ROME —The Vatican on Saturday said it had defrocked for :-Xmer cardinal Theodore McCarrick, leveling a historic penalty against a onetime church power broker and former archbishop of Washington after the church found him guilty of sexual abuse.

It is the most significant abuse-related punishment given to a former cardinal in the modern history of the Roman Catholic Church.

In a short statement, the Vatican said a canonical process had found McCarrick guilty of two charges: soliciting sex during confession and committing “sins” with minors and adults “with the aggravating factor of the abuse of power.”

The defrocking, which strips McCarrick of the rights of the priesthood, marks the conclusion of a closed-door Vatican proceeding and comes just days before Pope Francis plans to gather bishops from around the world for an unprecedented summit on abuse.

It also finalizes the downfall of a figure who entered the priesthood six decades ago, climbed the ranks of the faith and earned influence and honorifics — before becoming a symbol of the church’s struggle to root out abuse in its highest ranks.

“He was cardinal up until a few months ago. Today, he is Mr. McCarrick,” said the Rev. Davide Cito, a canon lawyer at Rome’s Pontifical University of the Holy Cross. “This is a humiliation in that world such as one cannot imagine.”

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