A sexual assault case against a former cardinal has been withdrawn in the United States as the 93-year-old Catholic official was found unfit for trial due to dementia.

"The commonwealth does not have a good-faith basis to proceed any longer with the prosecution given the testimony and the opinion of the psychologist that Mr. McCarrick is not restorable to competency," the prosecutor said in withdrawing the case.

Massachusetts state judge Paul McCallum ruled on Wednesday that Theodore McCarrick was cognitively unable to stand trial for sexually assaulting a teenage boy five decades ago.

The ruling was based on the testimony of a forensic psychologist.

McCarrick, who was silent as he followed the hearing by video conference, was charged in 2021 with three counts of indecent assault and battery against a then-16-year-old boy.

The youth was unnamed in the complaint but has since been identified as James Grein, 64.

The 1974 incident allegedly took place on the campus of Wellesley College in Massachusetts during Grein's brother's wedding reception.

The victim says McCarrick led him into a room and groped his genitals while "saying prayers," according to the criminal complaint.

Grein, who now speaks publicly about his experience, said McCarrick, calling himself "Uncle Teddy," continued to abuse him for years.

The charge was filed two years after McCarrick was ejected from the Catholic Church, when he became the highest-ranking Church figure to be expelled in modern times.

McCarrick once wielded significant influence in Washington as the Church's highest official there.

But behind the scenes, he had hidden regular sexual contact with adult seminarians and children, according to a Vatican investigation.

McCarrick's actions described in the report spanned decades, and the Vatican was accused of ignoring allegations against him while promoting him ever higher.

They only came to light in 2018, 12 years after his retirement, when he was stripped of his cardinal's title.

A year later he was expelled from the Church, losing his status as a priest.

WITH AFP