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<p>LOS ANGELES — About 800 people across California took advantage of a 12-month window last year to file molestation lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Church, according to lawyers for the plaintiffs.</p> <p>Negotiations over the claims, they said, could yield one of the largest clergy abuse settlements in the nation's history.</p>

800 Church Abuse Cases Filed in Calif.Tuesday January 6, 2004 10:16 AM By GILLIAN FLACCUSAssociated Press WriterLOS ANGELES (AP) - About 800 people across California took advantage of a 12-month window last year to file molestation lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Church, according to lawyers for the plaintiffs. Negotiations over the claims, they said, could yield one of the largest clergy abuse settlements in the nation's history. The initial estimate came as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops prepared Tuesday to announce how well its 195 dioceses have followed the church's 2-year-old policy created in response to the clergy sex...

Hit and Run Liberals By George Neumayr Published 6/18/2003 12:04:00 AM Phoenix Bishop Thomas O'Brien's hit-and-run incident is a metaphor for the America Catholic Church under limousine liberals. It speaks of "social justice," then leaves a trail of victims in its wake. It calls for "responsibility," then shirks it with surreal cravenness. A carpenter is left to bleed to death while the bishop who hit him speeds away in a luxury car. This is an apt image for a liberal club that preaches a Christianity indifferent to Christ the carpenter -- a Christianity so flabby, secularized and morally empty that...

Minister arrested for praying, reading in front of DC abortion clinicBy Daniel S. McClintockReverend Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, has been arrested in Washington D.C. after praying and reading the Bible to close to an abortion clinic, despite a 1998 court order. The order made it illegal for pro-life protestors to protest abortion within 20 feet of an abortion clinic. "If Mister Ashcroft wants to incarcerate an American citizen for simply reading scripture on a public sidewalk, I would find that most troubling, particularly in today's climate, where America is facing terrorist attack," he said Tuesday. Rev....

RECEIVED THE FOLLOWING E-MAIL FROM THE MATT SALMON FOR GOVERNOR CAMPAIGN...       This Tuesday, June 4th 2002 at 5-7 p.m. Doors open at 4:00 and voting takes place between 5:00 and 6:45 p.m. The winner will be announced after 6:45 p.m.         Mesa Centennial Hall 201 N. Center Between University and 1st St.Click for a Map         Cost: $10 per ticket which includes a buffet style dinner. Proceeds go to the local Chambers of Commerce. You will be trading your ticket in for a ballot in order to vote. What to Wear:...

<p>CNN) -- City officials Friday asked the Los Angeles Police Department to investigate whether Cardinal Roger Mahony and others within the archdiocese may have violated criminal laws by failing to report allegations of child sexual abuse.</p> <p>"I encourage you as the new chief of the Los Angeles Police Department to investigate these allegations ... so that we can determine if prosecutions are warranted," said Los Angeles City Attorney Rockard Delgadillo in a letter to Chief Martin Pomeroy, who took over as acting chief following the resignation of Bernard Parks last month.</p>

Mahony sued under racketeering laws 4 men say L.A. cardinal conspired to protect their molesters Elizabeth Fernandez, Harriet Chiang, Chronicle Staff Writers Tuesday, April 30, 2002 Cardinal Roger Mahony, head of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese in Los Angeles, was accused in two lawsuits yesterday of violating federal racketeering laws by protecting priests who molested children. The lawsuits were filed in Los Angeles on behalf of two sets of brothers who claimed a priest victimized them when they were children in the 1960s and '70s. The suits allege that Mahony and others in the church conspired to cover up sex crimes...

In a six-month period in 1692, religion-fired mass hysteria resulted in 19 women being hanged in the Massachusetts Bay Colony town of Salem because a lot of little girls, writhing in the spotlight, accused them of being "possessed." When sanity returned to the colony, 150 others awaiting trial were freed and the 19 declared innocent of witchcraft. But they remained, nonetheless, dead. It was a classic case of the kind of mindless fear that too often results in death or character assassination. In Salem, it was death. In the Commie-hunting McCarthy era less than 300 years later, it was character...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Cardinal Roger Mahony, the head of the nation's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese, said Friday he has been accused of molesting a female student at a Catholic high school in 1970. The cardinal made the revelation in a three-page statement faxed to The Associated Press. He denied the woman's allegations, made last month to Fresno church officials, and said he has called for both church and law enforcement officials to investigate. Mahony is believed to be the highest-ranking sitting church official to be accused of sexual misconduct in the scandal that has engulfed dioceses across the country...