From NCR:
Defrocked Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the once-powerful archbishop of Washington, D.C., who was removed from the priesthood amidst one of the worst sexual-abuse scandals in the history of the American Catholic Church, has died at the age of 94 in Missouri.
His death on Thursday was confirmed by two people briefed on the matter but who initially asked not to be named.
Ordained in 1958, McCarrick became archbishop in Newark, New Jersey, in 1986 and then archbishop of Washington, D.C., in 2000, rising to power despite church officials’ knowledge of sexual-abuse accusations against him.
A two-year Vatican investigation into McCarrick’s tenure found credible reports of his abusive behavior dating to 1999, including an inquiry confirming that he slept with seminarians.
McCarrick was removed from the priesthood after a Vatican investigation found he had sexually molested adults and children. He became the highest-ranking Catholic cleric in the U.S. to face criminal charges for sexual abuse. In 2021, McCarrick was accused of assaulting a teenage boy at a wedding reception in Massachusetts in 1974.
