Unholy Act? Cardinal Mahony Investigated

By Leslie Miller
KABC/NECN
January 29, 2009

http://www.necn.com/Boston/Nation/2009/01/29/Unholy-act-Cardinal-Mahony/1233238517.html

[Note from BishopAccountability.org: Below we provide our own transcript of this video report, followed by the partial edited transcript that NECN/KABC posted. The first still was posted by NECN. The others are screenshots taken by us from the video.]

According to unnamed sources in the LA Times and the Wall Street Journal, the federal investigation will determine whether Cardinal Roger Mahony, and possibly other church leaders, committed "honest services fraud" against parishioners by failing to keep children safe from predatory priests.

"It raises the question: what are the fair and honest services of a cardinal and exactly what did he do or not do to deprive them of that?"

Law professor Laurie Levenson says the allegation falls under a broad federal statute usually used against corporate executives accused of wrongdoing.

"What we're really saying here is the church is like one of those corporations and Cardinal Mahony is like a bad CEO who's on the take."

But Levenson says prosecutors may have a tough time proving that Cardinal Mahony was aware of the sex abuse and ignored it.

"I think the prosecutor's theory is, it's at minimum, that if you have accusations against priests for molestation, you don't just put 'em back into a parish where he can hurt more kids."

In 2007, the LA Archdiocese agreed to pay $660 million to more than five hundred alleged victims -- one of the largest settlements in the U.S. priest scandal.

Last April in New York, during the Pope's visit to the U.S., Cardinal Mahony spoke exclusively to Eyewitness News about the church sex scandal in L.A. "Eighty-eight percent of the cases in Los Angeles occurred long before I came, and I think we started 1987 implementing policies and procedures and have kept strengthening these over the years, and I think we're doing everything possibly we can." But the members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, have a different opinion, and they say the federal investigation is long overdue. "The church has never truly been transparent as they had promised to be. And because that transparency has never come through, this isn't over yet." [Carlos Perez-Carillo of SNAP is speaking on camera but is not identified in the video.]

NECN/KABC's edited transcript:

According to unnamed sources in the LA Times and the Wall Street Journal, a federal investigation will determine whether Cardinal Roger Mahony, and possibly other church leaders, committed "honest services fraud" against parishioners by failing to keep children safe from predatory priests.

"That's interesting; it raises the question: what are the fair and honest services of a cardinal and exactly what did he do or not do to deprive them of that?" Loyola Law professor Laurie Levenson said.

Levenson said the allegation falls under a broad federal statute usually used against corporate executives accused of wrongdoing.

"What we're really saying here is the church is like one of those corporations and Cardinal Mahony is like a bad CEO who's on the take," Levenson said.

But Levenson also said prosecutors may have a tough time proving that Cardinal Mahony was aware of the sex abuse and ignored it.

"I think the prosecutors theory is it's at minimum. If you have accusations against priests for molestation, you don't put them back where they can molest more kids, that's depriving fair and honest services," Levenson said.

In 2007, the LA Archdiocese agreed to pay $660 millions to more than five hundred alleged victims -- one of the largest settlements in the U.S. priest scandal.

KABC's Leslie Miller reports.