Above: Former cardinal Theodore McCarrick outside Dedham district court for his arraignment on September 3, 2021. Andrew Bukuras/CNA
So, it looks like Uncle Ted McCarrick is going to walk away from the flaccid arm of the law scot-free. It has been announced that the charges against him have been dropped by the Massachusetts judge overseeing the case.
In 2021, McCarrick pleaded not guilty to charges that he abused a boy at a wedding reception at Wellesley College in 1974. He was also charged in April with sexually assaulting an 18-year-old man in Wisconsin more than 45 years ago. An expert working for the court in Massachusetts argued that at 93 and after having experienced cognitive decline, the former Cardinal was unfit to stand trial.
As maddening as it is to think that he will get away with proverbial murder — heinous sexual crimes in this case — we should have expected something like this to transpire. This is not to say he should have been let off (by no means!) but only to say that it is not a surprise that a court will not put a sickly and dying man through a trial. Of course, this is a travesty and it means that no justice will be served, which cries out to heaven.
As morose as it may sound, the fact that McCarrick will walk away — or be wheeled away — from the courts with no imprisonment, is an all-too-fitting end to the era in the Church he represents.
Before I continue, given the nature of this affair and how sensitive it is, please do not assume that I am taking any of this lightly. I of course am horrified at this mockery of justice and of the Church Christ established. But, I cannot help but see this final chapter in the life of such an evil monster as something like an allegory for our times.
A Vatican II Priest
McCarrick was the quintessential ‘Vatican II’ priest. I recognize that McCarrick was ordained in 1958, and therefore was trained before the Council, but he clearly did not maintain Catholic Tradition, and his ascendency to power happened in the post-conciliar era. In addition, if one reads into the matter — for example in Marshall’s Infiltration — it is evident that McCarrick was cozy (no pun intended) with the most Liberal and Modernist of reformers.
I do not mean priests who embrace Vatican II are abusers — of course, I am not saying that — but he was a darling of the post-conciliar age. A Modernist par excellence, he could sip appletinis with homosexual activists and Democrats — but I repeat myself — on Saturday night, and deliver a pro-life sermon on Sunday to a Church full of wealthy RINOs who would be attending the post-Mass social.
He embodied the revolution perfectly. He built his career under the auspices that he was doing it for the Church, when really he was a tool of Satan being used — willingly or not — to destroy the very organization he represented. And like all revolutionaries, he was a complete and utterly degenerate pervert.
We were told that the Second Vatican Council was “the French Revolution in the Church” by Cardinal Suenens, and McCarrick was a fitting Marquis de Sade. The post-conciliar Church asked for a Church more open to the world, well, McCarrick was as worldly as they come. If the error of collegiality has given us the German Synod and its damnable blessing of same-sex unions, we must remember that McCarrick was the groomer extraordinaire who, along with others like him, used the unfettered liberty of the New Springtime to usher in a summer Pride Parade.
McCarrick’s career of abuse, should not surprise us at all if we consider the disaster of the Novus Ordo Mundi… er, I mean Novus Ordo Missae. The liturgical life of the Church and the moral life of the members of the Church are not disconnected, in fact, they cannot be. We must think of the psychological change that the New Mass has caused, both in the faithful and the clergy.
Uncle Ted said the Old Mass for at least 11 years — if you can believe that! — until the disaster of Paul VI was thrust upon the world. With the promulgation of the New Order of Mass came a seemingly New Order of the Church, right at the same time as a New World Order was burgeoning in activist politics, syphallus-infested mosh pits at Woodstock, while women fled the kitchen in record numbers to work as typists and eat lunch at their desks. This was a moment of opportunity for revolutionaries and degenerates, who, like rapists prey on confused and foggy-minded victims who don’t see the threat coming. The New Springtime was the coming out party — pun sincerely intended — for McCarrick and those like him, as they had a New Church wherein they could act with impunity.
And what was then “Father” McCarrick doing in 1967 while the revolution was in full swing? Signing the Land O’ Lakes Statement which would institutionalize “Catholic” academic heresy and dissent from Humanae Vitae for decades.
The Abuse of God and Man
For centuries, Catholics had been formed in a liturgical setting that required modesty, silence, and the recognition of sin and sacrifice. In the New Order, McCarrick could loudly lead the flock with his charismatic charm, blasting worldly music while the “Christian Community” united in praise and feminists distributed Holy Communion like beer-tickets at a County Fair. It should come as no surprise that an abuser such as McCarrick was able to waft through the hierarchy like asphyxiating gas at Ypres. How could a Church hierarchy that instituted the abuse of God in the Liturgy recognize the abuse of the little ones under McCarrick’s care? How could the Church admit that the promised renewal was nothing more than a nuclear holocaust?
Many traditionalists have called for justice all these years, rightly pointing out that what was done to the Mass was wrong. For a time, it seemed like their cries had finally been heard by Pope Benedict during the brief respite he afforded the beloved “backwardists.” But, of course, Pope Francis (another Vatican II priest, but ordained in 1969) has made it clear that Benedict’s peace was merely a mirage. Instead of a traditionalist counterrevolution in the hierarchy, we have a retired Cardinal here and there speaking about how bad things are under Francis — they never dared speak this way when they worked for him — and Smoochie Fernandez and his kiss of death for the Office Formerly Known as Holy.
The Medicine of Mercy?
The fact that McCarrick will receive no penalty from the state should not shock us in the least, as he received virtually no penalty in the Church. Sure, he was laicized when he was almost 90 years old. Big deal, a decaying pedophile was told he could longer celebrate Mass for the faithful and broker deals with the CCP. It is fitting, however, that this sodomite abuser will waste away in a soiled diaper. Like all the degenerates who have assaulted the Body of Christ with abuse for decades — all under the watchful eye of each Conciliar Pope — Uncle Ted will never really be held accountable (in this life anyway) for his heinous crimes. The allegory of Ted McCarrick shows us that, for whatever reason, these men who have worked their hardest to destroy the Church will simply go on doing so, until they die.
This is not to be pessimistic but to be realistic. Of course, we stand for what is right, and we fight for our legitimate rights as Catholics in any way that we can, but, we should take it as a sign that McCarrick will walk free. For some reason, God has ordained that we live in a world and Church without justice, and therefore we should not expect it. If anything, we ought to pray for a hasty and holy death of the Vatican II generation of prelates, so the abuse can finally stop.