The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has released 12,000 pages of files on a shocking 124 priests alleged to have sexually abused minors.
Cardinal who covered up sex abuse to speak at massive LA religious ed conference
January 11, 2018 (Joseph Sciambra) – Despite a 2013 statement from Archbishop Jose Gomez, the current head of the largest archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, Cardinal Roger Mahony will speak at the 2019 Los Angeles Education Congress (LA REC). The topic of his March 23rd address will be "Connecting Junior High and High School Students with the Volatile Immigration Issues." According to his short biography on the official LA REC website:
Cardinal Roger Mahony led the Los Angeles Archdiocese from 1985 until his retirement in 2011. Born in Hollywood, he was the first native "Angelino" [sic] to be elevated to the position of Cardinal. Cardinal Mahony oversaw the design and building of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, which was dedicated in 2002, and now serves the total archdiocese of over 5 million Catholics. Since his retirement, Cardinal Mahony has devoted himself to the cause of comprehensive immigration reform on behalf of our immigrant brothers and sisters as well as refugees and displaced persons around the world.
On January 31, 2013, after files from the Archdiocese were released following a 2007 sex abuse lawsuit settlement that resulted in the largest pay-out ($660 million) in Church history, Archbishop Gomez stated:
I have informed Cardinal Mahony that he will no longer have any administrative or public duties.
In the same 2013 statement, Archbishop Gomez announced that he had accepted the resignation of Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Curry as the Regional Bishop of Santa Barbara. According to documents released by the Archdiocese, beginning in the 1980s, then-Father Curry advised Mahony on how to avoid police involvement with priests accused of sexually abusing minors. In one case, Curry advised Mahony to keep a priest, Kevin Barmasse, accused of molesting a boy, from returning to Los Angeles; the priest was in active ministry in Arizona. In Arizona, the priest molested five teenage boys. These documents also revealed that Mahony repeatedly transferred, out of California or the United States, priests who had been accused of abuse in an attempt to allow the statute of limitations to expire.
Curry's successor, Bishop Robert Barron, will also speak at the 2019 LA REC. The LA REC is the largest annual gathering of Catholics in the United States.
A 2010 videotaped deposition in a lawsuit involving Michael Baker, a priest of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles who admitted to Mahony that he molested boys, a lawyer asked Cardinal Mahony why he never notified police about Baker's admission. "Wouldn't that be the right thing to do?" the lawyer asked. Mahony answered: "Well today it would...But back then that isn't the way these matters were approached." After Mahony knew of Baker's past abuse of minors, Mahony returned him to active ministry, where Baker abused more boys.
Archdiocese of Los Angeles
3424 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90010-2241
phone: (213) 637-7000
email: info@la-archdiocese.org
Published with permission from Joseph Sciambra.
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| LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, its former leader Cardinal Roger Mahony and an ex-priest have agreed to pay a total of nearly $10 million to settle four child sex abuse cases brought against them, lawyers for the victims said on Tuesday. |
Mahony, who retired in 2011 as head of the largest U.S. archdiocese and is now in Rome taking part in choosing a new pope, was accused of helping a confessed pedophile priest evade law enforcement by sending him out of state to a Church-run treatment center, then placing the priest back in the Los Angeles ministry.
The defrocked priest named in all four cases is Michael Baker, who ultimately was convicted in 2007 and sent to prison on 12 criminal counts of felony oral copulation with a minor involving two boys who reached a previous settlement with the Church.
The Washington Post: Cardinal Mahony is a prime example. Even after his archdiocese reached a $660 million civil settlement with more than 500 victims of abuse in 2007, he and the hierarchy did everything in their power to avoid individual accountability.
The defrocked priest named in all four cases is Michael Baker, who ultimately was convicted in 2007 and sent to prison on 12 criminal counts of felony oral copulation with a minor involving two boys who reached a previous settlement with the Church.
The Washington Post: Cardinal Mahony is a prime example. Even after his archdiocese reached a $660 million civil settlement with more than 500 victims of abuse in 2007, he and the hierarchy did everything in their power to avoid individual accountability.
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