LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times
By Hector Becerra, Ashley Powers and Harriet Ryan, Los Angeles Times
January 26, 2013
On a Sunday night at Dodger Stadium in 1986, Archbishop Roger M. Mahony celebrated Mass in flawless Spanish. In an era when immigrants in Los Angeles were routinely derided as parasites and criminals, the archbishop told the crowd of 55,000 that whether they were born in Puebla, San Salvador or Managua, they were part of his flock.
“The Catholic Church is your home and I am your pastor,” Mahony said.
But even as cheers of “Rogelio! Rogelio!” rained down from the upper decks, Mahony was covering up the sexual abuse of some of the most vulnerable in the church, including in his beloved Latino community, church records show.
Over the last four decades, hundreds of people have come forward to say they were abused by priests in the archdiocese. Children were victimized at parishes across the L.A. area, in poor neighborhoods as well as wealthy ones. But internal church documents released last week shined a spotlight on Mahony’s mishandling of two pedophile priests who abused the undocumented — a group the prelate often described as society’s most in need of protection. Mahony worked to make sure the priests got therapy, found new jobs and stayed out of prison. For the child victims, little was done.
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