Former US cardinal pleads not guilty to sexually assaulting teenage boy

Former US cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the most senior Roman Catholic official in America to face criminal charges in the massive clergy abuse scandal, pleaded not guilty Friday to charges that he sexually assaulted a teenage boy. McCarrick, 91, arrived at Massachusetts District Court in the town of Dedham walking hunched over with the aid of a walker, amid some boos, video shared on social media showed. McCarrick's attorney, Barry Coburn, confirmed that he pleaded not guilty. Coburn said he had no further comment.  "Today, history is being made. History that will not be forgotten," the victim's attorney Mitchell Garabedian said in a statement sent to AFP. "The trailblazing complainant is sending a direct message to the Catholic Church that its reign of sexual abuse by Bishops and Cardinals is going to be confronted head on." The former archbishop of Washington DC was charged in July with three counts of indecent assault and battery against a child over 14. McCarrick was thrown out of the Catholic Church in 2019, becoming the highest-ranking Church figure to be expelled in modern times. He had been found guilty by the Vatican of sexually abusing at least one teenage boy in the...