Disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick was permitted to have two seminarians serve as his personal assistants as late as June 2018, roughly one year after the Archdiocese of Washington knew he was being investigated for allegedly sexually abusing a teenager, the Catholic News Agency (CNA) reported on Thursday.

While living at the seminary of the Institute of the Incarnate Word (IVE) in Maryland, McCarrick arranged to have two seminarians assigned to live in his on-campus house and serve as his personal staff. The seminarians, known as “bedels,” functioned as McCarrick’s secretaries and drivers, even after the Church removed him from the IVE campus in early 2017, citing his ailing health.

In fact, their service continued until June of this summer, roughly one year after Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington says he was made aware that McCarrick was under investigation by the Archdiocese of New York for abusing a teenage boy during his time serving there, more than 45 years ago. After learning of the investigation in the summer of 2017, Wuerl reportedly encouraged McCarrick to retire from public ministry, but McCarrick ignored the request.

Only in June 2018, when the Archdiocese of New York publicly announced that the allegation against McCarrick was found to be credible, were his seminarian aides reassigned.

While the two former IVE seminarians who spoke with CNA said McCarrick was demanding, there have been no reports of his pursing his assistants sexually, as he has been accused of doing with a number of other seminarians. McCarrick has, however, been accused of engaging in sexual relationships with numerous other seminarians during his time as a cleric.

In an eleven-page report released earlier this month, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò claims that Pope Benedict XVI, upon learning of McCarrick’s sexual misconduct, ordered him to cease living at a seminary and withdraw to a life of a “prayer and penance,” which presumably would have precluded him from continuing to enlist the services of two seminarian aides. In the report, Viganò claims that Benedict’s successor, Pope Francis, lifted the restrictions on McCarrick, despite being made aware of the abuse allegations, which might explain why the seminarians continued in McCarrick’s service.

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