Neocats of the Caribbean

The Turks and Caicos Islands. TCI, for short.

If asked to point to them on a map, I doubt most people would be able to. Some seasoned vacationers may have gone ashore there on a cruise once or twice, but by and large, these little islands of just under 60,000 people aren't usually on people's radar.

A British Overseas Territory, the TCI are located southeast of the Bahamas, and about 650 miles southeast of Miami, Florida. As with most of the British Empire, the islands are largely Protestant, boasting a Catholic population of slightly north of 6,600 (11.4%, by one metric). The Catholic Church in the islands is represented by a "mission sui iuris," a rare type of ecclesiastical jurisdiction (one of 8 globally) present in places with either broadly small or just sparsely Catholic populations.

When it was first erected in 1984, the TCI mission was the responsibility of the Archdiocese of Nassau, being governed by that see's archbishop and served by Bahamian priests. The Bahamas being such a close neighbor, this was a fitting arrangement. Most of the other British Caribbean territories do not even have a separate ecclesial jurisdiction--Anguilla, Montserrat, and the British Virgin Islands are all part of the Diocese of Saint John's-Basseterre. Bermuda, though now constituting its own diocese, was originally an extension of the Archdiocese of Halifax in Canada. The Cayman Islands are also a mission sui iuris, but we'll come back to them later.

In 1998, however, the government of the TCI mission was transferred away from Nassau. Given ecclesial geopolitics, here are a few sees that could have made sense to assume it:

• Saint John's-Basseterre - already serving other territories in the British Caribbean.
• Hamilton - itself a current British territory
• Santo Domingo - although Spanish, not English, the Archbishop of Santo Domingo is considered the "Primate of the Indies," indicating the see's honorific precedence in the region.
• Miami - the closest American archdiocese to the islands
• Westminster - London is responsible for the secular administration of the islands, so why not ecclesiastically as well? A similar situation is already in place with the US Virgin Islands existing as a suffragan diocese of Washington, D.C.

None of these dioceses took control of the TCI mission, however. Instead, jurisdiction was handed over to the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey, and its then-Archbishop... Theodore McCarrick.

McCarrick promptly gave control of the mission to the priests and lay missionaries of the Neocatechumenal Way.

The current chancellor of the TCI mission is Fr. Luis Orlando González, a graduate of Newark's Redemptoris Mater Seminary. He is also the pastor of Our Lady of Divine Providence Parish on Providenciales Island. In a personal email, he indicated to me that the reason for this particular pastoral transfer was the lack of vocations coming from the Nassau Archdiocese. Newark, with its burgeoning vocations under McCarrick (which we've discussed previously), was thus in a prime position to take over. Emails requesting corroboration of this explanation to both the Newark Redemptoris Mater Seminary and the TCI mission's Vicar General in Newark have gone unanswered.

Both the Archdiocese of Newark and the TCI mission officially use identical language in describing the transfer of pastoral care as being "at the request of the Holy See." Yet the question may validly be asked if the request was not primarily that of McCarrick - and secondarily perhaps that of Giuseppe Gennarini, the NCW capo who lives in Englewood.

Very shortly after inheriting the TCI mission, McCarrick sent Fr. Peter Baldacchino, a Neocatechumenal priest and native of Malta, to serve on the islands, which he did faithfully for 15 years. Baldacchino attended the Redemptoris Mater Seminary in Newark and was ordained a priest by McCarrick in 1996.

James Grein, McCarrick's chief accuser, identifies a close relationship between McCarrick and Baldacchino he says is chiefly based on money. "McCarrick and Baldacchino were close compatriots in New Jersey because of his [McCarrick's] ties in Malta," says Grein. "[Because Baldacchino hailed] from an island country, McCarrick always invited Baldacchino to the Turks and Caicos for winter trips, and Baldacchino was influential enough to get other men to join them. It was the money they shared. McCarrick paid for Baldacchino's friendship after they roomed together in the Turks and Caicos Islands."

Newark and the Islands have no obvious political ties or expatriate communities, but money makes things interesting.

In 1999, the same year Baldacchino was assigned to the mission, McCarrick set up an offshore account called the "Vatican Estate Corp," which only lasted until 2001, when McCarrick was transferred to Washington, D.C. As is well known, "McCarrick was famous for his ability to raise enormous amounts of money for the Church. [He was also] notorious for handing out envelopes stuffed with money to Vatican officials."

The Turks and Caicos Islands are known as a tax haven and have a history of a lack of transparency. Criminals, tax evaders, and corrupt individuals and entities of all kinds can easily stash their ill-gotten funds in TCI bank accounts. Human trafficking has also been a known issue in the islands. That both the financially savvy (not to mention sexually depraved) McCarrick and the Neocatechumenal Way - with its many "donated" accounts and properties from members - are longtime known operators in the islands is perhaps merely correlative. But can you see now why we might question if it was really the Holy See that requested this "pastoral transfer"?

This also brings us back to the Cayman Islands. Like TCI and New Jersey, the Cayman Islands are also in an odd pastoral relationship: their administration is handled by, of all places, the Archdiocese of Detroit, Michigan, despite being a suffragan of Kingston, Jamaica. The Cayman Islands - another tax haven - came under Detroit's administration in 2000, under Cardinal Adam Maida. Maida served on the Papal Foundation (where current Newark Archbishop Cardinal Joseph Tobin also happens to serve), as well as on the board of the Vatican Bank. The Vatican is known to have offshore accounts in the Caymans. Clearly, where geopolitical relationships cease to make sense, money talks.

For his work in TCI, Peter Baldacchino was later made a bishop - first as auxiliary bishop of Miami in 2014 (sure, now Miami makes sense), and later as bishop of Las Cruces, New Mexico, where he currently presides. We know some people that would love to see him take over in Denver in a few years. God save us.

So what do you think? Of all his many vocations, why did McCarrick uniquely select the Neocatechumenal Way to serve in the human trafficking tax haven of TCI? Was it because of their fierce missionary spirit? As we've already, covered that's total nonsense. Despite a dramatic 20% spike in the Catholic population in the year after the Way first arrived on the islands (likely attributable to all the missionaries moving there), that same 20% was lost between 2014 and 2020. Despite a population boom of over 300%, the net Catholic gain in the last 20+ years is only between 5 and 6%.

No, Gennarini et al wanted access to TCI for the same reason McCarrick did - it's a perfect place to hide. Savvy?