What was first revealed by the Boston Globe Spotlight team in 2002 was followed up by two more decades of institutional foot-dragging when it comes to accountability for prominent predators like him. And with that foot-dragging comes the chance to evade justice.
By Joan Vennochi, The Boston Globe
“After a judge declared him incompetent to stand trial on charges that he sexually assaulted a 16-year-old boy in Wellesley in the 1970s, the Zoom image of Theodore McCarrick showed an old man with a blank face, hunched over a table in a room at the assisted living facility in Missouri that is now his home. Yet when the remote session ended, one could still imagine the defrocked and disgraced cardinal smiling in triumph — just like any other aging gangster who beat the system.
“The charges against McCarrick, 93, were dismissed last week after two medical experts found he suffered from dementia. That makes him a living symbol of the cost of the decades-long coverup of clergy sexual abuse by the Roman Catholic Church. What was first revealed by the Boston Globe Spotlight team in 2002 was followed up by two more decades of institutional foot-dragging when it comes to accountability for prominent predators like him. And with that foot-dragging comes the chance to evade justice.
“Last month, for example, Howard J. Hubbard, the longtime bishop of the Albany, N.Y., diocese, who acknowledged covering up sexual abuse, died of a stroke at age 84. Hubbard was also personally accused of sexual abuse, which he denied. In reporting on his death, The New York Times noted that lawyers for plaintiffs in sexual abuse cases involving the Albany diocese have accused church lawyers of using delay tactics ‘in hopes that aging victims and witnesses will die before the cases are resolved.’”
By Joan Vennochi, The Boston Globe — Read more …