We Told You About Cardinal McCarrick 10 Years Ago

We have been fascinated and vindicated in recent weeks to see one of the most sordid stories in the history of the Catholic Church in America finally brought into the cleansing light of day, and we pray, some justice and reparation done regarding the thoroughly corrupt priesthood of Theodore J. McCarrick.  We also take some satisfaction in having revealed the McCarrick crimes more than ten years ago.

Your editor received much of his adult faith formation in the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, a place of orthodoxy, holiness, growth and zeal.  When I moved to the Archdiocese of Newark in 1994, it was very much like stepping into another world -- a place where cultural Catholicism lingered, but real, living faith was cold and dead.  Instead of parishes sponsoring vibrant faith formation programs for all age levels, perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, magnificent, reverent liturgies faithful to Church tradition and the Roman Missal, only "bare, ruined choirs" were to be found in Newark.   If there was any organized parish activity, it was most likely a parish chartered bus trip to Atlantic City for a day of gambling.  A few, mostly Polish parishes were and are the exceptions to the Newark wasteland.

During my ten years in New Jersey I heard all the recently revealed, salacious stories about McCarrick and his abuse of youths, seminarians and priests under his charge.  In 2009, I wrote:

Here at Sunlit Uplands we love our Holy Father and respect most of our bishops; but as we have noted before, there are a few wolves in the sheepfold.

In our view, there is none more corrupt, evil, and destructive than the former Archbishop of Washington, Theodore Cardinal McCarrick. When he was Archbishop of Newark we experienced first-hand the ways in which this dark soul destroys what is orthodox and good, while promoting a dissident, heterodox vision of the Church, fashionable in the 1970's. This notorious deceiver and corrupter of young seminarians, who was caught lying to all of his brother bishops, never misses a media opportunity to sow falsehood and division.

We also published this detailed revelation of McCarrick's scandalous and sinful behavior in April 2008:  Church Critic "Outs" Cardinal McCarrick.   In that article, published 10 years ago, all the misbehavior with seminarians and young priests, which has resulted in "Uncle Ted" being stripped of the rank of Cardinal was revealed.

It gives no pleasure to have been right about this despicable creature, particularly when one considers all of the unfulfilled vocations resulting from the scandal, the many tepid souls who have turned away from the Church, the many souls who have been wounded in mind and spirit by the evil, and the closure of schools and parishes because millions have been repulsed by wolves masquerading as churchmen.

Saint Augustine wrote that "God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.”   We pray that upon these ashes a humbled, but truly holy Church, the Body of Christ, led by true servants of the servants of God, may arise, bring light to the world, and renew the face of the earth.