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For me, for always, the LA Catholic Church of Cardinal Roger Mahoney never fell into that institutional group I despised. I honored him for his amazing work standing up for the poor and the immigrant in Los Angeles. He worked hard to give illegals, first Mexicans - then from all over Central America, an advocate. He gave voice to their hopes and desires. To their fears.
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When people bashed them, especially elected officials trying to make political points, he was often the only public official that would push back. He would go on TV and defend them. He defined them as people, not just as a description "illegal". Say want you want about illegal aliens, but they wouldn't be here if American citizens didn't give them jobs. And, during the early years of the AIDS crisis, he worked quietly with the community to address the problem, despite the silence of the Vatican and the Reagan Administration.
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And when the sexual abuse scandal broke, I waited for Cardinal Mahoney to speak out again. To call out those others who did not cooperate. Of course, he did not. And I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. And then stories broke about his time in Fresno and some stories about sex with women and priests and I kind of hung my head. But it was consensual and of legal age, so I just tried to focus on the good things.
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But you knew it was going to be bad when he refused to work with the police. You knew it was the end of a great man. And it has been. Cardinal Mahoney is not a great man. He is a fallible and human man who did great things I can truly admire, and disgusting things that I can never forgive. Things I can't even process. And it makes me sad. (Mom and Ed - yeah, I know.)
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(Except below- whole story in LA Times)
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5. L.A. Cardinal Relieved of Duties
In an unprecedented move, Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez has relieved his predecessor, Cardinal Roger Mahony, of all his duties due to Mahony’s “mishandling” of child sex-abuse allegations by members of the clergy. The announcement falls on the same day that the church published 122 pages of the secret personnel files about the abuse. Auxiliary Bishop Thomas J. Curry, who allegedly covered up the abusers with Mahony, resigned. While Mahony canceled his confirmation schedule, an archdiocese spokesman insisted he remained a retired priest “in good standing.” But the pain of the scandal lives on: in a letter on the church’s website addressed to “my brothers and sisters in Christ,” Gomez called the posted files “brutal and painful reading” and said “the behavior described in these is files is terribly sad and misleading.”