[irishjuggler]

In the early 1980s, McCarrick’s rising profile drew the attention of the FBI and the KGB. A KGB agent tried to befriend him but the FBI asked him to serve as a counterintelligence asset. McCarrick declined, but the FBI persisted.

I don't want to go all Russia, Russia, Russia on this, but it's interesting. The NKVD/KGB were notorious for recruiting homosexuals (e.g. the Kim Philby network), as they were considered the ideal recruits: treacherous, duplicitous and blackmail-able. They likely identified Uncle Ted as someone they could work with. Wonder if there's more... a lot more... to this story. What WAS the source of all the cash Teddy handed out?

[ebb tide]

The FBI was also probably aware of McCarrick’s proclivities while the Vatican to this day claims ignorance.

Not believable.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Not ruling out other skulduggery of the fascinating spy-vs-spy sort, but McCarrick was publicly famous as a guy who assidulously cultivated millionaires and billionaires. He courted them.

He also was known to roam around the Termini with fat envelopes full of high-denomination euros, handing them out to arriving clerics and, as the Gospel (Luke 16:9) says about the unjust steward, making friends for himself with his filthy mammon.