US Catholic Archbishop Fires Cardinal for Role in Shielding Child Molestors

Press TV
February 1, 2013

http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/02/01/286681/us-cardinal-fired-for-hiding-child-abuse/

Retired Catholic Cardinal Roger Mahony removed for concealing child sexual abuse by priests in his church.

A US Catholic archbishop has stripped a top cardinal, who led a Los Angeles Archdiocese before him, of all church duties for his role in concealing child sexual abuse offenses by Catholic priests from authorities.

Archbishop Jose Gomez announced in a Thursday statement by the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese that he had removed his predecessor, retired Cardinal Roger Mahony, of all public and administrative duties.

Former top advisor to 76-year-old Mahony on child sexual abuse cases in the church, Thomas Curry, 70, who colluded with him in hiding child molestation offenses by Catholic priests, has reportedly quit his current position as a bishop in the California city of Santa Barbara.

"I find these files to be brutal and painful reading. The behavior described in these files is terribly sad and evil," Gomez proclaimed in a statement issued by the largest Catholic archdiocese in the US.

Gomez was referring to nearly 12,000 pages of files released recently after church records in connection to 14 priests were unsealed as part of a civil suit, exposing that top church authorities conspired to cover up the child abuse cases from law enforcement authorities as late as 1987.

The documents further demonstrated that Mahony and Curry collaborated to send Catholic priests accused of molestation out of California in a bid to shield the clergy, known to be involved in child sexual abuse, from scrutiny by law enforcement officials in the 1980s.

A spokesman for a support group for victims of molestation by Catholic priests insisted, however, that the removal of Mahony and Curry was long overdue, describing it as a ‘small step’ after the church fought for year to protect them.

"Hand-slapping Mahony is a nearly meaningless gesture," said David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

"When he had real power, and abused it horribly, he should have been demoted or disciplined by the church hierarchy in Rome and in the US. But not a single Catholic cleric anywhere had the courage to even denounce him. Shame on them," he added.

The Catholic archdiocese in Los Angeles reached a USD660 million civil settlement in 2007 with more than 500 victims of child molestation by the church clergymen in the largest such agreement of its kind in the United States. The archdiocese serves 4 million Catholics in the area.