"He knows how to deal with these people..." Former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and U.S. intelligence agencies

Abramov Alexander Aleksandrovich ORCID: 0000-0001-8070-0805 Independent researcher 4 Krapivensky Lane, building 2, Moscow, 127051, Russia nyresidence@gmail.com Other publications by this author

The pontificate of Pope Francis is eventful. One of the notable features of his reign was the peculiarity of personnel policy, an unprecedented series of resignations and appointments, involuntarily forcing one to think about the USSR of Gorbachev's time. As a result of the colossal amplitude of the decisions taken, yesterday's top diplomats, curia officials, and cardinals become outcasts. Some of them go from the category of pariahs to the number of "enemies of the Pope" ^[1], someone gets a prison sentence ^[2], some are deprived of holy orders. Among the latter is a staunch opponent of Francis, the former nuncio (representative of the Vatican City state in the host country) in the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who firmly adheres to conservative Christian positions. He was accused of schism and convicted as recently as July 2024. Ironically, Vigano received almost the same ecclesiastical punishment ^[3] as the man in exposing whose unseemly deeds he took an active part many years ago. We are talking about Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who retired from the post of Archbishop of Washington in 2006. In 2018, McCarrick was forced to file a petition for his expulsion from the college of cardinals, and in 2019 he was returned to the state of a layman ^[4] — an exceptionally severe punishment for a person of the highest clergy in the Catholic Church churches. The reason for the disgrace was sexual crimes and the threat of secular criminal prosecution of the cardinal.

During my years in the United States, I had to meet with McCarrick, a dry, energetic, smiling prelate who knew everyone and whom everyone in the American political and religious establishment knew. Of course, it was absolutely impossible to recognize him as a villain. After the Vatican punishment, it became clear that his former comrades in countless interreligious foundations and commissions were friends with the position rather than with the person. In any case, the mention of the former cardinal as a trustee or a member of the board of directors disappeared from the websites of many of these organizations with lightning speed. An example is the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, where even deceased trustees are mentioned on the site, but there is no living McCarrick ^[5]. However, the cardinal's troubles did not stop there. In November 2020, the State Department of St. Petersburg The Holy See published ^[6] a 450-page document entitled "Report on the information available to the Holy See. The Throne, and about the decisions that were made regarding the former Cardinal Theodore Edgar McCarrick (1937-2017)," which I will refer to as the "Report" in the future for brevity. The document contains a detailed description of the prelate's life path, evidence of his abuses, an account of his work and personal affairs, and in general a biographical trajectory. After the publication, it became clear that there would be no return to the "happy times", and secular trials and charges await the former cardinal. I must say that the published text is characterized by unprecedented detail and detail of the systematic presentation of the material. During the preparation of the report, hundreds, if not thousands, of people were interviewed, thousands of documents of official and personal origin were studied. The answers received are preserved and carefully recorded as separate storage units in the archives of the Vatican State Department, to which, for obvious reasons, there is no access. Therefore, in the future I will give links not to these interviews and documents, but to the pages of the "Report", where the corresponding files are named. The frankness, unusual for the Vatican, dictated by the large volume of actually available compromising material, which would otherwise be used by opponents of Pope Francis and McCarrick, allows us to characterize the document as a valuable source. The specificity of the text introduced into circulation in Russian for the first time is that it is a product of the activities of various departments of the curial bureaucracy and is aimed, to a large extent, at solving internal political and reputational problems associated with numerous sexual scandals that shake Catholic dioceses from time to time. The origin and objectives of the document exclude the desire of its authors to organize any leakage of confidential information, but, on the contrary, indicates a proper level of integrity in collecting facts. The drafters of the document, of course, did not mean to give researchers the opportunity to use the proposed text as a source on the relationship of the highest American Catholic clergy with the US special services. However, from a certain point of view, this "Report" becomes a very interesting and valuable source that gives an idea of certain aspects of such relationships. The Vatican report will, of course, interest us not as a guide to the moral deviations of the exiled cardinal, but as an opportunity to study the issue of specific forms and methods of McCarrick's by no means hushed-up cooperation, in particular, with the FBI. I suggest following the drafters of the "Report" to go through the milestones of McCarrick's biography, paying attention to some notable aspects that the authors of the Vatican document do not ignore.

Let's start with November 14, 1981, when the vicar Bishop of New York, Theodore McCarrick, who was in his fifty-second year, was appointed bishop of Metachen and its district, a newly established diocese in the state of New Jersey. Metachen itself is a small town, which then numbered about 13 thousand inhabitants and is notable only for the fact that illusionist David Copperfield was born in it. However, the state of New Jersey is a prestigious destination, and the cathedral city is only 35 kilometers southwest of New York City. McCarrick will spend four years here. At the first independent episcopal see, he develops an active activity that goes far beyond the usual routine work of the ruling bishop. For three years — from 1983 to 1986 — he conducted an exceptionally successful campaign to collect donations with the task of collecting 10 million dollars. As a result, the goal was achieved and exceeded — the amount collected was $ 14 million ^{[6, p.30]}. He participates in numerous commissions of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) and the United States Catholic Conference (USCC). In a short time, the bishop visits a dozen countries, not counting six trips to the Vatican, where, in particular, he meets with John Paul II ^{[6, pp.31-32]}. Interestingly, the payment for such trips, clearly unrelated to the activities of the ordinary head of one of the small dioceses, was not at the expense of the Vatican. If we assume that McCarrick was sent to various missions with ecclesiastical and diplomatic tasks, then the financing would have been at the expense of the relevant Vatican department. In the report, we read that over the years the prelate's trips were paid for by "other organizations"^{[6, p.31]}, including the interfaith peacekeeping fund "Call of Conscience". These trips around the world were so numerous and frequent that it is appropriate to ask whether the bishop had time to manage his own diocese. In addition, since trips to various states did not take place through official church institutions (or not only through them), it is unclear who could authorize such frequent absences. However, the diocese of Metachen and the title of its head have become excellent decorations for the colossal public and media activity of the newly appointed bishop. He pronounced a blessing at the opening session of the New Jersey State Assembly in 1982, said a prayer at a dinner in honor of actor Bob Hope at the luxurious Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in 1983, led a special mass for officials, judges and lawyers in 1985 ^{[6, p.33]}, appeared on national television. Many high-ranking hierarchs visit the hospitable diocese at this time. Among them are Archbishop Pio Laghi, who became the first nuncio to the United States after the establishment of full diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the United States in 1984 (he continued to head the nunciature until 1990, in 1991 he became a cardinal), Archbishop James Hickey of Washington and Cardinals Sebastian Baggio (in 1973-1984 — Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Bishops, 1984-1990 — Chairman of the Pontifical Commission for State Affairs - Vatican City) and Joseph Bernardin (Archbishop of Chicago in 1982-1996, cardinal since 1983). It is a tradition to organize annual picnics for clergy, churchgoers and ordinary laity "Uncle Ted Day". Everything is going very well for an ambitious prelate, and perhaps even too well. A collision was supposed to arise, changing the cloudlessness of the situation, and it did not fail to form: the bishop's versatile connections, his ebullient activity attracted the attention of the FBI ^{[6, p.34]}. But even this is half the trouble, because, as stated in the report, in the early 80s, the KGB became interested in McCarrick. An employee of the Soviet residency, under the guise of the post of deputy permanent representative of the USSR to the United Nations, established contact with the bishop in order to "make friends with him." The permanent Representative of the Soviet Union to the world Organization in 1976-1986 was the outstanding Soviet diplomat O. A. Troyanovsky. To clarify the specifics of the work of the USSR delegation in New York during these years, his memoirs are of great value, which make it possible to feel the acuteness of the political and diplomatic confrontation of that time ^[7]. I will allow myself to quote our source at length, which allows us to understand how the subsequent story developed:

"FBI agents reached out to McCarrick, who initially did not know that the diplomat was also a KGB officer. They approached him with an offer to act as a counterintelligence informant, which would allow them to control the activities of the KGB. Although McCarrick thought it was better to give up such a role (partly because he was immersed in the organization of the Diocese of Metachen), the FBI insisted. His staff re-entered into contact with McCarrick, urging him to continue developing relations with the KGB agent. Given the sensitive nature of the case, McCarrick outlined the FBI's demands in detail to Nuncio Lagi in January 1985 in the hope of getting advice on how to proceed. Lagi believed that McCarrick "should not be negatively treated" by the opportunity to fulfill the role of an FBI informant. In a document for official use, he described McCarrick as a person who "knows how to deal with these people and be careful", "wise enough to understand everything and not get caught"^{[6, p.34]}.

However, the report notes that there is no exact data on whether the prelate's contact with the Soviet representative developed, as the FBI would like ^{[6, ibid.]}. For the purposes of preparing the Vatican report, officials of the Holy See had a conversation with former FBI Director L. Freeh, who in 1975-1981 was an FBI special agent in the New York office and at the headquarters in Washington. He headed the FBI in 1993-2001. and he was not personally familiar with this incident, but stated that McCarrick could have been a very valuable target for any of the services at that time, especially for the Russians" ^{[6, p.34]}.

Shedding light on the nature of the interaction of religious figures, US intelligence agencies and the nunciature in Washington at this time, these details of the McCarrick case are very interesting. Let's note the following points. First, the FBI's interest in the figure of the Catholic bishop has nothing to do with his illegal activities (there was none), but is in the nature of routine monitoring of the situation. Secondly, the offer to McCarrick to work in the interests of American counterintelligence against Soviet diplomats did not prove difficult for FBI agents, that is, the involvement of clerics in tacit cooperation was not prohibited by the relevant internal regulations. Third, the leadership of the nunciature, being informed of the delicate situation, not only was not alarmed, but directly instructed its patron prelate to agree to the FBI's proposal. All this taken together, of course, cannot but lead to the conclusion that the cooperation of the American special services with the Catholic clergy of the United States took place; was carried out on the basis of a certain regularity; included, if necessary, the involvement of clerics in counterintelligence operations with the knowledge of the competent representatives of the Vatican leadership. This is all the more remarkable because just a few years before the events described, there was a lively campaign in the country against the involvement of American missionary clergy as a cover for CIA operations, which was the subject of articles in the most respectable newspapers. Here is an example of such a publication: on January 29, 1976, an article was published in the New York Times under the headline "Churches angered by the revealed facts seek to prohibit the CIA from using missionaries in intelligence work" ^[8]. The text quotes letters from CIA Director W. Colby addressed to the senators, who states that the use of missionaries with intelligence tasks is a standard procedure that does not violate the law and internal regulations of missionary activity. The skirmish at the national level was so acute that J. Bush Sr., who replaced Colby as director of the CIA, was one of the first decisions to prohibit the involvement of journalists and clergymen in intelligence work, however, except in cases when these people offer their services "voluntarily" ^[9]. However, as Bishop McCarrick's case shows, regulatory documents (whether CIA or FBI) are one thing, and everyday practice is quite another. There were no particular moral fluctuations in recruitment approaches. As one researcher of the relationship between American counterintelligence and the religious community notes, the case was based on jointly shared "common values" ^{[10, p.111]}, and we are talking about a very strong and long-standing tradition ^[11].

The Makkarik case contains another remarkable episode that characterizes the level of relations in the diplomatic service of the Holy See and the degree of awareness of clerics about certain types of special skills. So, in 1986, Bishop McCarrick received another promotion — he was appointed Archbishop of Newark. He will serve here for fourteen years. The archbishop's career is moving uphill not just fast, but rapidly. He sits and chairs dozens of various church and government commissions, in particular, he is a member of the American Helsinki Commission, the Federal Commission on Immigration and Economic Policy, and the Commission on International Religious Freedom. The bishop deals with a wide range of international issues, from foreign debt to U.S. relations with China. As before, the hierarch travels exceptionally extensively as part of various delegations, including to our country, where he met with Patriarch Alexy II in 1996. The prelate's level of ties with the US political leadership was so high that, as he himself recalled, the program of foreign trips usually included a meeting with the nuncio and the American ambassador ^{[6, p.55]}. Needless to say, as an official representative of the United States, the archbishop travels around the world with a diplomatic passport ^{[6, p.56]}. He enters the White House and the State Department, and at the same time does not leave his contacts with the FBI, including with the head of the office in New Jersey ^{[6, p.63]}. By this period, there is also a certain change in the archbishop's mindset: he is not very satisfied with his post, it is too insignificant for him ("I deserve New York!" ^{[6, p.91]}), he does not like how little time is given to him during his visit to Rome ^{[6, p.202]}. Despite the generous gifts to visiting guests and curia officials, career growth slowed down slightly. In these circumstances, McCarrick wanted to know as much as possible about the personnel plans of the Vatican leadership in the United States. However, this seemingly harmless wish of his was realized using methods that few people would call ethically acceptable or generally accepted in church circles. In January 1990, the Archbishop, with the help of his friends, who were then working as part of the mission of the Permanent Observer of the Holy See. He organized the acquaintance of the ordinary parish priest Monsignor Dominic Bottino with Archbishop Renato Martino, then head of the Vatican mission (now cardinal, headed the Permanent Observer mission in 1986-2002). Monsignor Bottino was used "in the dark", having no idea about the purpose of the meeting with Martino. However, everything fell into place very soon. Bottino was invited to a feast with the participation of Maccarik, who addressed the priest as the future "new attache of the Mission of St. Nicholas. The Throne at the United Nations." Martino's visit to Manhattan, where the Vatican office was located, was, as it turned out, the "viewing" of a church official, who was subsequently appointed to the Vatican mission to the United Nations in 1991.. However, the promising appointment was associated with the fulfillment of extremely slippery instructions from the benefactor:

"McCarrick explained to him that the Permanent Observer regularly receives diplomatic mail, which contains, among other things, documents on the appointments of bishops to chairs in the United States. Putting his hand on Bottino's shoulder, McCarrick asked if he could count on the fact that, as an attache, he would provide him with information from this mail. After Bottino stated that in his opinion the information from the diplomatic mail should remain confidential, McCarrick patted him on the shoulder and replied: "That's right. But I think I can count on you" ^{[6, p.90]}.

The example given from the Vatican dossier shows that Archbishop McCarrick not only had good personal and working relationships with representatives of the US government and, in particular, law enforcement agencies, but also demonstrated direct knowledge of the techniques of introducing an agent in order to gain access to classified information. This, it seems, should have been facilitated by the circumstances of the personal biography of the future cardinal: McCarrick's uncle worked in the police and at one time headed the police academy ^{[6, pp.62-63]}.

Thus, the published materials of the Vatican's internal investigation into the case of ex-Cardinal Theodore Mccarik undoubtedly indicate the existing interaction of some of the clergy of the United States, including Catholic hierarchs, with the American special services. As we have seen, religious figures in some cases were ready not only to provide services to relevant departments, but they themselves were no strangers to conducting operational work. It would be naive to believe that the case was limited only to contacts with the FBI. Given the vast geography of McCarrick's travels and the amount of information he receives, one can also raise the question of the degree of his interaction with the US foreign intelligence agencies. This topic was not developed in the Vatican report that formed the basis of this article, but, of course, it is not removed.

In conclusion, I would like to draw attention to the fact that the problem of relations between American law enforcement agencies and religious leaders is not limited, of course, to the McCarrick case, but is only vividly illustrated by it. In 1996, twenty years after the CIA banned the involvement of clerics in intelligence work, the topic resurfaced at the national level due to the agency's desire to find loopholes in legislation and return to previously prohibited practices ^[12]. This led to the need for special hearings in the Senate Intelligence Committee, during which the Director of the CIA, D. Deutsch defended the point of view on the legality of using clergymen to obtain intelligence "under exceptional circumstances" ^[13]. As for the FBI, which played a role in McCarrick's life adventures, this agency was again noted for its keen interest in church life quite recently — in 2023, so much so that the whole country learned about the so-called "Richmond Memorandum" ^[14]. The document, compiled in the relevant regional division of the Bureau, contains proposals on highlighting the activities of Catholic communities in order to track conservative radicalism. The matter was not limited to words: the rector of one of the parishes of the state of Virginia and the choir director were interrogated, and an informant was introduced into the parish itself. The scandalous situation was taken into consideration by the Judicial Committee of the US Congress, which called for the testimony of FBI Director K. Rhea ^[15]. One of the results of the investigation was the publication on December 4, 2023, of a joint report by the Judiciary Committee and the House of Representatives Subcommittee on the instrumentalization of the Federal Government under the eloquent title "Violations of religious Freedom by the FBI: the use of the law enforcement system against Catholic Americans"^[16].

The facts cited both from the case of the defrocked Theodore Makarrick, who is living out his days in a nursing home, and from other published sources confirm again and again: the interaction of US law enforcement agencies with the religious community of America did not stop, being part of intelligence and counterintelligence efforts inside and outside the country. In some cases (as was the case with McCarrick), these contacts are not something extraordinary or undesirable for the participants in the process. In other circumstances, the FBI and the CIA achieve their goals in other, more crude ways.

One of the theses of the opponents of involving the clergy in the tasks of the special services in the 1976 discussion was: "A priest must serve God first, and then the state." Obviously, Langley and Washington think very differently.