LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Daily News
Now that the United States Supreme Court has rejected his legal wrangling, we can only hope that Cardinal Roger Mahony will at last cooperate fully with the law.
As the priestly sexual-abuse scandal has slowly unfolded these past few years, Mahony has been reluctant, at best, in his dealings with authorities or the public.
First, he failed to notify police upon learning that some of his priests were predators. And ever since, he has refused to turn over key information to a criminal investigation, citing some hitherto unheard-of legal claim to a bishop-priest privilege supposedly implied in the First Amendment.
But as the Supreme Court made clear by rejecting Mahony's arguments Monday, such a privilege does not exist. The information in question - archdiocesan personnel files - aren't covered by the seal of the confessional, and the right to the free exercise of religion doesn't
include protecting sexual predators.