Los Angeles Cardinal Directly Implicated In Sex Abuse Scandal

(Los Angeles Times) - The former vicar of clergy for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles testified this week under oath that Cardinal Roger Mahony ordered him in 2000 not to contact police about allegations of sexual abuse by a priest.

In deposition papers filed Friday as part of a civil case, Msgr. Richard Loomis also testified that Mahony ordered him not to inform parishes of allegations against the now defrocked Rev. Michael Baker.

In 2007, Baker was sent to state prison for 10 years after his conviction on molestation charges. He has been called before a federal grand jury investigating how the archdiocese handled priest abuse cases....

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THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: Regular readers of this blog know 'The Catholic Knight' has been a vigorous defender of the clergy, even in regards to the sex-abuse cover-up scandal of 2002-2003. I have cited statistics demonstrating, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that less than 5% of U.S. Catholic clergy (priests, bishops, nuns, etc.) were involved in the scandal, and that this number is no different than the statistic found in other denominations and religions. It is also significantly less than the common statistics found in secular organizations, especially our nation's public schools. In which the U.S. federal government commissioned a study having determined that a child was over 100 times more likely to be sexually abused in a public school than in a Catholic Church. This, however, is not to diminish the suffering of those minors (most of them male teenagers) who were abused at the hands of sexual predators within the Church.

All that being said, there are some The Catholic Knight simply cannot defend, and sadly, Cardinal Roger Mahony is one of them. I honestly cannot say if the allegations against him are true or not. I wasn't there. I don't have any new information to add to this story. However, I can say this with fair accuracy. Cardinal Mahony has presided over the largest sex-abuse cover-up scandal in the history of the world. He has presided over some of the worst examples of liturgical abuse in the Church - actually participating in many of them. He has presided over some of the least catechized laity in the United States. His public statements on social issues have been weak and have often failed to accurately express the full teaching of the Church. He has been an enemy of historical Catholicism, shunning traditionalists and inviting every sort modern revisionist. He was reprimanded by Pope John Paul II no less than three times. (Why he elevated him to cardinal in the first place I shall never know.) Cardinal Mahony is in many ways a poster boy for everything that is wrong in the U.S. Catholic Church today. The strange and distorted "cathedral," in which he presides, is an ironic caricature of the type of episcopal oversight he provided to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for nearly a quarter of a century. I really have nothing more to say about this matter, other than, let the investigation go forward, and let the wheels of justice turn.