By Chris Georg
eFluxMedia
December 5, 2007
http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_Police_Investigate_Cardinal_Mahonys_Assault_Claims_11401.html
Police launched an investigation following a series of accusations made by a group of priests who claim that Cardinal Roger Mahony, the leader of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, reportedly confessed to them that he was assaulted last summer by a man enraged by the Roman Catholic Church's sexual-abuse scandal, Los Angeles Daily News reported.
According to Andrew Smith, assistant commanding officer for the Los Angeles Police Department's Central Bureau, LAPD detectives found no reports about an assault on Mahony and contacted church officials to ask them about it.
"If it came to my attention that something happened to Cardinal Mahony, I would have called him and offered my assistance and assured that it was fully investigated ... which is exactly what we're going to do now," Smith said.
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Mahony, 71, reportedly talked about the assault to several hundred priests during an annual meeting in October. He said the attack occurred in July while he was dropping off letters to a mailbox near Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral downtown.
"He went down there to drop something off at the mailbox when this guy approached him, saying some stuff," Father Gutierrez, pastor of St. Anne Catholic Church in Santa Monica, was quoted by New York Times as saying. "Then, boom, the guy was on him."
"Somebody recognized him and attacked him. It was shocking because it was an act of violence and it was someone we know and respect," Father Sal Pilato, principal of Junipero Serra Catholic High School in Los Angeles, told the Los Angeles Daily News.
Just days prior to the attack, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge approved a $660 million settlement between the archdiocese and more than 500 local victims of sexual abuse by the clergy. The settlement is the largest of its kind in the country.
However, since no report about the assault was filed at the time, the Los Angeles Police Department said they don't know if the assault "did or did not happen." According to Shea, Mahony did not report the attack to police "because he felt he could offer it up in reparation for the sins of others."
While Mahony could not be reached for comment, a spokeswoman for the archdiocese, Carolina Guevara, said, "The annual pastoral meeting with the priests of the archdiocese is a private meeting, and whatever conversation that might have taken place was between the priests and their bishop and was not meant to be public."
Mahony became a target after victims and their lawyers accused him of trying to block courts from having access to sexually abusive priests whom he had moved to different parishes.
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