Sexual abuse charges dismissed against McCarrick as ex-cardinal ruled unfit to stand trial

Sexual abuse charges against former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick were dismissed Wednesday after a Massachusetts judge ruled the former Catholic Church official is not competent to stand trial.

McCarrick, 93, was charged with sexually abusing a 16-year-old boy at a wedding reception in 1974 outside Boston. A Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine professor of psychiatry and behavioral science said after examining the cardinal that he suffers from dementia, likely Alzheimer’s disease.

“[The] Commonwealth does not have a good-faith basis to proceed any longer with the prosecution given the testimony and the opinions of the psychologist that Mr. McCarrick is not restorable to competency,” the prosecutor said, moving to dismiss the charges.

The former cardinal still faces a sexual abuse charge in Wisconsin over claims stemming from the same victim.

McCarrick was removed from his public post in the Catholic Church and resigned from his cardinalship in 2018 over sexual abuse allegations. He is the first cardinal to resign over such allegations.

After an internal church investigation, he was found guilty of sex crimes against adults and minors and was removed from the clergy in 2019.

The sexual abuse allegations were first made public in 2018 in The New York Times, which reported that McCarrick preyed on young men who had hopes of entering the clergy. The outlet reported church officials were aware of sexual abuse allegations against McCarrick as far back as 1994.

A longtime powerbroker as the Archbishop of Washington, McCarrick participated in the funerals of Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), younger brother to former President Kennedy, and Beau Biden, son of President Biden.

He was also a major booster for the church through his organizing of American donors, and a key ally to Pope John Paul II. He was one of the cardinals who assisted the pope in responding to the church’s child sex abuse crisis in 2002.