“Time to Step Aside”, California Catholic Daily, January 16, 2009

“Time to Step Aside”

California Catholic Daily
January 16, 2009

http://www.calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=4c6437d8-6432-4b8d-8183-680514f0d447

Voice of the Faithful calls for resignation of Cardinal Mahony, five other U.S. bishops

A lay Catholic group founded during the height of the Church’s sexual abuse crisis -- but which critics say strays from magisterial teachings -- is calling for the resignation of Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony and five other American prelates.

In a Jan. 7 press release issued from Boston, where the group was founded seven years ago, Voice of the Faithful said the Church had still not fully addressed the abuse crisis “and the culture that makes it possible.”

“It is time for the leaders who enabled so much abuse to step aside,” said the press release. “We call on those leaders who failed to protect the well-being of our children by knowingly and secretly transferring predator priests from parish to parish without informing the laity to resign their current office or position of authority on or before June 30th, 2009. It is our position that in cases where bishops, despite the weight of evidence against them, refuse to resign their offices, Pope Benedict XVI should request their resignations.”

In addition to Cardinal Mahony, the group named Cardinal Francis George of Chicago and current president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; Bishop William F. Murphy of the Diocese of Rockville Centre in Garden City, New York; Bishop John B. McCormack of the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire; and Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk of Cincinnati, Ohio. The group also called for Cardinal Bernard Law, who resigned as Archbishop of Boston in 2002, to relinquish “all ecclesial positions he currently holds in Rome.”

Voice of the Faithful summarized its case against Cardinal Mahony, who served as Bishop of Stockton from 1980-1985, this way: “During this time (while Bishop of Stockton), a priest named Oliver O’Grady was working under the supervision of Mahony. As documented in the film “Deliver Us From Evil,” O’Grady subsequently acknowledged repeated notorious acts of sexual abuse of minors. In a 2004 videotaped court deposition, Mahony repeatedly denied that his transfers of O’Grady from parish to parish were a consequence of O’Grady’s sexual abuse of children under his care. Mahony was evasive and unresponsive under direct questioning by public authorities during this lengthy deposition. In subsequent legal proceedings involving the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Mahony employed similar strategies of evasion, delay and denial over many months before finally agreeing to a financial settlement with survivors. In light of his tortured legalistic efforts to avoid any admission of culpability, we call on Cardinal Mahony in good conscience to resign his current position.”

Cardinal Mahony has repeatedly denied that he knew O’Grady was a serial child abuser. When “Deliver Us From Evil” debuted in 2006, archdiocesan spokesman Tod Tamberg characterized the film as "an obvious anti-church hit piece.'' Tamberg told the Oct. 26, 2006 San Francisco Chronicle, "Everyone should be saddened by the kind of emotional and spiritual devastation that these kind of child molesters can wreak on individuals and families. That said, this movie is incredibly biased and omits many facts that would've changed the assumption the movie makes.'' The movie, Tamberg told the Chronicle, "is chock full of attorneys and expert witnesses who make millions of dollars every year in abuse litigation against the church. It's a big advertisement for them.''

While the Voice of the Faithful web site says, “We do not seek to change Church dogma,” the group has come under repeated fire for using the sexual abuse crisis as a front for a hidden liberal agenda. In 2004, for example, Oakland Bishop Allen Vigneron (recently named Archbishop of Detroit) refused to permit any advertisements or coverage in the diocesan newspaper of a meeting co-sponsored by Voice of the Faithful at the University of San Francisco. Bishop Vigneron told various newspapers at the time that Voice of the Faithful questions Church teaching, specifically on the issue of ordaining women.

"Voice of the Faithful... has used the current crisis in the Church as a springboard for presenting an agenda that is anti-Church and, ultimately, anti-Catholic," wrote Newark, New Jersey, Archbishop John Myers in the Oct. 11, 2002 edition of the diocesan weekly Catholic Advocate. “Voice of the Faithful has as its purposes: to act as a cover for dissent... and to openly attack the Church hierarchy." Said Archbishop Myers, “altering Church teaching on sexual morality, and defiance of the apostolic authority that has guided the Church since its founding 2,000 years ago by Our Lord Jesus Christ, have all found a place in the ranks of Voice of the Faithful.”