The Vatican said Saturday it defrocked former cardinal of Washington, D. C., Theodore McCarrick, after finding him guilty of sex abuse.
Feb. 16 (UPI) — The Vatican said Saturday it defrocked former cardinal of Washington, D. C., Theodore McCarrick, after finding him guilty of sex abuse.
Defrocking is the most significant abuse-related punishment given to a past cardinal in modern Roman Catholic Church history, stripping him of the rights of priesthood.
The Vatican formally describes the penalty as being “dismissed from the clerical state.”
Pope Francissaid Saturday that McCarrick, 88, is not allowed further appeal after the Church found him guilty of the decades-old abuse days earlier.
“Today I am happy that the pope believed me,” said James Grein, a Virginia man who said McCarrick abused him starting at age 11.
