LA Archbishop Relieves Retired Cardinal of Duties [Mahony, sex abuse fallout]

Yahoo News ^ | 2/1/13 | Gillian Flaccus

[marshmallow]

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Cardinal Roger Mahony, who retired with a tainted career after dodging criminal charges over how he handled pedophile priests, was stripped of duties by his successor as a judge ordered confidential church personnel files released.

The unprecedented move by Archbishop Jose Gomez came less than two weeks after other long-secret priest personnel records showed how Mahony worked with top aides to protect the Roman Catholic church from the engulfing scandal.

One of those aides, Monsignor Thomas Curry stepped down Thursday as auxiliary bishop in the Los Angeles archdiocese's Santa Barbara region. Gomez said Mahony, 76, would no longer have administrative or public duties in the diocese.

"I find these files to be brutal and painful reading," Gomez said in a statement, referring to 12,000 pages of files posted online by the church Thursday night just hours after a judge's order. "The behavior described in these files is terribly sad and evil. There is no excuse, no explaining away what happened to these children."

The fallout was highly unusual and marks a dramatic shift from the days when members of the church hierarchy emerged largely unscathed despite the roles they played in covering up clergy sex abuse, said the Rev. Thomas Reese, a Jesuit and senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.

"It's quite extraordinary. I don't think anything like this has happened before," Reese said. "It's showing that there are consequences now to mismanaging the sex abuse crisis."

Several of the documents released late Thursday echo recurring themes that emerged over the past decade in dioceses nationwide, where church leaders moved problem priests between parishes and didn't call the police.

[Religion Moderator]

Ping to the above post 80

[Rashputin]

So if someone says an opinion some other poster expresses is all wrong because, for example, "no one on FR has ever said to kill all chickens that lay brown eggs". Later that same person says, "You can't find a single example of anyone who ever said to kill all chickens that lay brown eggs, can you?", (which is pretty much "impeaching the witness" by implication), the proper way to deal with that is to by first going to the thread where such a comment was in fact made.

From that thread, respond to the comment containing "Kill all chickens that . . . " in the original thread, including in the list of recipients the person who denies any such comment exists, as well as others actively involved in the thread and series of comments wherein it was said on such statement exists. Right?

[Religion Moderator]

Yes, because then the brown egg laying chicken remark is being argued in the context it was raised.

However, if another poster directly challenges you: "I've never said to kill brown egg laying chickens" then a direct link to his statement is a reasonable reply.

[Rashputin]

Thank you.

[Syncro]

My post of “strawman” was quite clear. See # 63.

Strawman comments are frivolous and will be posted to accordingly.

No code silly, you know what was meant by “couldn't find even one huh.”

I knew it couldn't be done, there are no posters fitting your strict description in 63.

See the strawman?

LOL, it's not ME doing any codes.

I state comments clearly, I ain't Quidam.

Maybe the Da Vinci Code thingie causes you to see “code” in a simple statement?

[Biggirl]

Thank-you.

[metmom]

Ping to post 80 for more on herding cats.