McCarrick Victim Suing New Jersey Dioceses

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STERLING, Va. (ChurchMilitant.com) - A prominent abuse survivor is suing two prominent New Jersey dioceses with plans to include the Vatican.

James Grein, who was groomed for sex abuse by ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, is suing the diocese of Metuchen and archdiocese of Newark after New Jersey lawmakers extended the statute of limitations on sex abuse allegations on Sunday.

Grein tells Church Militant that this exposition of the evils of Theodore McCarrick is helping people to understand the grave problems in the Church.

He's suing Metuchen and Newark for gross negligence, asserting that when Theodore McCarrick was in charge from the early 1980's through the late 1990's, he would paraded Grine at social and Church events as his "nephew," a euphemism for "groomed sex companion."

Grein's lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian, is famous for being instrumental for the initial sex abuse revelations in 2002. He noted that he's seeking to include the Vatican in the lawsuit.

Grein told the Associated Press yesterday that while he was on a trip to Rome with McCarrick at the time of his abuse, he personally told Pope John Paul II about his abuse at the hands of McCarrick, but nothing was done about it.

He tells Church Militant that priests hosting him and McCarrick at parishes and various Church functions in New Jersey frequently offered him beer, knowing that alcohol lowered his inhibitions and made him more compliant with McCarrick.

He notes that wherever they went, Church officials knew McCarrick was an active homosexual and didn't seem bothered that he kept a young man with him.

The relaxing of New Jersey's statute of limitations for sex abuse cases in May was the fruit of much work by Grein and other clerical sex abuse victims.

In March, Grein testified along with 14 other victims to the New Jersey state judiciary committee.

"I introduced myself and the room was silent," Grein told Church Militant. "Everyone on the panel stopped and turned to me. They did not know I was coming, but they know who I am."

"They listened intently when I told them that this document I hold in my hand [my case] took less than six months to laicize the most powerful man in the U.S. Catholic Church," Grein continued, "and what he did to me was horrifying and disturbing."

Grein was instrumental in the defrocking of McCarrick, testifying to Fr. Richard Welch, judicial vicar for the archdiocese of New York in December 2018.

Welch was directly assigned by the Vatican to speak to Grein and document his testimony, along with an unnamed priest was also present at the meeting to ensure the session was conducted fairly and properly.

"He was there to listen, and not to twist and turn anything," Grein told Church Militant, speaking of Welch. "He was there to gather information for the Holy See. Period."

In February 2019, Pope Francis formally defrocked McCarrick who has since removed himself from the public eye and has been living at a Franciscan friary in Kansas.

Former papal nuncio Abp. Carlo Maria Viganò vouched for Grien's testimony, revealing that Pope Francis not only knew about McCarrick's serial homosexual predation, but he even promoted McCarrick to the position of trusted advisor and "kingmaker" in naming bishops. He associated Cdls. Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., Blase Cupich of Chicago, Illinois and Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey as some of the alleged beneficiaries of McCarrick.

Viganò attributed a "homosexual current" in the Church as being responsible for protecting and promoting McCarrick, asserting, "These homosexual networks, which are now widespread in many dioceses, seminaries, religious orders, etc., act under the concealment of secrecy and lies with the power of octopus tentacles, and strangle innocent victims and priestly vocations, and are strangling the entire Church."

Grein has a similar lawsuit pending in New York. He tells Church Militant it has been put on hold after Catholic bishops opposed the 1-year window opened for sex abuse allegations, saying, "They hide the evidence to let the statutes pass, now they cause more delay for all their sins. What a great church McCarrick created," Grein said, adding, "The fraud of these sinners makes me sick."

The whistleblower maintains that the exposition of McCarrick's abuse is helping people to understand that traditional Catholicism is under attack by people like McCarrick and his supporters and a return to traditional Church teaching will help in the restoration of the Church.

He says, "In the end, God wins. That's what keeps me sane."

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