The pope applied the maximum penalty to the excardenal accused of pedophilia

The sanction against McCarrick, 88, was communicated by the Vatican after the ecclesiastical tribunal for cases of pederasty, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,or will be found guilty of violations of the behavioral decalogue with adults and minors, accompanied by an aggravating circumstance of abuse of power.

The sanction is "final" by decision of Pope Francis and can not be challenged, reported a note from the Vatican Court.

Retired in a cell more than six months ago, filling the prayer and penance imposed by Pope Francis by accepting his resignation as cardinal, McCarrick was informed of the decision made on Friday, February 15, announced the Vatican.

With the dispossession of the clerical state and the consequent reduction to the secular state, McCarrick will not be able to administer the sacraments, to introduce himself or to dress as a priest, nor to receive financial allocation from ecclesiastical institutions.

McCarrick's canonical condemnation is therefore the result of a trial for alleged badual badault on a 16-year-old boy he had committed more than 50 years ago, considered one of the following cases : & # 39; delicta graviora & # 39; that the Congregation has in its orbit.

McCarrick, a former archbishop of Washington from 2000 to 2006, is accused of badually abusing three miners and several seminarians and young priests.

The sentence also comes before the beginning of the anti-pedophilia summit convened by the pontiff from 21 to 24 February.

In July 2018, 88-year-old McCarrick became the first Catholic prelate for nearly 100 years to lose the title of cardinal and be forced to refrain from any public ministry and live in a convent in Kansas. United States.