The April 3 death of Theodore McCarrick marks the end of a particularly sad chapter in the recent history of the Catholic Church. 

The former cardinal — who most famously served as the powerful archbishop of Washington, D.C. — became the face of the sexual abuse of minors, leading Pope Francis to remove him from the priesthood and rescind his position in the College of Cardinals. Yet while McCarrick is now gone, the need for reform in the Catholic Church remains.

McCarrick was well-known in Catholic circles from the 1980s onward, but he only became a household name in the late 2010s. That’s when allegations went public that the then-cardinal — who had previously served as a bishop in New York and New Jersey — had sexually pursued male seminarians for decades and even sexually assaulted a 16-year-old altar boy. The faithful were further shocked to learn that senior Church officials knew about McCarrick’s sins and crimes, yet covered for him during his meteoric rise. The former cardinal was a prolific fundraiser, and while there was never evidence of bribery, there’s little doubt that McCarrick’s money bought allies and protection.

McCarrick should have been held accountable decades earlier, but the biggest barrier was the Church’s governing structure. While the nature of the priesthood was established by Jesus Christ himself and is unchanging, human hands have built a bureaucratic, inward-focused, reform-defying edifice that must be changed. To this day, there’s very little transparency, both at the diocesan levels and in the Vatican. Yet as the saying goes, sunshine is the best disinfectant, including when matters of morality are at stake.

The best way to provide that sunshine is to allow even greater involvement from lay Catholics — i.e., non-priests — in identifying, investigating and responding to allegations of impropriety within the Church. As the McCarrick scandals made clear, such oversight is needed not only in matters of sexual abuse of minors, but also in finance.

To be clear, giving the laity a greater role in Church governance doesn’t mean letting the laity change Church teaching, as some Catholics want, but rather giving the laity greater opportunities to keep Church officials on the straight and narrow. Such lay leadership is in full keeping with the Second Vatican Council’s emphasis on the “universal call to holiness,” which calls the laity to step up in renewed ways.

The Church has slowly moved toward greater lay leadership in recent years. The U.S. bishops passed the Dallas Charter in the early 2000s as part of their response to sexual abuse; it ordered every American diocese to create local review boards comprised mainly of lay Catholics to create policies and investigate accusations. That reform contributed to a plummeting number of abuse allegations against priests, with just four occurring in 2017. 

In the wake of the McCarrick scandal, Pope Francis ordered every diocese worldwide to create a process for investigations against bishops, archbishops and cardinals, while allowing for the involvement of lay Catholics. That reform should be strengthened, requiring lay participation instead of just allowing it. 

On the financial side, a similar process should be developed to address financial mismanagement and abuse of power by priests and Church leaders, drawing on the expertise of relevant lay leaders. McCarrick made this need clear given that his incredible fundraising abilities appear to have helped him escape accountability. A board of lay leaders could have seen through his fundraising prowess to identify his sins and crimes. Even the Vatican itself — which has a history of mismanaging millions if not billions of dollars — could use a lay board. The late Cardinal George Pell, who faced significant opposition in his efforts to reform the Vatican finances, repeatedly called for greater lay involvement in this regard.

Without meaningful lay involvement at every level of the Church, a scandal on the scale of Theodore McCarrick could easily happen again. Now that McCarrick has died, the faithful are praying for his immortal soul. But here on earth, priests and lay Catholics must deepen their collaboration to breathe new life into the Church.

 

Tim Busch is the founder of the Napa Institute, a Catholic organization.