MINNESOTA
Star Tribune
Article by: TONY KENNEDY , Star Tribune Updated: June 7, 2014
The Rev. Timothy McCarthy was the “kids’ pastor” who wore sneakers under his vestments and dropped profanities into his sermons. Girls had crushes on him, and parents let their children go camping with him.
When McCarthy abruptly resigned the priesthood in 1991, he told his flock at the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer in Maplewood that he had outgrown Catholic Church dogma. He was quitting, he said, to go down a new spiritual path.
But newly released files reveal that the church ousted McCarthy after allegations that he sexually abused two boys early in his career and later engaged in an exploitative sexual relationship with a college student. Despite those concerns, the church helped McCarthy gain credentials that allowed him to work closely with teenagers and young adults. He later lost his job as a Hennepin County correctional officer after being accused of criminal sexual conduct with a 17-year-old.
McCarthy’s previously hidden history is laid out in documents that the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis divulged under an order from a Ramsey County district judge in a clergy sexual abuse lawsuit brought by St. Paul attorney Jeff Anderson. The court order has triggered the release of more than 70,000 pages of classified memos about more than 45 accused priests — and could bring more litigation under a change in Minnesota law that allows people to bring claims of long-ago abuse.
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