Sorry: One Little Word Can Mean So Much When Talking about Roger Mahony

The Record
January 27, 2013

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Retired Cardinal Roger Mahony said again this week how sorry he is.

In a slightly different way, the word sorry can also be used to describe Mahony as a person and as a one-time leader of the nation's largest Catholic enclave, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Confidential files just made public clearly show that Mahony, for five years bishop of the Stockton diocese before moving to his Los Angeles post in 1985, shielded numerous molester priests.

Much of this has been suspected if not conclusively known for years, but memos written in 1986 and 1987 by Mahony and Monsignor Thomas J. Curry, then the archdiocese's chief adviser on sex abuse cases, offer the strongest evidence yet of a concerted effort by officials in the nation's largest Catholic diocese to shield abusers from police.

Officials at the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office said this week they are reviewing the files. But former District Attorney Steve Cooley, who oversaw a five-year investigation of clergy sex abuse in the Los Angeles archdiocese, told the Los Angeles Times a three-year statute of limitations for most felonies made it unlikely prosecutors would bring criminal cases based on memos written by the church leaders in 1986 and 1987.

The newly released records, which the archdiocese fought for years to keep secret, reveal in church leaders' own words a desire to keep authorities from discovering that children were being abused.

These maneuvers, the memos show, began not long after he arrived in Los Angeles and continued for at least 15 years. He reassigned priests. Sent them out of state. And he kept churches and parishioners in the diocese in the dark about what was happening.

The Times reported this week that notes inked by Mahony indicate he was disturbed about abuse and sent problem priests for treatment, but there also were lengthy delays or oversights in some cases. Mahony received psychological reports on some priests that mentioned the possibility of many other victims, for example, but there is no indication that he or other church leaders investigated further.

Mahony retired in 2011. Over the years he has repeatedly apologized for errors in handling abuse allegations. Monday he apologized once again in a statement recounting meetings he's had with "some 90" victims of abuse.

"I have a 3 x 5 card for every victim I met with on the altar of my small chapel. I pray for them every single day," he wrote. "As I thumb through those cards I often pause as I am reminded of each personal story and the anguish that accompanies that life story."

"It remains my daily and fervent prayer that God's grace will flood the heart and soul of each victim, and that their life-journey continues forward with ever greater healing," he added. "I am sorry."

While leading the Stockton diocese, he had dealt with three allegations of clergy abuse, including one case in which he personally reported the priest to police.

Reporting such activities to police did not always occur or they were dealt with internally. In fact, perhaps the most notorious abuser, Oliver O'Grady, had an initial 1984 investigation closed after Mahony promised he would have no further contact with children. Instead Mahony moved him to a church in San Andreas. Eventually O'Grady was convicted and sentenced to prison.

In a 2010 deposition, Mahony acknowledged the Los Angeles archdiocese had never called police to report sexual abuse by a priest before 2000. He said church officials were unable to do so because they didn't know the names of the children harmed.

"In my experience, you can only call the police when you've got victims you can talk to," Mahony said.

When an attorney for an alleged victim suggested "the right thing to do" would have been to summon police immediately, Mahony replied, "Well, today it would. But back then that isn't the way those matters were approached."

We trust today it would be reported fully and without delay.

And we hope that never again would those who aid in covering up such crimes be considered any less criminally culpable than the abusers themselves.