CALIFORNIA
Channel 3000
Author: William R. Wineke, Special to Channel 3000
Published On: Jan 28 2013
Just keep this in mind before you read further: Retired Los Angeles Archbishop Roger Mahony will be one of the Roman Catholic prelates who chooses the next pope should Pope Benedict XVI die before 2016.
Why is that important? Because, according to documents released during the past couple of weeks, Cardinal Mahony actively conspired with his chief adviser on sexual abuse to hide diocesan priests from criminal prosecution.
The fact that Los Angeles was a hotbed of predator priests is not news. The archdiocese has already committed $616 million – more than a half-billion dollars! – to compensate victims of that abuse. But church officials tried strenuously to keep their records of child abuse secret and, at the least, to have names of church officials dealing with the offending priests blacked out from public view.
Now we know why.
The records show that the cardinal and his chief adviser on sexual abuse, one Monsignor Thomas Curry, were well aware of what their priests were doing and that those activities were illegal.
They didn’t just ignore the abuse; they sent the offending priests for psychiatric treatment at an out-of-state center – but they did make sure that any therapy done was not done in California, where the therapist would be mandated by law to report the crime.
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