Los Angeles Archbishop Seeks National Post

SNAP
October 21, 2013

http://www.snapnetwork.org/ca-_los_angeles_archbishop_seeks_national_post

[National Catholic Reporter]

[LA Daily News]

[U-T San Diego]

Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez is running for the presidency of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. We hope he fails.

When hundreds of embarrassing pages about cover ups were disclosed in 2013 in Los Angeles, Gomez finally slapped the hand of his corrupt predecessor, Cardinal Roger Mahony, allegedly forbidding Mahony from public ministry. Then, after the public outcry subsided, Gomez essentially reneged and let Mahony resume his public role in the archdiocese.

And Gomez refused to discipline any other church official who had ignored, concealed or enabled heinous child sex crimes.

Gomez has continued to pay for high-priced lawyers to continue to fight victims in their quest for justice, including victims of Nicolas Aguilar Rivera, whose cases are going to trial next year.

In the past few months, he has spent thousands of dollars and used the pulpit to fight California SB 131, which would have given some victims of sexual abuse in California the right to use the civil justice system to seek justice and expose their perpetrator thereby protecting children.

When he headed a Texas archdiocese, Gomez’ record was no better than it’s been in LA.

For at least five times in as many years, we released names of credibly accused child molesting San Antonio Catholic clerics.

One was Fr. Donald J. Joyce. In a 2006 civil lawsuit filed in Massachusetts, Joyce is accused of “repeated explicit, lewd and lascivious behavior” against an 11 year old in 1977 at Sacred Heart Parish in Lowell MA (in the Boston Archdiocese). That suit was settled though amount of the settlement was not disclosed. Gomez who kept silent about the accusations and lawsuit and settlement involving Joyce.

Then, we publicly disclosed that between 1949-1992, Fr. Thomas Behnke worked at seven churches in the San Antonio archdiocese and that a $4.65 million settlement was made with six of his victims.

In 2009, we revealed that Fr. Charles H. Miller (who had recently worked in San Antonio) was “credibly accused” of “sexual misconduct” against a local teen in 1980. Also in 2009, we publicly disclosed that Br. Richard A. Suttle was living in a San Antonio parish despite having been suspended for allegedly molesting a child in the 1980s

In 2008, we disclosed that three former San Antonio priests have moved to foreign countries after having been credibly accused of molesting kids here (Michael Kenney, believed to be in Ireland, Jose Luis Sandoval, believed to be in Mexico, and Alfredo Prado, believed to be in Costa Rica).

In each of these cases it was SNAP, not Gomez or other church officials, who alerted the public to these predators.