of sexual abuse of a minor by a priest or deacon to be credible. Of those, 20 allegations involved children who were under the age of 18.

CARA also calculated that total costs incurred by dioceses and eparchies due to allegations were down 19% from the previous year, totaling over $157 million. (Costs for men’s religious communities, by contrast, rose 53%, approaching $45 million.)

The secretariat said in its assessment “the year-over-year trends are encouraging as the number of current minor allegations in the U.S. remains low.”

Many dioceses and eparchies “have taken certain measures that go beyond the specific requirements of the charter,” StoneBridge noted in its report.

Among the measures cited were recurring adult training, parish audits and background check renewals (which are not currently required by the charter).

However, StoneBridge found that more than 30% of diocese and eparchies it had visited during the report period struggled with “some dysfunction” in their review boards, including “lack of meetings, inadequate composition or membership, not following the by-laws of the board, members not confident in their duties (and) lack of rotation of members.”

Auditors pointed out an unevenness in the charter’s overall application, with “196 different implementations” of the document resulting from the various policies of dioceses and eparchies.
Another concern centers on the protection of “vulnerable adults,” a definition for which is not contained in the charter, said auditors.

A year after the charter’s most recent revision in 2018, Pope Francis issued the motu proprio “Vox Estis Lux Mundi” (“You are the light of the world”), outlining global legal procedures for how the church should deal with clergy sexual abuse, including procedures for investigating bishops.

The document, implemented for a three-year experimental period beginning June 1, 2019, included the term “vulnerable person,” defined as “any person in a state of infirmity, physical or mental deficiency, or deprivation of personal liberty which, in fact, even occasionally, limits their ability to understand or to want or otherwise resist the offense.”

On March 25, Pope Francis published an updated version with the specific term “vulnerable adults,” without altering the previous definition. The revised text also was broadened to include investigations of leaders of Vatican-recognized international Catholic lay associations and movements.

Yet Suzanne Healy, chairwomen of the lay-led USCCB National Review Board, highlighted findings by StoneBridge in her remarks in this report, saying that while the charter addresses clerical abuse of children, “there is confusion in reporting matters pertaining to “Vos Estis Lux Mundi” and canon law regarding penal sanctions.

The board “recommends the pursuit of a separate auditable resource with specific guidelines for these adult and lay matters of abuse,” she wrote.

The audit results represent 194 of the 196 dioceses and eparchies in the U.S., with the report listing the Chaldean Eparchy of St. Peter the Apostle and St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy as not participating.

Father Richard Janowicz, vicar general and safe environment coordinator for the Chicago-based St. Nicholas Eparchy, said in an email to OSV News he was “quite surprised” to learn the eparchy had been listed as such, since it had been audited by StoneBridge on April 17 of this year, and confirmed in a June 21 letter that the eparchy had remediated its initial lack of a children’s safe environment training program. It remains unclear as to why the eparchy was listed in the report as “not participating,” and OSV News has reached out to the USCCB for clarification.

Father Simon Esshaki, secretary to Bishop Emanuel Shaleta of the St. Peter Eparchy in El Cajon, California, said in an email to OSV News that the eparchy “did in fact have a full ‘Protecting God’s Children’ program for 2022,” but “unfortunately for some reason the statistics were not shared with the USCCB.”

The dioceses of Birmingham, Alabama, Lubbock, Texas, and St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands were each found noncompliant regarding Article 2 of the Dallas Charter, which in part specifies a required review board, comprised of mostly laypeople not employed by the diocese, that meets regularly and serves as a consultative body to the bishop. Each diocese subsequently corrected the deficiency.
For the Birmingham Diocese, the problem was one of timing, Donald Carson, director of communications and public relations, told OSV News.

Two resignations due to health concerns and the transfer of a religious sister left three vacancies on that review board during the audit period. The seats “have since all been filled, bringing the number of representatives not employed by the diocese back in compliance with the requirements of the charter,” he said in an email to OSV News.

In the Lubbock Diocese, COVID was at its height during the reporting period and had “stopped many areas of our work,” Lucas Flores, communications director, told OSV News in an email, adding that the diocese had resumed review board meetings.

OSV News was awaiting a response from the Diocese of St. Thomas.

(Gina Christian is a national reporter for OSV News. Follow her on Twitter at @GinaJesseReina.)

By Gerry Jackson

BALTIMORE (OSV News) – When Deacon B. Curtis Turner received word that Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange had moved a step closer to sainthood June 22, he hoped to be the first to celebrate the good news with a visit to her room at St. Frances Academy.

He was delighted to see several of his students at the East Baltimore school had beaten him to it. A handful had already gathered to pray and celebrate at the site where the nun whom Pope Francis declared “venerable” resided, prayed and died.

“We couldn’t be more excited,” said Deacon Turner, the head of school at the academy Mother Lange co-founded in 1828. “Everything we do here is guided by her. It was heartwarming to see kids in her room talking about her cause.”

Sister Marcia Hall, vocations director for the Oblate Sisters of Providence, said it was somewhere between a celebration and business as usual at the motherhouse in Halethorpe, near Baltimore, since the sisters didn’t get official word until the afternoon of June 22.

“We’re very grateful and very excited,” Sister Marcia said. “We’re just going to continue to pray until she reaches sainthood, and we encourage everyone else to pray with us.”

Catholics throughout the Archdiocese of Baltimore rejoiced at the prospects of one of their own moving closer to sainthood. Mother Lange, also the founder of the Baltimore-based Oblate Sisters of Providence, was declared venerable when Pope France signed a decree recognizing her as having “lived the Christian virtues in a heroic way.”

A miracle attributed to her intercession is still necessary before she can be beatified. Another miracle would be needed for her canonization.
The Archdiocese of Baltimore and the Oblate Sisters have championed the cause for the sainthood of the founder of the first Catholic order of African American nuns.

Archbishop William E. Lori said he was overjoyed by the news and noted that Baltimore still draws on Mother Lange’s grace.

“I am delighted that the Holy See has officially recognized the heroic virtues of Mother Mary Lange, for her virtues and example still enliven and grace this local Church,” Archbishop Lori said in a June 22 statement. “I am especially happy for the Oblates of Providence who have been praying and working fervently for the canonization of their beloved founder. Today’s news marks an important step forward in the path towards her beatification. Let us continue to pray for her cause and ask her intercession for our needs.”

In February, when the Vatican accepted the theological and historical record of Mother Lange, Archbishop Lori noted: “With each step forward, more people learn about the life and legacy of our beloved Mother Lange. She unlocked educational opportunities for children in Baltimore and beyond during her lifetime – and that impact continues today. The Oblate Sisters have worked very hard to help bring about this key development. Along with so many others, we are delighted.”

St. Frances Academy’s Deacon Turner, a deacon of the Archdiocese of Washington, called Mother Lange the greatest model for evangelization the nation has.

“She teaches us to love the church even when the church doesn’t seem like it loves us back,” Deacon Turner told the Catholic Review, Baltimore’s archdiocesan news outlet. “She is the ultimate model for us to learn about forgiveness.”

Adrienne Curry, director of the Archdiocese of Baltimore Office of Black Catholic Ministries, said it’s “an exciting time” for Baltimore.

“I am absolutely thrilled,” said Curry. “We are very excited that she is one step closer. It’s very moving. We need people to pray for her cause.”

She noted that four African Americans up for sainthood now have been declared venerable – Mother Lange, Mother Henrietta Delille, Father August Tolton and Pierre Toussaint. (Two other African Americans with canonization causes are Sister Thea Bowman and Julia Greeley.)

Auxiliary Bishop Bruce A. Lewandowski, urban vicar, is glad to see the Lange cause advancing as well.

“Patience in God’s providence pays off,” Bishop Lewandowski said. “This is wonderful news for so many who are praying and working for Mother Lange’s canonization. God is so good!”

Mother Lange helped establish in 1829 the Baltimore-based Oblate Sisters of Providence, the first religious order for women of color. Mother Lange, who also established the first Catholic school for children of color in the United States, was born in Cuba in 1784 and lived in Haiti before coming to Baltimore as a French-speaking immigrant in 1813.

She died Feb. 3, 1882, in Baltimore at St. Frances Academy.

The late Cardinal William H. Keeler began the canonization process for Mother Lange nearly three decades ago while he was archbishop of Baltimore when he submitted a report to the Vatican. Dr. Camille Brown Privette, president of the Mother Mary Lange Guild, wrote a six-page historical document about the history of African Americans from slavery through Reconstruction, Civil Rights Act and other changes that Cardinal Keeler submitted, along with other materials, to what was then called the the Congregation for Saints Causes at the Vatican.

“She was determined to respond to that need in spite of being a Black woman in a slave state long before the Emancipation Proclamation,” according to the official website of her sainthood cause. “She used her own money and home to educate children of color.”

With the encouragement and support of a priest and Archbishop James Whitfield of Baltimore, she and three other women made promises of poverty, chastity and obedience in 1829, founding the Oblate Sisters of Providence, an order that continues today.

The pope also recognized Sister Lucia dos Santos, who as a child reported seeing Mary with her cousins in Fatima, Portugal.

At the same meeting with Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, Pope Francis also recognized the martyrdom of Father Manuel González-Serna Rodríguez and 19 other diocesan priests, laymen and laywomen killed in 1939 during the Spanish Civil War. The recognition of martyrdom clears the way for their beatification without a miracle.

The other notable decree of heroic virtues involved a religious sister who died much more recently. Sister Lucia dos Santos died in Coimbra, Portugal, in 2005 at the age of 97. Pope Francis canonized her cousins, Francisco Marto and Jacinta Marto, in 2017.

(Gerry Jackson is on the staff of the Catholic Review, news outlet of the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Catholic News Service Rome contributed to this story.

NOTES: To read more about Mother Mary Lange’s cause for sainthood, visit https://catholicreview.org/mother-lange-cause-for-canonization-seeks-prayers and https://catholicreview.org/oblate-sisters-celebrate-10th-anniversary-of-transfer-of-mother-langes-remains. More about Mother Lange, her life and ministry, and her sainthood cause can be found at the website of the Mother Lange Guild, visit https://www.motherlange.org)