Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 11:22am

PopeWatch: Uncle Ted

The internet can be an interesting place for research.  Here is a puff piece Cardinal Theodore McCarrick back in 2008 at the site Whispers in the Loggia:

 

And joining Cardinal McCarrick at the Mass will be many men that he calls his “sons” – the priests and bishops he has ordained over the years and remains close with. Since being ordained a bishop 31 years ago, he has ordained more than 320 priests and 12 bishops.

“One of the reasons the Lord has blessed us with vocations is, we all realize we’re a family,” he said, adding that he always tried to get to know each of his seminarians personally before he ordained them.

Go here to read the rest.  This post was entitled Golden Ted.  Then we have this from the blog site Where is Father Haley? in 2010:

“Excerpts from the legal Settlement Documents include firsthand accounts that are also in the Newark Archdiocese records of an incident on a trip with McCarrick, then Archbishop of Newark, New Jersey, with a seminarian and two young priests when they shared a room with two double beds, it reads:

· McCarrick, wearing just underwear, got into bed with one of the priests: “Bishop McCarrick was sitting on the crotch of Fr. RC As I was watching TV with Fr BL [full names appear in the documents], bishop McCarrick was smiling and laughing and moving his hands all over Fr. RC’s body. Bishop McCarrick was touching Fr. C’s body, rubbing his hands from head to toe and having a good time, occasionally placing his hands underneath Fr. C’s underwear. [I was] feeling very uncomfortable while trying to focus on television, and Fr. B.L., started smiling. As I looked at the bed next to me, Bishop McCarrick was excitedly caressing the full body of Fr. R.C. At that moment, I made eye contact [with] Bishop McCarrick. He smiled at me saying, ‘Don’t worry, you’re next.’ At that moment, I felt the hand of Fr. B.L. rubbing my back and shoulders. I felt sick to my stomach and went under the covers and pretended to sleep.”

“McCarrick continued to pursue the young man, sent him notes and telephoned him. Notes reveal that it was the custom the Archbishop McCarrick to call his protégés “nephew” and encouraged his entourage to call each other “cousin” and for them to call him ‘uncle Ted.’

“On another occasion McCarrick summoned the young man to drive him from the Newark Cathedral to New York City. He took him to dinner; and after, rather than returning to Newark as anticipated McCarrick went to a one-room apartment that housed one bed and a recliner chair. McCarrick said that he would take the chair, but after showering he turned off the lights and clad in his underwear he climbed into bed with his guest. Here is the account from the documents:

· “He put his arms around me and wrapped his legs around mine. Then He started to tell me what a nice young man I was and what a good priest I would make someday. He also told me about the hard work and stress he was facing in his new role as Archbishop of Newark. He told me how everyone knows him and how powerful he was. The Archbishop kept saying, “Pray for your poor uncle.” All of a sudden, I felt paralyzed. I didn’t have my own car and there was nowhere to go. The Archbishop started to kiss me and move his hands and legs around me. I remained frozen, curled up like a ball. I felt his penis inside his underwear leaning against my buttocks as he was rubbing my legs up and down. His hands were moving up and down my chest and back, while tightening his legs around mine. I tried to scream but could not…I was paralyzed with fear. As he continued touching me, I felt more afraid. He even tried several times to force his hands under my shorts. He tried to roll me over so that he could get on top of me, but I resisted, I felt sick and disgusted and finally was able to jump out of bed. I went into the bathroom where I vomited several times and started to cry. After twenty minutes in the bathroom, the Archbishop told me to come back to bed. Instead I went to the recliner and pretended to fall asleep.”

“In a letter dated four days after this incident McCarrick wrote a note signed ‘Uncle Ted’ that said in part: ‘I just wanted to say thanks for coming on Friday evening. I really enjoyed our visit. You’re a great kid and I know the Lord will continue to bless you…Your uncle has great spots to take you to!!!’

Go here to read the rest.

 

An open letter to Pope Benedict in 2008 from former priest Richard Sipe:

 

While I was Adjunct Professor at a Pontifical Seminary, St. Mary’s Baltimore (1972-1984) a number of seminarians came to me with concerns about the behavior of Theodore E. McCarrick, then bishop of Metuchen, New Jersey. It has been widely known for several decades that Bishop/Archbishop now Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick took seminarians and young priests to a shore home in New Jersey, sites in New York, and other places and slept with some of them. He established a coterie of young seminarians and priests that he encouraged to call him “Uncle Ted.” I have his correspondence where he referred to these men as being “cousins” with each other.

Go here to read the rest.

 

From National Catholic Reporter in 2014:

 

The day before a newly elected Pope Francis was to be formally installed at the Vatican in 2013, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was celebrating Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica when he passed out at the altar and had to be rushed to the hospital.

It was a scary moment, and especially odd to see McCarrick stricken; even at 82, the energetic former archbishop of Washington always had a reputation as one of the most peripatetic churchmen in the Catholic hierarchy.

Doctors in Rome quickly diagnosed a heart problem — McCarrick would eventually get a pacemaker — and the cardinal was soon back at his guest room in the U.S. seminary in Rome when the phone rang. It was Francis. The two men had known each other for years, back when the Argentine pope was Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, archbishop of Buenos Aires. McCarrick assured Francis that he was doing fine.

“I guess the Lord isn’t done with me yet,” he told the pope.

“Or the devil doesn’t have your accommodations ready!” Francis shot back with a laugh.

McCarrick loves to tell that story, because he loves to tell good stories and because he has a sense of humor as keen as the pope’s. But the exchange also says a lot about the improbable renaissance McCarrick is enjoying as he prepares to celebrate his 84th birthday in July.

McCarrick is one of a number of senior churchmen who were more or less put out to pasture during the eight-year pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI. But now Francis is pope, and prelates like Cardinal Walter Kasper (another old friend of McCarrick’s) and McCarrick himself are back in the mix and busier than ever.

 

Go here to read the rest.  McCarrick was no minor figure in the Church, but a major figure who attracted a lot of coverage.  When Pope Francis decided to make use of him, he knew precisely what he was getting.

 

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Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Tuesday, September 4, AD 2018 3:48am

It won’t be long until the devil does have Uncle Ted’s accommodations ready.

It’s difficult to pray for him, but prayers for him I must.
Hell is real. It is filled with Uncle Ted’s.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Tuesday, September 4, AD 2018 4:36am

I read this post and was sickened to my stomach. Yes, I was a sex pervert with the best of them – I frequented prostitutes as a submarine sailor, and drank and drugged myself into a frenzied stupor on many occasions. And I thank God that He eventually gave me a beautiful wife (whom I do not deserve) because as St. Paul says, it is better to marry than to burn. But these things McCarrick did are beyond nauseating. This man is a very sick baboon. Very, very sick.

Mary De Voe
Tuesday, September 4, AD 2018 5:21am

I, too, am nauseated and want to vomit after reading this post. More than disgusting, the horror that this behavior is condoned and covered up by those in charge is beyond outrage. It is enough to make a person die.

Mary De Voe
Tuesday, September 4, AD 2018 7:16am

“uncle ted” is one of Satan’s greatest feats. “uncle ted” is on the highway to hell and “uncle ted” loves it.
“uncle ted” in a monastery reliving his conquests and enjoying his crimes against God and humanity is not repentance.

Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Tuesday, September 4, AD 2018 7:36am

Mary De Voe.

Uncle Ted better wish for a Scrooge moment.
Pastoral past, future and if he survives the future episode a present. A present absent of honor and conquests…..a present of solitude and reflection with jumpsuit attire. Three hots and a cot. Oh. And angered perverted felons.

Christ can forgive. He is King of Mercy.

A contrite heart is needed.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Tuesday, September 4, AD 2018 8:10am

Can we publish the name of the metropolitan who sponsored this man for a bishopric? What about the nuncio who sponsored him for the position of Cardinal-Archbishop of Washington? What did they know and when did they know it? (While we’re at it, how did Richard Sipe land a faculty position at a Catholic seminary?).

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Tuesday, September 4, AD 2018 12:14pm

Art Deco asks, “Can we publish the name of the metropolitan who sponsored this man for a bishopric?”

Normally the consecration of an auxiliary bishop is postulated by the ordinary. In McCarrick’s case, that would have been Cardinal Cooke.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Tuesday, September 4, AD 2018 1:33pm

Normally the consecration of an auxiliary bishop is postulated by the ordinary. In McCarrick’s case, that would have been Cardinal Cooke.

The Diocese of Metuchen is not in the Province of New York. Who sponsored him for Metuchen (< 2 years before Cdl. Cooke's death, when Cooke was terminally ill) and why?

Penguins Fan
Penguins Fan
Tuesday, September 4, AD 2018 2:35pm

McCarrick should have been laicized by Pope Benedict. He has no business being an active member of the clergy.

Mary De Voe
Tuesday, September 4, AD 2018 3:19pm

“…..a present of solitude and reflection with jumpsuit attire.”
Jesus Christ’s mercy and forgiveness can only be accepted through contrition and humility. None of which do I see in the dirty old man.
McCarrick has no idea of penitence.

Steve Phoenix
Steve Phoenix
Tuesday, September 4, AD 2018 3:44pm

McCarrick, Kasper, Bergoglio, “Who am I to judge?”
..
Well the judging Miami P.D. arrested two of Cardinal Cupich’s finest (one a pastor of a parish in Arlington Heights area of Chicago, while engaged in public in oral sex with each other:
https://miami.cbslocal.com/2018/09/04/priests-arrested-miami-beach-sex-acts-in-car/
“Fr.” Diego Berrio has a very lively history in the diocese and “Fr.” Edwin Giraldo-Cortez is his associate pastor. Apparently they were so involved with each other in the vehicle in broad daylight that the police had to tap on the window to, ahem, interrupt them.

And the nightmares through the night continue.

Steve Phoenix
Steve Phoenix
Tuesday, September 4, AD 2018 10:40pm

Regarding Theodore Edgar McCarrick, I believe Michael Paterson-Seymour was observing that McCarrick, originally ordained a priest to the New York Archdiocese in 1958, under Cardinal Spellman was likely advanced by Cooke. Card. Cooke became Archbishop in 1968, and in May 1977, McCarrick was appointed an auxiliary bishop to NY Arch. Cooke was also his principal consecrator, usually a signal mark of “whose man” the new bishop is. (McCarrick didn’t become bishop of Metuchen til his appointment in Nov. ’81.)

You can also blame Apostolic Delegate to the US Jean Jadot (1973-1980), and one if the first persons sacked by the new pontiff, John Paul II. Jadot, a fellow Belgian progressive, was a close friend ideologically of Gottfried Danneels. Need we say more.

But it looks like Uncle Ted is Card. Cooke’s spawn, mainly.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Wednesday, September 5, AD 2018 5:52am

But it looks like Uncle Ted is Card. Cooke’s spawn, mainly.

The co-consecrators were the other two auxilliary bishops in New York. Again, who put him in Metuchen? Unless the appointment had an unusually long lead time, it wasn’t Jadot, who’d been recalled to Rome 17 months earlier.

McCarrick was an academic for 11 years.. Cooke put him in administrative positions. He spent little time in parish ministry and was never assigned to it full time.

Jeqnne Rohl
Jeqnne Rohl
Wednesday, September 5, AD 2018 7:11am

Excuse me. I think I’m going to be sick. ER! SICKER!!!

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