The Roman Catholic Diocese of Metuchen is a Roman Catholicdiocese in New Jersey, centered in the borough of Metuchen. It was erected on November 19, 1981, from the territory of the Diocese of Trenton. The diocese encompasses the New Jersey counties of Middlesex, Somerset, Hunterdon and Warren. The Bishop of Metuchen presides from the Saint Francis of Assisi Cathedral in Metuchen. The diocese counts more than 600,000 Catholics within its purview, distributed across more than one hundred parishes, serviced by 160 priests residing in the diocese, with 100 non-resident priests and 150 deacons assisting. Six hundred religious serve the schools and various organizations throughout the diocese.
The official coat of arms is blazoned with Quarterly, Or and Argent, in dexter chief a tongue of fire Gules; in sinister base the letter "M" Azure, crowned Argent; overall a cross Moline Azure. The cross is taken from the arms of the See of Trenton from which the diocese was formed; the tongue of fire refers both to "metachen," Lenni Lenape for firewood, and the descent of the Holy Spirit; the crowned M refers to the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the diocesan patron, founding bishop Theodore McCarrick's arms, and Pope John Paul II's arms. Its four quarters represent the four counties comprising the diocese.
Sex abuse investigation
On September 26, 2018, it was announced that the Diocese of Metuchen was now one of four American dioceses subject to a sex abuse investigation by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Former Cardinal and Metuchen Bishop Theodore McCarrick served in each Diocese under investigation. On February 13, 2019, all of the Catholic Dioceses based in New Jersey released the names of clergy who had been credibly accused of sexually abusing children since 1940. Of the 188 listed, 11 were based in the Diocese of Metuchen. Archbishop Joseph Cardinal Tobin of Newark, who also leads the ecclesiastical province where the Diocese of Metuchen is based, also acknowledged that the alleged acts of abuse committed by the clergy listed were reported to law enforcement agencies. In December 2019, a new law went into effect across the state of now allowing for more sex abuse victims to file lawsuits. As result, McCarrick and convicted priest Romano Ferrero were named in separate sex abuse lawsuits filed against the Diocese of Metuchen Ferraro was laicized by the Vatican and is serving a life sentence in prison. In his lawsuit, James Grien, one of McCarrick's alleged New York victims, accused the Diocese of Metuchen of committing gross negligence by allowing McCarrick, who Grien claimed was a friend of his family, to sexually abuse him after he moved to the area as an adult. By 2020, the names of 18 accused clergy who served in the Diocese of Metuchen were made public. On February 9, 2020, it was reported that all five Catholic dioceses across the state of New Jersey, which includes the Diocese of Metuchen, had paid over $11 million to compensate 105 claims of sex abuse committed by Catholic clergy. Of these 105 claims, 98 were compensated through settlements. The payments also do not involve 459 other sex abuse cases in these dioceses which are still not resolved. The same month, it was revealed that since 2005, the Diocese of Metuchen had worked with the Archdiocese of Newark and Diocese of Trenton in a scheme which involved secretly paying victims of McCarrick. On July 23, 2020, it was revealed that a new lawsuit which had been against the Diocese of Metuchen, Archdiocese of Newark and Catholic schools an alleged victim attended claimed that a beach house which McCarrick owned served as common places priests and others under the control of McCarrick engaged in “open and obvious criminal sexual conduct” that was kept cloaked by the church. Though it did claim whether or not McCarrick asked the other priests to bring boys to the beach house, the lawsuit did also that allege that some of his priests served as “procurers” who agreed to bring victims to McCarrick when he was Bishop of Metuchen as well. The alleged victim was also attending Catholic schools which belonged to the Archdiocese of Newark as well. The alleged victim maintained that McCarrick abused him with the assistance of other priests beginning in 1982 when he was 14. The lawsuit stated that boys were assigned different rooms in the house and paired with adult clergymen. Three other Diocese of Metuchen priests where named in the lawsuit as sex abusers as well.
