Did Opus Dei Lie to Protect Priest Who Baptized Newt Gingrich?

The order of the Catholic elite paid nearly $1 million in a settlement with the victim of Father-to-the-stars John McCloskey, and then lied about removing him from the ministry.

Barbie Latza Nadeau
01.10.19 10:28 AM ET

For many years, Father John McCloskey was a sort of priest to the stars, especially to high-profile and often Republican converts to Catholicism like Newt Gingrich and the current White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow. He would shepherd them through their conversion and then baptize them in flower-laden cathedrals. He was a regular on television in the early 2000s, often appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press to talk about the clerical sex-abuse scandal that was then just coming to light, and he was even featured in a glowing New York Times piece about ministering to the mighty.

But as his star was rising, Father McCloskey was harboring a secret—and an expensive one at that—that he kept with members of the ultraconservative Catholic order Opus Dei, to which he belonged. In 2005, his order paid nearly $1 million to a prominent D.C.-area woman to silence sexual-assault allegations that he repeatedly groped her during the time he was her spiritual counselor as she struggled with depression brought on by marital issues, according to The Washington Post, which first broke the story on Monday.

“I love Opus Dei, but I was caught up in this coverup,” the woman told the paper. “I went to confession thinking I did something to tempt this holy man to cross boundaries.”

The woman, unnamed because of the sensitivity of sexual-assault allegations, met Father McCloskey when he led the Catholic Information Center on K Street in downtown D.C. She went directly to the Opus Dei hierarchy with her complaint after the groping started. Soon she was offered a handsome settlement of $977,000 and a promise that McCloskey would be removed from ministry with women. McCloskey then dropped out of the D.C. circuit, serving in Chicago and Palo Alto, California, with a short stint in the United Kingdom. He made rare appearances on television and largely kept a low profile.

More:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/did-opus-dei-lie-to-protect-priest-who-baptized-newt-gingrich