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The Brazen Clericalism of Cardinal Mahony
Crisis Magazine ^ | February 21, 2013 | George Neumayr

Posted on 02/21/2013 4:48:22 PM PST by NYer

Roger-Mahoney

As archbishop of Los Angeles, Roger Mahony was famous for his petulance, dispatching angry letters to priests and others whom he considered insufficiently deferential. But now that he finds himself in a subordinate position as a retired and rebuked bishop he displays none of the deference he once demanded.

No sooner had his successor stripped him of his diocese-wide “administrative” and “public” duties than the cardinal took to his “blog” to pout over the demotion through a snubbing letter. Hinting at a powerful faction of Los Angeles movers and shakers behind him while adopting a tone of passive-aggressive innocence, Cardinal Mahony wrote on his blog that “others” had “encouraged” him to publicize his letter to Archbishop Jose Gomez. “I hope you find it useful,” he said.

The letter was designed to embarrass, undercut, and scare his successor: “When you were formally received as our Archbishop on May 26, 2010, you began to become aware of all that had been done here over the years for the protection of children and youth. You became our official Archbishop on March 1, 2011 and you were personally involved with the Compliance Audit of 2012—again, in which we were deemed to be in full compliance. Not once over these past years did you ever raise any questions about our policies, practices, or procedures in dealing with the problem of clergy sexual misconduct involving minors.”

Sadly, Cardinal Mahony’s bullying seems to have worked at some level. Archbishop Gomez would have been justified in strengthening his original rebuke after this appalling letter (not to mention defending himself against its insinuations and fallacious misdirection). Instead, Archbishop Gomez has given some ground to him, writing to Los Angeles priests recently: “I am confident that Cardinal Mahony’s accomplishments and experience in the areas of immigration, social justice, sacred liturgy and the role of the laity in the church will serve the College of Cardinals well as it works to discern the will of the Holy Spirit in these deliberations that will lead to the election of our new pope.”

This is odd and unjustified praise for a cardinal who is principally known for secularizing the liturgy, blowing up at Mother Angelica, habitually defying papal directives on lay ministry, and routinely mistaking “social justice” for his own personal views in favor of socialism and amnesty. How could any of this “experience” possibly serve the College of Cardinals in its deliberations?

The irony of this line of praise is that even many of Cardinal Mahony’s old progressive defenders have abandoned it. Liberal editorial boards from coast to coast—which once would have been inclined to overlook his role in the abuse scandal out of gratitude for his leftism—no longer bother with that charade.

Obviously, Archbishop Gomez can’t prevent Cardinal Mahony from attending the conclave. But he shouldn’t weaken his original rebuke under bullying and factionalism. If anything, he should call on Cardinal Mahony to cease his self-justifying blogging (doesn’t that qualify as a “public” activity beyond ministering at his parish?), which makes the archdiocese look like amateur hour. Even by the low standards of the post-Vatican II Church, a retired bishop launching a public-relations assault on his successor from his blog represents an astonishing display of ecclesiastical dysfunction.

Cardinal Mahony’s clericalist habits are so ingrained that it wouldn’t occur to him that his behavior constitutes an open scandal. He has long confused his perceived personal good with the good of the Church and can’t stop himself now, even though his straining attempts at vindication open the Church up to enormous ridicule during the conclave, a problem that has led at least one Italian cardinal to suggest he sit it out. In an ecclesiastical culture that prized the salvation of souls over a bogus “collegiality” (which usually means letting derelict bishops repair their images and preserve their privileges at the expense of the Church’s common good), such spectacles of egotism would be unthinkable.

Back when the very editorial boards now condemning his participation in the conclave were calling for Cardinal Bernard Law’s demotion, where was Cardinal Mahony? He was eagerly joining the media’s cries for accountability, telling reporters exactly what they wanted to hear: that “he would find it difficult to walk down an aisle in church if he had been guilty of gross negligence.” Now that he finds himself on the receiving end of Law-like coverage, he is crying foul, taking to his blog to play the victim in a series of “Lenten” reflections on his Christ-like suffering. He says that he is working hard to “forgive” his critics.

“Given all of the storms that have surrounded me and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles recently, God’s grace finally helped me to understand: I am not being called to serve Jesus in humility. Rather, I am being called to something deeper—to be humiliated, disgraced, and rebuffed by many,” he wrote.

But he could have accepted Archbishop Gomez’s rebuke and adopted a low profile, in which case this scrutiny would have faded. Instead, he increased his visibility by parrying with Archbishop Gomez, by defying his demotion, and by issuing a stream of non-apology apologies sure to inflame victims, all the while “tweeting” and blogging as if the Los Angeles abuse scandal never occurred.

And now he wonders why he is a target? The public’s anger is simply a response to his clericalist clawing to power.



TOPICS: Catholic; Current Events; Moral Issues
KEYWORDS: mahony

1 posted on 02/21/2013 4:48:27 PM PST by NYer
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To: netmilsmom; thefrankbaum; Tax-chick; GregB; saradippity; Berlin_Freeper; Litany; SumProVita; ...

Ping! Anyone remember the encounter between Cardinal Mahony and Mother Angelica? The gloves came off and one episode of Mother Angelica Live was permanently filed away, never to be viewed again.


2 posted on 02/21/2013 4:50:40 PM PST by NYer ("Before I formed you in the womb I knew you." --Jeremiah 1:5)
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To: NYer
As archbishop of Los Angeles, Roger Mahony was famous for his petulance, dispatching angry letters to priests and others whom he considered insufficiently deferential. But now that he finds himself in a subordinate position as a retired and rebuked bishop he displays none of the deference he once demanded.

No sooner had his successor stripped him of his diocese-wide “administrative” and “public” duties than the cardinal took to his “blog” to pout over the demotion through a snubbing letter. Hinting at a powerful faction of Los Angeles movers and shakers behind him while adopting a tone of passive-aggressive innocence,

Sounds like he needs a wife to knock him off his high horse.

3 posted on 02/21/2013 4:56:20 PM PST by Lee N. Field ("You keep using that verse, but I do not think it means what you think it means." --I. Montoya)
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To: NYer
Anyone remember the encounter between Cardinal Mahony and Mother Angelica? The gloves came off and one episode of Mother Angelica Live was permanently filed away, never to be viewed again.

No! Do tell!

4 posted on 02/21/2013 7:09:23 PM PST by ottbmare (The OTTB Mare)
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To: Lee N. Field

A wife? No. He’ll get his due soon enough. I do not see a contrite, penitent heart in this one.


5 posted on 02/21/2013 7:25:29 PM PST by ottbmare (The OTTB Mare)
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To: All

Comparing his deserved humiliation to Christ’s suffering speaks to the depravity of this man.


6 posted on 02/21/2013 9:37:04 PM PST by rbmillerjr (We have No Opposition to Obama's Socialist Agenda)
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To: NYer
Seems to me that a "Wise Man" once said that those who humble themselves will be exalted, and those who exalt themselves will be humbled.

Seems to me that a Catholic Cardinal, or any Catholic for that matter, should be familiar with this concept.

Perhaps His Eminence should read that little book by "Matthew" ... or maybe that little book by "Luke" a little more carefully than he is accustomed to doing.

7 posted on 02/21/2013 9:43:52 PM PST by ArrogantBustard (Western Civilization is Aborting, Buggering, and Contracepting itself out of existence.)
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To: NYer
Seems to me that a "Wise Man" once said that those who humble themselves will be exalted, and those who exalt themselves will be humbled.

Seems to me that a Catholic Cardinal, or any Catholic for that matter, should be familiar with this concept.

Perhaps His Eminence should read that little book by "Matthew" ... or maybe that little book by "Luke" a little more carefully than he is accustomed to doing.

8 posted on 02/21/2013 9:43:52 PM PST by ArrogantBustard (Western Civilization is Aborting, Buggering, and Contracepting itself out of existence.)
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To: NYer
Even by the low standards of the post-Vatican II Church, a retired bishop launching a public-relations assault on his successor from his blog represents an astonishing display of ecclesiastical dysfunction.

I don't think Archbishop Gomez should get involved in the mud-slinging. Cardinal Mahoney is gonna continue to act like a petulant 4 year old, and folks are gonna get sick of it. Gomez will look positively towering in comparison.

9 posted on 02/21/2013 9:46:08 PM PST by SuziQ
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To: NYer

She should have challenged him to a real boxing match. He would have ended up on the floor.


10 posted on 02/21/2013 9:56:42 PM PST by RobbyS (Christus rex.)
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To: SuziQ

I wish that Gomez had gotten the red hat but that will have to wait for now.


11 posted on 02/22/2013 3:39:07 AM PST by Biggirl ("Jesus talked to us as individuals"-Jim Vicevich/Thanks JimV!)
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To: Lee N. Field

If he had a wife, he’d treat her like **** and she would leave him. A creep’s a creep, married or unmarried.


12 posted on 02/22/2013 6:17:07 AM PST by Tax-chick (Whatever happens, I'll get through it. Or die trying.)
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To: Tax-chick
If he had a wife, he’d treat her like **** and she would leave him. A creep’s a creep, married or unmarried.

I'd put in what I did as a counterpoint to the usual sarcastic "if only they could marry, oh, yeah." that we hear from certain parties around here when a Protestant minister is caught in some sexual sin.

But then I thought, "Bill & Hillary". Sometimes the married reinforce each other.

Part of the judgment on Adam and Eve was disordered relations between the sexes.

13 posted on 02/22/2013 9:08:46 AM PST by Lee N. Field ("You keep using that verse, but I do not think it means what you think it means." --I. Montoya)
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To: Lee N. Field
... to the usual sarcastic "if only they could marry, oh, yeah."

Well, aside from being sarcastic, it does make the point, consistent with the statistical data, that marriage doesn't prevent any sexual sin except fornication, since it's adultery if a person is married.

And you're right ... Bill and Hillary, Barry and Michelle ... maybe a turkey like Mahoney would have found the "right woman" for him.

14 posted on 02/22/2013 9:47:52 AM PST by Tax-chick (Whatever happens, I'll get through it. Or die trying.)
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To: NYer

I read about Mother Angelica’s encounter with Mahoney in her biography. We were not Catholics then - I would have loved to have seen it. Mahoney should crawl under a rock on some island and stay there. We here in LA have had it with him. Has he no shame? (rhetorical Q).


15 posted on 02/22/2013 3:35:55 PM PST by bboop (does not suffer fools gladly)
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To: NYer

Well I heard talk about it...wish it were available on the net somewhere.


16 posted on 02/23/2013 1:52:14 PM PST by exPBRrat
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To: exPBRrat; bboop
Well I heard talk about it...wish it were available on the net somewhere.

Here you go.


Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles has taken his complaints about Mother Angelica and her cable television network EWTN to the Vatican, according to the cardinal’s spokesperson. Sources close to mahony say he intends to demand fundamental changes in both the management style and the on-air tone of the controversial Catholic media outlet.

“The cardinal wants the Holy See to do something about Mother Angelica’s whole attitude that she is not responsible to the National Conference of Catholic Bishops or to any of the individual bishops,” said Capuchin Fr. Gregory Coiro, director of media relations for the Los Angeles archdiocese. “It goes beyond her criticism of the cardinal — it’s about how the network operates and to whom it is accountable,” he said.

While Mahony was in Rome for the recent Synod for America, Coiro said, he approached the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life, under the direction of Cardinal Eduardo Martinez Somalo, and the Pontifical Council for Social Communications under American Archbishop John Foley. In both cases, Coiro said, Mahony discussed EWTN and the changes he thinks are necessary.

To date, Mahony has not received a formal response from either office, Coiro said.

On her nationally syndicated television program Nov. 12, 1997, Mother Angelica criticized Mahony’s pastoral letter on the Sunday liturgy for what she regarded as insufficient emphasis on the real presence of Jesus in the eucharistic elements of bread and wine. She called on Catholics in the Los Angeles archdiocese to practice “zero obedience.” Though expressing regret for those remarks on her Nov. 18 show, Angelica took that occasion to deepen her criticism of the pastoral letter (NCR, Dec. 5).

After having initially protested Angelica’s remarks in a Nov. 14 letter, Mahony wrote her again on Dec. 1; Coiro read portions of that letter to NCR. In it Mahony wrote, “What saddens me most is that EWTN has such potential for being a positive tool for the new evangelization … [but] when a network features programs that attack and criticize its own bishops publicly, how can that build up the body of Christ, the church?”

Mahony demanded that Angelica read an apology on the air, to be written by Bishop David Foley of Birmingham, Ala., where EWTN is located. Mahony asked that the apology be read a minimum of four times between Dec. 1 and Dec. 25. According to Coiro, no such apology occurred.

“What must non-Catholic viewers who were watching the program on Nov. 18 think?” Mahony asked Angelica in his Dec. 1 letter. “Would they have been interested in your level of ‘confusion’ about my pastoral letter or would they have been more interested in hearing the good news of Jesus Christ and his saving presence within our church?”

Mahony now appears to want more than a retraction from the TV nun. According to sources close to Mahony, he believes EWTN should be reoriented so it plays what he feels is a positive role in the church’s evangelization efforts and cooperates with the U.S. bishops in how it goes about that task. The cardinal thinks that EWTN’s broadcasts sometimes “damage and diminish” positive work being done in the church, those sources told NCR. What changes such a reorientation would mean in practice is not yet clear.

According to Coiro, Angelica’s remarks about Mahony and his pastoral constitute “technically, a very serious violation of canon law.” In his letter, Mahony referred to Canon 753, which obliges catholics to respect the teaching office of the diocesan bishop and specifies that only the pope and whoever at the Vatican he empowers may correct a bishop’s teaching.

Coiro said he also feels Canon 1373, which forbids anyone from exciting disobedience against the pope or the bishops, and provides for interdiction or other “just penalties,” would apply to Angelica’s remarks. An interdiction is a church penalty that deprives Catholics of certain spiritual privileges, such as the right to receive the sacraments.

Mahony is consulting canonists to determine what options exist to bring pressure onto EWTN and Mother Angelica, sources told NCR. At the same time, however, they said the cardinal wants to avoid a protracted public fight with Angelica, so much of this activity is going on behind the scenes.

Coiro said he wasn’t sure what response Mahony is hoping for from the Vatican. “Is he looking for Rome to slap an interdict on EWTN, which technically would be justified under the circumstances?” he said. “Probably not, though I wouldn’t rule it out. But what other options are being explored, I don’t know.”

Coiro said he also was not sure when Rome would respond. “Sometimes things in Rome move slowly, so we’ll just have to wait and see,” he said. “But one thing is sure — we’re not just letting it drop.”

EWTN spokespersons did not return phone calls seeking comment for this article. Foley of the Birmingham diocese likewise indicated through an assistant that he did not wish to comment. The assistant said that Foley was “dealing directly with Cardinal Mahony” on the matter.

Mahony or other prelates seeking to influence EWTN may find tough going. At the 1996 “Call to Holiness” conference in Detroit, Angelica told a story about “three or four” bishops she refused to interview at a bishops’ meeting. She said they demanded to know by whose authority she turned them down, and she responded, “I own the network.” According to Angelica, when the bishops said she wouldn’t always be there, she responded, “Well, I’ll blow the damn thing up before you get it” (NCR, Dec. 6, 1996).

EWTN claims to be the world’s largest religious cable network, with 1,600 affiliates reaching 54 million homes. According to its Web site, EWTN is shown in 34 different countries and four territories. Additional millions are reached through EWTN radio and Internet broacasts.

In a related development, Bishop Thomas Tobin of the Youngstown, Ohio, diocese — Mother Angelica’s home diocese — recently published an appeal in his diocesan newspaper for Angelica to invite Mahony onto EWTN to discuss their differences. Sources close to Mahony say he has received no such invitation and has no plans at present to appear on the network. ref


From Wikipedia

In 1997, Mother Angelica publicly criticized Cardinal Roger Mahony, then the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, for his pastoral letter on the Eucharist called "Gather Faithfully Together: A Guide for Sunday Mass", which she perceived had a lack of emphasis on transubstantiation:[18] "I’m afraid my obedience in that diocese would be absolutely zero. And I hope everybody else’s in that diocese is zero".[19] Cardinal Mahony regarded her comments as accusing him of heresy.[20] Mother Angelica later issued a conditional, albeit reluctant, apology for her comments. ref

As freeper bboop noted, the best narrative appears in Raymond Arroyo's book.


17 posted on 02/23/2013 3:44:19 PM PST by NYer ("Before I formed you in the womb I knew you." --Jeremiah 1:5)
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To: NYer

Thanks, I did first hear of it in Raymond Arroyo’s wonderful bio of Mother Angelica. I suppose I hoped there was a YouTube of the encounter that had escaped. Such a vicious man. He took on the wrong person.


18 posted on 02/23/2013 6:32:41 PM PST by bboop (does not suffer fools gladly)
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To: Tax-chick
Well, aside from being sarcastic, it does make the point, consistent with the statistical data, that marriage doesn't prevent any sexual sin except fornication, since it's adultery if a person is married.

We had a thread, not too long ago, about the conversion to Christianity of Rosaria Butterfield.

She was a feminist, lesbian, postmodern tenured English professor, and came out of all that abruptly, to Christianity. I'm reading her book now.

She has some interesting insights into homosexuality and sexual sin, and the nature of marriage.

Not done with it yet, and I think I'll want to go over it again. Worth the read, IMHO.

19 posted on 02/28/2013 7:39:52 PM PST by Lee N. Field ("You keep using that verse, but I do not think it means what you think it means." --I. Montoya)
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