Editorial: If Pope Can Resign, So Can L.a.'s Cardinal Roger Mahony

Press-Telegram
February 12, 2013

http://www.presstelegram.com/opinions/ci_22568868/editorial-if-pope-can-resign-so-can-l

Editorial: If pope can resign, so can L.A.'s Cardinal Roger Mahony

With the selection of a new pope, the Roman Catholic Church signals the way forward for an institution whose policies affect the whole world. The shocking news Monday that Pope Benedict XVI is resigning this month presents just such an occasion, giving the church a chance to move beyond the sins of the past, to modernize.

But the church can hardly expect to cleanse itself as long as Benedict's replacement will be chosen by a College of Cardinals that includes Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles.

Last week, following further revelations about Mahony's role in protecting priests who sexually molested children, and the removal of the former head of the L.A. archdiocese from administrative duties, we called on him to resign his post as cardinal.

Mahony's potential role in choosing Benedict's successor underscores what a purely symbolic gesture that removal was and highlights the need for the North Hollywood resident to step aside.

If a pope can resign for the first time since the year 1415, then a cardinal can resign for the first time since 1927.

All cardinals younger than 80 participate in the voting at the Vatican for a papal successor, and Mahony is 76. Just hours after Benedict's statement that he is too frail to carry out his duties, Mahony issued a statement saying that he will go to Rome for the convocation of cardinals.

Has it not occurred

to Mahony that one of reasons Benedict can't go on might be the stress caused by the awful, ongoing failure by Mahony and other American church leaders to properly oversee the morals of the priests who serve under them? Has it not occurred to him that voluntarily not putting himself in a position to help choose the next pope would help to fortify the Vatican's moral position going forward?

What an extraordinary moment it is for the Catholic Church. Will it look forward, or back? Will its leadership continue to come only from old Europe, or will it come from the areas in which church membership is growing, in Latin America, Asia and Africa? And, crucially, how will it deal with the legacy of a leadership that was deaf to the cries of those against whom priests have sinned?

Will the new pope open up, or will he -- in the manner of Mahony -- stay closed down?

You don't have to be Roman Catholic to realize that the first departure of a living pope in six centuries is of major political as well as spiritual import. The leader of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics has enormous sway over countless aspects of global culture.

Amid the worldwide implications of Benedict's resignation, Southern Californians may be excused for almost immediately thinking of the local angle, namely the lingering scandal of molestation. Archbishop Jose Gomez's decision to strip Mahony of administrative duties was a symbolic step toward closure for the L.A. archiocese.

Resignation as a cardinal, and as a voter for the next pope, would be a more meaningful step. It's the right move for Mahony -- now more than ever.