February 28, 2023

A daily news briefing from Catholic News Agency, powered by artificial intelligence. Ask your smart speaker to play “Catholic News,” or listen every morning wherever you get podcasts. www.catholicnewsagency.com - Former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, 92, filed a motion in a Massachusetts court claiming he is “legally incompetent” to stand trial for sex abuse charges, citing “significant, worsening, and irreversible dementia.” McCarrick, laicized by Pope Francis in 2019, held one of the highest offices in the Catholic Church and has been accused of serially abusing his priestly authority by sexually abusing minors and seminarians. McCarrick is charged with three counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over the age of 14. The state of Massachusetts told CNA that it wants an opportunity to examine McCarrick’s competency to stand trial. It would be a violation of McCarrick’s 14th Amendment right in the Constitution and Article XII of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights if he were to stand trial with his dementia, his lawyers maintain in a court document. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/253756/ex-cardinal-mccarrick-asks-for-dismissal-of-sex-abuse-case-against-him-citing-dementia The Diocese of Albany, New York, has at least temporarily banned the Traditional Latin Mass at two parishes to comply with an order issued by the Vatican last week. Effective immediately, parish churches in the diocese are prohibited from celebrating the Latin Mass in accordance with the “Missale Romanum” of 1962, according to a statement from the diocese. In 2021, Pope Francis issued a motu proprio titled Traditionis custodes, which directed bishops to designate locations for the celebration of the Latin Mass but added that those locations not be within parish churches. Many bishops offered dispensations for parishes that already had thriving Latin Mass communities. On Feb. 21, Cardinal Arthur Roche, who serves as the prefect for the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, clarified that