The Warning That Arrived Before the Promotion

In July 2000, Pope John Paul II decided that Theodore McCarrick should not become archbishop of Washington.

The decision followed months of concern inside the Catholic hierarchy. McCarrick was already the archbishop of Newark and a prominent church diplomat. He was praised as energetic, loyal and capable of handling difficult assignments. But senior officials had also received allegations concerning his conduct with seminarians and priests.

The warnings were not new. Anonymous letters had circulated among American church leaders in the early 1990s. They were easy to discount because their author was unknown and some claims appeared unreliable. Yet the central concern did not disappear. Bishops heard accounts that McCarrick had shared beds with seminarians at a New Jersey beach house. McCarrick acknowledged the bed-sharing but denied sexual conduct.

By 1999, his name was being considered for larger responsibilities. Cardinal John O'Connor of New York wrote to the Holy See warning against promotion. Rome asked its representative in the United States, Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, to investigate.

Montalvo contacted four New Jersey bishops. Their responses did not provide a clean answer. Years later, the Holy See's own review concluded that three gave incomplete or inaccurate information. None reported direct knowledge that McCarrick had engaged in sexual activity with a minor. But the inquiry returned enough concern to reinforce the judgment that giving him greater responsibility would be imprudent.

The allegations, he concluded, were neither proven nor entirely groundless.

That distinction could have opened the way to a deeper investigation. Instead, it became a reason to avoid risk while leaving the underlying question unresolved. In July, John Paul II accepted a recommendation to consider someone else for Washington.

Then McCarrick wrote to the pope's personal secretary.

In an August 6 letter to Bishop Stanisław Dziwisz, McCarrick said he had heard about O'Connor's warning. He offered an absolute denial: he had never had sexual relations with anyone and had never abused another person. The letter reached John Paul II.

McCarrick was not an unfamiliar figure pleading from outside the institution. He had known the pope for years. He had built a reputation through international work, fundraising and loyalty. Other bishops strongly endorsed him, describing an effective pastor suited to the political and diplomatic demands of Washington.

In November, the pope reversed course and appointed him.

The 2020 Holy See report says John Paul II made that decision personally. It suggests that the pope's history in communist Poland—where false accusations were used against church leaders—and his relationship with McCarrick may have made him more receptive to the denial. But the report also admits there is no direct evidence establishing exactly what moved him.

What the record does establish is the sequence. Warning produced a limited inquiry. The inquiry produced uncertainty. Uncertainty initially stopped the promotion. A direct denial and strong endorsements then outweighed the unresolved risk.

McCarrick became archbishop of Washington and a cardinal. Concerns continued to circulate. During Benedict XVI's papacy, senior Vatican officials discussed opening a canonical process but did not do so. Instead, McCarrick was told to keep a lower profile and reduce his travel. These were private indications rather than formal penalties, and he continued public activity.

The institution acted decisively only years later, after a separate allegation involving a minor was deemed credible in 2018 and more people came forward. A Vatican canonical proceeding found McCarrick guilty of offences involving minors and adults, including abuse of power. In 2019, he was dismissed from the clerical state.

That finding cannot be projected backward to make every earlier rumour proven at the moment it was received. Officials in 2000 faced incomplete, inconsistent and sometimes anonymous information. But uncertainty did not leave them powerless. They could have investigated more fully before promotion. Their own records show that they recognized the risk.

McCarrick died in Missouri on April 3, 2025, at age ninety-four. Criminal charges brought late in his life did not result in convictions after courts found him incompetent to stand trial. The canonical judgment and the institutional record therefore remain distinct from criminal accountability.

The failure revealed by the warning chain was not that every official possessed the same complete knowledge. It was that information lost urgency as it moved upward. What began as accounts about vulnerable people became rumours, what remained became uncertainty, and uncertainty was finally treated as permission to proceed.

Read the investigation

The companion investigation traces the warning chain, the limits of the 2000 inquiry, the pope's reversal and the strengths and weaknesses of the Holy See's retrospective account.