LOS ANGELES (CA)
Digital Journal
By Brett Wilkins
Dec 4, 2013
Los Angeles – The Los Angeles Times has published extensive details chronicling Cardinal Roger Mahony’s complicity in a massive child sex abuse scandal involving hundreds of priests and other clergy members.
The Times’ lengthy report is based on more than 23,000 pages of internal documents from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which was presided over by Archbishop Mahony for nearly a quarter century until his retirement in 2010. The article details Mahony’s active involvement in covering up clergy sex abuse and protecting pedophile priests from prosecution, going back to 1986, his first year as archbishop, when a priest told him he molested two boys.
That priest, Father Michael Baker, raped or molested at least 23 boys, some as young as five years old, over the course of 26 years. He was convicted and sentenced to 10 years behind bars in 2007. But long before that, Mahony decided to not report Baker to police. Instead, the archbishop sent him for ‘treatment’ in New Mexico. After completing therapy, Baker was welcomed back into the fold. He continued to abuse children for many years.
The Times article details how Mahony repeatedly refused to report child-raping clergy to police, transferring criminal abusers out of state to avoid investigations. Many of those transferred clergy continued to rape and molest children.
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