Monica Almeida/The New York Times
ANAHEIM, Calif. — For decades, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony
was the convener and the star of the nation’s largest annual gathering
of Roman Catholics, which opened here on Thursday.
This year, though, Cardinal Mahony was nowhere to be seen at the gathering, the Religious Education Congress. His workshop on immigration was canceled. The cardinal was relieved of his public duties last month by his successor after the release
of 12,000 pages of internal church files revealing how Cardinal Mahony
protected priests accused of sexually abusing minors.
In a rare breach of the deference American bishops usually grant one another, the current archbishop of Los Angeles, José H. Gomez, said he found the documents “brutal and painful” reading. Cardinal Mahony soon shot back, posting a bitter open letter to Archbishop Gomez on his blog.
With Cardinal Mahony set to fly to Rome next week to elect a new pope,
the prelates’ duel in the country’s largest archdiocese has set off
shock waves in the church. Catholics in Los Angeles are re-evaluating
the cardinal’s legacy, and newspapers in Italy are running articles
asking whether the disgraced cardinal should attend the papal conclave.
At the same time, this is a defining moment for Archbishop Gomez, who
took over from Cardinal Mahony two years ago and is universally
described as low-key and quiet, particularly compared with his
predecessor. His public rebuke of Cardinal Mahony stunned observers not
only for its content, but because the normally mild-mannered archbishop
would react so swiftly and dramatically. Now, many here are waiting
anxiously to see how he will try to lead the archdiocese past the
scandal.
The documents show that Cardinal Mahony helped shield priests accused of
sexual abuse from the police, in some cases encouraging them to stay
out of the state or country to avoid potential criminal investigations.
Cardinal Mahony’s shadow looms large. Attendees at the congress, largely
educators who teach teenagers and adults across the country, said they
have been stung by recent events and are grappling with ways to make
sense of what happened and how to move forward.
Even here, among people who were once some of the cardinal’s staunchest
supporters, there is a quiet debate over whether he should vote in the
conclave. While those here stopped short of saying publicly that
Cardinal Mahony should not participate in the conclave, there is a
palpable sense of anger, betrayal and confusion over his role in
protecting priests accused of sexual abuse.
“He is a man — he has made mistakes,” said Carmen Vargas, a master
catechist from Covina, Calif., who trains other adult educators. She
said the turmoil in recent weeks has prompted dozens of difficult
conversations among her peers. “But he has admitted to the problems and
apologized for them,” she said. “We cannot just shut him down. He needs
his voice heard to decide the next pope. He has earned that right.”
In most ways, the practical impact of Archbishop Gomez’s rebuke is
minimal — while Cardinal Mahony has canceled presiding at confirmations
this year, he is still a priest in good standing with the church. He can
still celebrate Mass and is still eligible to vote for a pope.
But the symbolism is significant, said the Rev. Thomas Reese, a senior fellow of the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.
“This is the institutional church publicly acknowledging hierarchical
failure,” he said, adding that Archbishop Gomez has “exercised his
authority as far as it will go.”
Now, many see this as a first turn in the spotlight for Archbishop
Gomez. Cardinal Mahony was known for marching in public rallies,
cultivating allies in politics and Hollywood and an almost
larger-than-life public persona. By contrast, Archbishop Gomez has only
rarely appeared in the press over the last two years. He declined to be
interviewed for this article and his staff declined to allow a reporter
into the Religious Education Congress without an escort.
Before Cardinal Mahony’s retirement, he wrote that he asked Pope
Benedict XVI to appoint an archbishop coadjutor who would work alongside
him for a year. When the appointment turned out to be his “friend and
brother” Archbishop Gomez, Cardinal Mahony said he was delighted. He was
particularly happy, he wrote, that a Mexican priest would take over the
diocese, where more than two-thirds of the parishioners are Latino.
The two lived together with three other priests for more than a year,
watching football games and traveling through much of the region as a
pair.
After the documents were released last month, Archbishop Gomez said in
his statement that he was shocked at the content and placed blame on his
predecessor. But an official familiar with church affairs in Los
Angeles, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid offending the
church hierarchy, said that Archbishop Gomez was familiar with the
contents of the documents well before they were released, and was a
hands-on administrator who wanted to be kept apprised of the
developments regarding the documents.
The recent documents are not the first time Archbishop Gomez has dealt
with scandal here. Last year, Auxiliary Bishop Gabino Zavala stepped down after admitting he fathered two teenage children, who lived with their mother in another state.
Many here questioned whether Archbishop Gomez, a theological conservative shaped by his membership in the movement Opus Dei,
would move quickly to undo Cardinal Mahony’s more liberal policies,
like appointing women and lay people to powerful positions and
supporting a robust AIDS ministry. But two years after taking the reins,
he is often praised for not acting along ideological lines and has made
changes only slowly. Last year, for example, he changed the name of the
Office of Justice and Peace to the Office of Life, Justice and Peace.
It will be another four years before Archbishop Gomez is eligible to be
made a cardinal — when Cardinal Mahony turns 80 and can no longer vote
in the conclave. According to church rules, a diocese cannot have two
voting cardinals.
For many, Cardinal Mahony has long been a lightning rod in the church.
He has deep wells of respect among Latinos, largely because of his role
as a champion for immigrants. But traditionalists resent him for his
liberal stances. And he has come under considerable attack for the way
he handled priests accused of sexual abuse, particularly since 2007,
when the archdiocese reached a record $660 million settlement with more
than 500 victims.
In recent weeks, Cardinal Mahony responded with his own vigorous
defense, saying that he had never been prepared to deal with the problem
and that he later worked to put protections for children into place.
And he has written regularly on his blog about being confronted, “scapegoated” and “humiliated, disgraced and rebuffed by many.”
On Saturday, Cardinal Mahony is scheduled to be questioned under oath
about several cases of sexual abuse in the documents.
Some Catholics have tried to create a steady drumbeat calling on him to stay home from the papal conclave. Protesters from Catholics United,
an advocacy group, plan to deliver petitions to his home in North
Hollywood this weekend demanding that he stay put. The Italian news
media have seized on the story. In an interview with La Repubblica,
Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, a Vatican official, said that Cardinal Mahony’s participation was a “troubling situation.”
But Cardinal Mahony has written effusively about attending the conclave. Archbishop Gomez sent a letter
to his priests last week urging them to “extend your prayers and warm
wishes for Cardinal Roger Mahony as he prepares to travel to Rome to
exercise his sacred duty as Cardinal Elector of our next Pope.”
CULLED FROM www.newyorktimes.com
Even if this cardinal in the roman catholic church is one of the hidden things that has enveloped the church , i thus ask , where then lies the place where the shattered , the maimed , the frustrated will run to , the cardinal does he have the morals to elect a new pope , or better still be elected a pope , i thus advice , that the new pope should allow priests to marry.
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