The McCarrick Report: Who’s to Judge Theodore McCarrick?

On November 10, the Vatican published its “Report on the Holy See’s Institutional Knowledge and Decision-Making Related to Former Cardinal Theodore Edgar McCarrick,” the result of a two-year investigation by the Secretariat of State. It will be recalled that in June of 2017 McCarrick was credibly accused of sexually assaulting a boy. In June of 2018, he was removed from public ministry. The next month, he resigned from the College of Cardinals. After more allegations – of serial sexual abuse of boys, seminarians, and priests since the 1970s – McCarrick was laicized in February 2019. It turns out McCarrick’s sexual abuse of seminarians and priests had been an “open secret” in some Church circles for decades. Father Raymond de Souza gives a history of McCarrick’s behavior in the context of the entire issue of clerical sex abuse. Edward Pentin provides the Vatican’s summary of the report and a link to the full 461 page report.

Who’s to Judge?

Notice that no one is saying about McCarrick in particular or sex abuse in general, “Who’s to judge?” or “Don’t be so judgmental,” even though there has been great cultural pressure on us since the 1960s not to “be judgmental” about others. I wish I had a dollar for every time I have heard “Who’s to judge?” and “Don’t be so judgmental” over the last fifty years. Sexual abuse calls for all of us to finally get “being judgmental” right.

It is not humanly possible never to judge – that is, evaluate, assess, critique – anything about anyone. Everyone judges something about others – their politics, music, health-related habits (e.g., cigarette smoking), competence, whether their choices are worth imitating, something.  The only way we could not judge would be to rely exclusively on instinct and automatic response to stimulus, which is impossible.

The question is not whether TO judge. The question is WHAT to judge.  God always wants us to judge whether thinking and behavior (including our own) is true or false, right or wrong. God does not want us to judge someone’s soul since only God decides who is saved and who is damned. God also does not want us to make the judgment that someone has lost his or her human dignity since no one, no matter how much he de-humanizes another or even himself, can lose God-given human dignity (CCC 1700-1715). As St. Augustine says, hate the sin but love the sinner. In doing so, we need to avoid two false extremes. One is so to disapprove of the sin that we hate the sinner. The other is so to love the sinner that we approve of the sin.

In the case of McCarrick, all of us should judge that his actions and the complicity of other clergymen were evil. We should take the side of his victims. On the other hand, as challenging as it is, none of us should judge his soul.

In general, it is high time we stopped saying, “Don’t be judgmental” or “Who’s to judge?” (Don’t get hung up on Matthew 7:1. Every Scripture passage only makes sense in light of all of Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and Catholic doctrine.)

Others’ Judgments

Many have evaluated, critiqued, and assessed both McCarrick and the Vatican report about him, which is to say that they have judged McCarrick and the McCarrick Report.

Father de Souza, Stephen White and George Weigel emphasize the role of clericalism in enabling McCarrick’s behavior. In the words of Weigel, “McCarrick’s deceptions operated within a . . . dysfunctional culture – a clerical caste system that is a betrayal of the integrity of the priesthood and episcopate – [which] must be confronted and uprooted, as the Church purifies itself of the sin of clerical sexual abuse in order to get on with the mission of evangelization.” Father de Souza is more optimistic that a “new [clerical] culture has already been born, a culture of accountability, a culture of care for victims, a culture of justice.” Joan Frawley Desmond offers pros and cons as to whether the new bishop accountability reforms will stop the next McCarrick.

Father Peter Stravinskas offers a two-sentence summary of the report: “There are four villains and one saint. The villains are: Karol Wojtyla, Stanislaus Dziwisz, Joseph Ratzinger, and Carlo Maria Viganò; the saint is Jorge Mario Bergoglio.” The report’s “general thrust and principal purpose” is “to declare Pope Francis blameless throughout.” Similarly, Michael Brendan Dougherty calls the report a “whitewash.”

Michael Warsaw and Father Gerald Murrray suggest various deficiencies of the McCarrick Report. Edward Pentin, quoting a cardinal, reminds us “that 80% of clerical sexual abuse is perpetrated by homosexuals, that the victims are not usually children but post-pubescent males” and asks whether McCarrick’s rise to power owed itself to the “homosexual lobby” that exists among bishops and priests.

Two Contradictory Value Systems

I would like to dig deeper. On what basis should we judge? Just why were McCarrick’s actions abusive? What could easily be lost in the McCarrick scandal is that the condemnation of abuse can be made on the basis of two contradictory value systems. Two people can deplore sexual abuse for two different reasons, just as you and I can arrive at the same place after you came from the west and I came from the east. Agreement that McCarrick’s actions were deplorable could be a way of dodging underlying disagreement on why they were deplorable. The two contradictory value systems are the Sexual Revolution and Catholic doctrine.

In her excellent book, The Sexual State, Jennifer Roback Morse gives an accurate definition of the Sexual Revolution. She writes (p. 22):

The Sexual Revolution consists of ideas as well as the policies that put those ideas into practice. The three main ideas of the Sexual Revolution are that a good and decent society should:

1. separate sex from childbearing: the Contraceptive Ideology
2. separate both sex and childbearing from marriage: the Divorce Ideology
3. eliminate all distinctions between men and women except those that individuals explicitly embrace: the Gender Ideology

“According to this vision, people need and are entitled to sexual activity” that is “unlimited” and “problem-free” (p. 142).

The Sexual Revolution leave us with the “consenting-adult morality”: any sexual activity to which adults consent is moral. According to this “morality,” we should judge any sexual activity between consenting adults as right for them, but we should judge sexual activity that is not between consenting adults as wrong.

So someone could be revolted by McCarrick’s sexual abuse precisely because he or she supports the Sexual Revolution. According to this “morality,” what made McCarrick’s sexual activity with seminarians and priests abusive was that they could not freely give their consent because of McCarrick’s position of authority over them – they were afraid of what McCarrick could do to them if they said No to his advances.

Catholic sexual morality is not based on consent and the relativism that is the consequence of consent. It is based on two equally important, universal, and unchanging doctrines:

1. Sexual activity should be unitive. It should be loving “for better and for worse” in a sacramental marriage in which a husband and a wife have committed their whole lives to each other (CCC 2361-2365).
2. Sexual activity should be procreative. It should be open to conceiving a new person. A child resulting from a couple’s sexual activity should be welcomed as a gift from God (CCC 2366-2379).

For a great explanation of why union and procreation are the purposes of sex, I cannot recommend more highly J. Budziszewski’s On the Meaning of Sex.

So, according to the objective truth of Catholic doctrine, McCarrick’s sexual behavior was wrong because it did not take place in a sacramental marriage open to procreation. His actions would still have been sinful and immoral even he were only a priest committing them with a freely consenting priest or even if he were only a man committing them with a freely consenting man.

“It Is Better to Take Refuge in the LORD”

So begins Psalm 118:8. Its conclusion is: “than to put one’s trust in mortals.” Sexual abuse calls us to take refuge in the Lord and not put absolute trust in mortals.

Do not trust the consent of mortals, by itself, to give meaning to sex. “Consenting-adult morality” will not save us from sexual evils. It has not saved unborn babies from abortion or from being frozen embryos for the unforeseeable future. It has not saved children from being raised by only one parent. It has not saved us from the epidemic of Sexually Transmitted Diseases. It has not saved women from the unhealthy consequences of artificial contraceptives. It has not saved us from addiction to pornography. It has not saved us from widespread heartbreak, anxiety, depression, and loneliness.

“Consenting-adult morality” will only create more evils. If adults can consent to same-sex relationships, why can’t they consent to polyamorous relationships, incestuous relationships, or any of the “fifty shades of grey”? “Who’s to judge?” And when is consent consent? Before the act? During the act? After the act? All three? Two out of three? And “who’s to judge” what adulthood is, anyway? If someone we now consider a child can consent to having a gender that contradicts his or her body, without the approval of his or her parents – even to the extent of having irreversible surgery – why can’t someone we now consider a child end up being able to consent to have sex? It was not too long ago that same-sex marriage was unimaginable to the great majority of Americans. How long will it take the “adult” part of the equation to be removed from “consenting adults,” especially as children continue to be groomed and sexualized, as with “Cuties”?

Rather than going down the slippery slope of “consenting adults,” it is much clearer and more helpful to save sex for loving marriages that are procreative. No doubt, Catholic doctrine is harder to practice than “consenting-adult morality.” We all know how powerful sexual temptations are. Catholic doctrine saves us from our fallen human nature. The last thing fallen human nature needs is to be guided only by its own consent.

The Catholic Church is both divine and human (CCC 823-829). The depravity of McCarrick and the clerical culture that enabled him are examples of the humanity of the Church. One of the places the divinity of the Church can be found is in its doctrine.

Take refuge in the Lord and make yourself available to His grace by being faithful to Catholic doctrine. Only trust a spiritual director, teacher, pastoral minister, sister, brother, deacon, priest, bishop, or any other mortal who does not contradict Catholic doctrine. Only Catholic doctrine can be infallible. Sooner or later we are led astray by imperfect human beings and by our own imperfect choices. We will not be led astray by Catholic doctrine.

When we fail to live up to a doctrine, we have two choices. Either we can find fault with the doctrine, or we can find fault with ourselves. If we find fault with a doctrine, the logical consequence is to reject the source of all doctrine: the Magisterium founded by Christ and ultimately Christ Himself. No matter how many times we do not live up to a doctrine, let us find fault with ourselves while praying for God’s mercy and His grace to do better – grace which is available in the Church in so many ways, especially the Sacraments of Confession and the Eucharist.

Particularly after having celebrated the Feast of Christ the King, let us keep in mind that we will not find complete salvation from sin until we enter the Kingdom of God. Let us not be discouraged. Discouragement is from the Devil. “Our Father Who art in Heaven, . . . Thy Kingdom come . . . forgive us our trespasses . . . deliver us from evil. Amen.”