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Through his well-chronicled derelictions of duty, Roger Mahony, the cardinal emeritus of Los Angeles, placed a number of ticking time bombs near his successor's feet. Last week, one of them went off. Archbishop Jose Gomez, who replaced Mahony last year, announced that Los Angeles auxiliary bishop Gabino Zavala had submitted his resignation to the Vatican after fessing up about two children he fathered years before.The media fatuously describes this scandal as Archbishop Gomez's first "controversy." But it belongs entirely to his predecessor. Cardinal Mahony appointed Zavala to his position in 1994. Did Cardinal Mahony know about Zavala's children? (The Los...

DETROIT, Michgan, March 15, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Canon lawyer and Vatican legal consultant Edward Peters has countered one cardinal’s argument that publicly pro-abortion politicians should be granted communion because Jesus Christ gave Holy Communion to Judas Iscariot. Cardinal Roger Mahoney, archbishop emeritus of Los Angeles, made the comparison in an interview with Los Angeles Times reporter Tim Rutten published March 9. Mahoney said that politicians shouldn’t be punished if they “aren’t able to act� on their Catholic principles and claimed, in Rutten’s words, that “canon law ... puts the responsibility for worthy receipt of the sacrament on the person approaching...

Archbishop Jose H. Gomez Los Angeles, Calif., Feb 28, 2011 / 02:21 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- With the retirement of Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, Archbishop Jose H. Gomez has taken over leadership of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the largest in the United States.“L.A. is home for me now,” the Mexican-born archbishop told the cardinal and the assembled worshipers at a Mass marking the transition of leadership on Feb. 27. “I pray that I will be worthy of continuing the work that you have begun here.” Before a crowd of 3,500 faithful at Los Angeles' Cathedral of Our Lady of...

As a 10 year-old boy working alongside Mexican workers in a Hollywood, Calif., poultry processing plant owned by his father, Cardinal Roger Mahony said he felt terrorized when the border patrol raided the business one day and intimidated workers with their guns. It was one of many experiences that made Mahony, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Los Angeles, the church's most outspoken advocate on behalf of immigration reform. Wednesday night he spoke about the issue to students, professors and fellow Catholics during a lecture at UNC Chapel Hill's FedEx Global Education Center. Stories such as the one he told might...

In a letter to parishes dated October 4-- the memorial of St. Francis of Assisi-- Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles will announce the formation of the Archdiocesan Creation Sustainability Ministry, according to the electronic newsletter of the Catholic Climate Covenant. “We exhort our faith communities and all our brothers and sisters to take the St. Francis Pledge, an initiative that urges Catholics nationwide to pray for, learn about, assess, act and advocate for populations affected by climate change, especially those that are most vulnerable,” Cardinal Mahony adds. “The St. Francis Pledge is a promise and a commitment by Catholic...

I've said many times that Cardinal Roger Mahony should stop resisting the release of church documents in the sex abuse scandal. But after a Mahony deposition in a molestation case was made public by the courts last week at the request of The Times, I can see why the cardinal has fought to keep things under wraps. The deposition involved former priest Michael Baker, who is now serving a 10-year sentence for molestation. After he confessed to Mahony in 1986 that he had molested two boys, Mahony sent him to one of the drive-through "treatment" centers used by the church...

Consider this exchange between the cardinal and attorney John Manly, who was representing one of Baker's...victims: Manly: I mean, you would agree with me that the first thing any priest should do … when you learn that a priest has molested a child is call the police, right? Mahony: Not necessarily. It's not a difficult question. A child is abused; that's a crime, so you call the police and rush to the aid of the minor, right? Not Mahony. And despite admitting mistakes, he continues to blame his failure on the times, the circumstances, the procedures that were in place....

Cardinal Roger Mahony greets Archbishop José H. Gomez during the welcoming Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on Wednesday. They came from everywhere: cardinals in red skullcaps from the Vatican and Philadelphia, priests and parishioners from Newbury Park, Camarillo and Ventura who battled motion sickness on commuter trains or prayed for parking. Juan Cano, a 27-year-old Camarillo seminarian, stood outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles on Wednesday, his tie rippling in the breeze, for the same reason as the 4,000 others: History. He came to watch Coadjutor Archbishop José H....

On Saturday evening, already feeling "the enormity" of what lay ahead, the figure who'll become Los Angeles' fifth archbishop arrived quietly at LAX, accompanied by his two sisters. Whether José Gomez's Ford Taurus has likewise made the trip remains unclear at press time. Still, as one local op noted, the reserved prelate's inauspicious touchdown was a far cry from the old days -- in February 1948, Archbishop-elect James McIntyre's train was met outside the city by the 36 year-old auxiliary, Bishop Timothy Manning, who escorted the New Yorker into Downtown, where a frenzied crowd of thousands waited at the...

Arizona's new immigration enforcement law, roundly criticized by many Catholic leaders as repressive, offers the country an opportunity to rally behind - and the Catholic Church to lead the quest for - comprehensive and humane immigration reform legislation, Cardinal Roger Mahony said May 3 at Fordham University in New York. "The Catholic community is central to victory and justice on this issue," said the cardinal. "We are an immigrant Church ourselves, since the founding days of the Republic. The immigrant experience is our own, having come to these shores from all parts of the world. We should be front and...

The chairman of the U.S. bishops Committee on Migration and Archbishop Dolan have joined a growing chorus of opposition to Arizona's harsh new immigration law— while Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles told a Fordham University audience this week that the law could have the unintended effect of reviving the immigration reform movement. "Thank you, Arizona," said Cardinal Mahony at a May 3 forum at Fordham's Lincoln Center campus in Manhattan titled "Immigration Reform: A Moral Imperative." "With the stroke of her pen, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer not only signed into law the country's most retrogressive, mean-spirited and useless anti-immigrant...

In commenting on the "Real Enforcement with Practical Answers for Immigration Reform" (REPAIR) proposal offered by Senate Democrats, the top Catholic in the U.S. on immigration issues says that it spends too much money on border enforcement and not enough on bailing out the economies of Mexico and Central America. Bishop John C. Wester, Chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Committee on Migration issued a statement on Friday declaring that the Bishops "have concerns about the increases in enforcement resources contained in the framework" because "the United States has poured billions of dollars into immigration enforcement" and...

FRESNO, California, April 26, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A suspended gay activist Fresno priest has expressed dismay over the pope's appointment of Archbishop José Gomez to head the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in place of Cardinal Roger Mahony.California Catholic Daily last week highlighted Rev. Geoffrey Farrow's April 17 blog post referring to Gomez's appointment: "What does this mean for the future of the Catholic Church in Los Angeles and California? It means a sharp thrust to the right." Rev. Farrow was suspended from the priesthood in 2008 when he declared himself an open homosexual and urged his congregation to vote against Proposition 8,...

ARIZONA'S DREADFUL ANTI-IMMIGRANT LAW The Arizona legislature just passed the country's most retrogressive, mean-spirited, and useless anti-immigrant law [SB 1070, awaiting the expected signature of Gov. Jan Brewer]. The tragedy of the law is its totally flawed reasoning: that immigrants come to our country to rob, plunder, and consume public resources. That is not only false, the premise is nonsense. What led the Arizona legislature to pass such a law is so obvious to all of us who have been working for federal comprehensive immigration reform: the present immigration system is completely incapable of balancing our nation's need for labor...

The Saturday afternoon post in my rectory usually remains unopened until Tuesday morning;—there's certainly nothing I'm going to do with it on a Saturday or Sunday, and I'm off on Monday—but, for some reason I came in from Saturday evening Vespers and decided to open it today anyway. Among the bills was one of the strangest advertisements I've ever received. It's from the Trappist Monks at New Melleray Abbey in Peosta, Indiana. After a brief instruction on how the Rule of St. Benedict requires the monks to earn a living by the work of their hands, comes the deadpan pitch:...

Blessing for the City of Angels At the USCCB Fall Meeting in Baltimore in November of 2008, I had the privilege of sitting down for a brief conversation with the man that Pope Benedict XVI recently named as Coadjutor and the next Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles; Most Reverend José H. Gomez, S.T.D. As I made arrangements for the interview that afternoon, I’ll never forget what the USCCB Media Relations staffer said to me just before His Excellency and I sat down, “Be nice to Archbishop Gomez, he’s my friend!” I soon got a sense for why this...

Archbishop Jose Gomez of San Antonio takes questions from the media at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels this morning | AP Photo/Damian DovarganesJose Gomez, the current Archbishop of San Antonio, is slated to take over the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, according to the LA Times, which notes that the Archdiocese is "by far the nation’s largest and is dominated by parishioners with roots in his native Mexico." He will take over for Cardinal Roger Mahony. Mahony, who was known for his progressive ways, his stance on immigration rights and whose name was dragged through the clergy sex...

Vatican rumor: an American prelate in play?    By Phil Lawler | March 01, 2010 4:14 PM Cardinal Roger Mahony celebrated his 74th birthday on Saturday, and at his suggestion the Los Angeles archdiocese has already begun praying for his successor: a coadjutor archbishop whose appointment is expected in the near future. It will be a very important appointment, so naturally the rumor mills in Rome are working overtime, churning out the names of possible leaders for the largest archdiocese in the US.One professional Vatican-watcher, Paolo Rodari, reports that he is hearing the name of Archbishop James Harvey mentioned frequently. As...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles confirmed Thursday that a search is under way for a successor to Cardinal Roger Mahony, who has spent 25 years as the spiritual leader of the nation's largest diocese. Mahony turns 74 on Feb. 27 and under church rules, bishops submit their resignation at age 75 to the pope.

Friday, January 29, 2010 Los Angeles Getting a New Archbishop (Part 1) Catholic blogger Thomas Peters over at the American Papist has been posting (here, here, and here) that a coadjuter bishop has been appointed for Los Angeles. Rocco Palmo at Whispers in the Loggia has confirmed that something is imminent, reporting that the news will come around the cardinal's 74th birthday, February 27th. The coadjuter would of course become Cardinal Mahony's successor (for more on what Church law says about coadjutor bishops go here). That an appointment has already been made was denied by the official diocesan spokesman, but...

Over recent months, a growing wildfire of chatter -- both from the West Coast and points beyond -- has carried word of an expedited timetable on what'll arguably be Benedict XVI's most important pick for the Stateside bench: the pontiff's choice of a successor to Cardinal Roger Mahony as head of the nation's largest local church, the 5 million-member archdiocese of Los Angeles. While this desk has spent practically all of January tracking the talk -- hence the low posting of late -- the story broke into the open late last week after the American Papist blogger Thomas Peters...

Pope Benedict XVI will soon appoint a coadjutor archbishop of Los Angeles, according to an American Catholic blogger. Writing on the Catholic Vote Action blog, and citing “reliable authority,” Thomas Peters says that Cardinal Roger Mahony has approved the coadjutor, and an announcement is imminent. The coadjutor would succeed Cardinal Mahony when he retires. Cardinal Mahony has enjoyed a remarkably long tenure as Archbishop of Los Angeles, having taken that post in 1985. However he is still well short of the normative retirement age-- he will not turn 75 until February 2011—and although bishops are obliged to submit their resignations...

September 23, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a recent interview with CNSNews.com, Cardinal Roger Mahoney declined to answer a question about whether or not he agreed with Cardinal Justin Rigali that the Obama health care bill should include language explicitly excluding any public funding of abortion. "This is way beyond my field," the cardinal responded."My field is immigration," said Mahoney, who is the archbishop of Los Angeles. "I really haven't kept up on that, and I spend all my time on this other. You have to get somebody who spends time on that."When asked whether he believed abortion should be funded under...

Cardinal Mahony calls Kennedy a champion of the powerless August 26, 2009 Cardinal Roger Mahony issued a statement today calling the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) a champion of "the voiceless, the powerless and the most needy of our citizens." Mahony recalled how the two worked together after the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act was introduced in 2007. Kennedy "was keenly aware of the plight of immigrant peoples in our nation and was an advocate for their rights and their full inclusion into the culture and economy of our country." Mahony was one of several prominent California figures to issue...

A former champion surfer, Mary Setterholm suffered sexual abuse and turned to prostitution before finding a new path. Next month, she’ll begin the master’s of divinity program at Columbia University’s Union Theological Seminary. Real life stories of redemption and healing don't get much better than this. How long until Lifetime turns it into a movie? From the Los Angeles Times: It's another beautiful day in paradise and I'm out on the ocean, riding waves with a former national surfing champion and onetime prostitute who's about to join a seminary. Go ahead, try to name one other state where I could...

Cardinal Roger Mahony on Tuesday banned Holocaust-denying British Bishop Richard Williamson from any Roman Catholic church, school or other facility in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. If this isn't piling on, I don't know what is. The blog has had plenty to say about Bishop Williamson but this is pretty darn ridiculous coming from Cardinal Mahony. In The Tidings, Mahony wrote: In the Los Angeles Archdiocese, Williamson is hereby banned from entering any Catholic church, school or other facility, until he and his group comply fully and unequivocally with the Vatican's directives regarding the Holocaust. Later this year, I, Cardinal...

The U.S. attorney in Los Angeles is pursuing the theory that the prelate deprived parishioners of 'the right of honest services' by failing to protect their children from predatory clerics. By Scott Glover and Jack Leonard 4:44 PM PST, January 28, 2009 The U.S. attorney in Los Angeles has launched a federal grand jury investigation into Cardinal Roger M. Mahony in connection with his response to the alleged molestation of children by priests in the Los Angeles Archdiocese, according to two law enforcement sources familiar with the case. The probe, in which U.S. Atty. Thomas P. O'Brien is personally involved,...

I was able to visit the Los Angeles Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels yesterday. More will be said on its architecture in a later post. However, I did visit the gift shop, which has many nice Catholic books and other things. The problem came when I began talking with a man who worked there. His customer service couldn't have been better. His shiny jewelry and over-the-top attitude was a bit off-putting, but it was California, after all. My friend was looking for a rosary for his girlfriend, and the store worker started asking him about her favorite colors,...

Pope Benedict XVI came as our Pastor and as our Shepherd, and he spoke to us of our most human joys and sorrows, our hopes and our failures. He came in the name of Jesus Christ and he reminded us "to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus" [Hebrews 12:2]. Our Holy Father did not hesitate to lift up for us challenges and difficulties which our Church was facing here in the United States, but he never left us alone with our failures and problems. He stood with us, acknowledged the shame of sinful behavior, and urged us forward in...

Robert Blair Kaiser, the East Valley Tribune informs readers, was once "a young journalist covering the heady and historic Vatican Council II in Rome for Time magazine." It appears that the "the Phoenix journalist and Jesuit-educated Catholic" is still lost in the Sixties, having written eleven books, "including four that deal with a call for church reform in the spirit of that council." His latest is a novel titled Cardinal Mahoney that depicts the Archbishop of Los Angeles being kidnapped by liberation theologians (I'm not making this stuff up; Kaiser is), and taken to a "southern Mexican jungle compound": In...

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles has sold its 12-story administrative headquarters building to help pay last year's $660 million settlement with people alleging sex abuse by clergy, a spokesman said Tuesday.The Archdiocesan Catholic Center was sold to Jamison Properties of Los Angeles for $31 million, archdiocese spokesman Tod Tamberg said.Staffers who oversee the archdiocese's cemeteries will move to office space on the grounds of a cemetery, Tamberg said. Others will consolidate in four of the building's floors that church officials will lease from the new owner, Tamberg said.Tamberg did not know what would be on the building's other...

Cardinal Roger Mahony Wednesday called on Roman Catholics to stand in solidarity with immigrants as "one Church, one community, one people of God" as he celebrated the traditional "Mananitas" Mass in honor of the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Mahony also reaffirmed the commitment of the U.S. bishops to just and human comprehensive reform. "The raids, divisions of families, insecurity in the workplace, lack of drivers' licenses, the stigma of being label 'illegal' without rights - these are injustices faced by our immigrant community crying out for God's intervention," Mahony said in Spanish to a crowd of some...

Thousands of Catholics from throughout the greater Los Angeles area gathered in East Los Angeles Dec. 2 to honor Our Lady of Guadalupe as the mother of all peoples -- from every language, race and culture. A mile-long procession, the oldest religious procession in the city honoring Mary, led participants to East Los Angeles College Stadium, where Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and the auxiliary bishops of Los Angeles, numerous priests and more than 15,000 of the faithful gathered for Mass. The theme this year was "Mother Without Borders: Bringing Down the Walls of Injustice." The event was part of a...

Attorneys have requested a temporary restraining order against a man they claim threatened Cardinal Roger Mahony and other Los Angeles archdiocese officials. Documents filed yesterday in the restraining order petition accuse Edward George Filek of breaking into Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral early Monday and making threats against Mahony and other cathedral workers. Mahony recently told fellow priests that he was assaulted earlier this year in the wake of the Catholic Church's sexual-abuse scandal. Filek is not linked to that attack.

Since yesterday's post about Cardinal Mahony's claim that he was violently assaulted this summer is receiving a great deal of traction, I've decided to post an update. For starters, in today's world you can't simply mention to your priests "Oh, and by the way I was assaulted" and expect it to stay quiet. Indeed, LAPD detectives began investigating Mahony's report yesterday (the same day the story went public): LAPD detectives Tuesday began investigating reports that Cardinal Roger Mahony told hundreds of priests he was assaulted by a man angered over the Catholic Church's sexual-abuse scandal, police said. Police found...

Cardinal Roger Mahony was physically assaulted by a man enraged by the Catholic Church's sexual-abuse scandal within days of a record settlement with hundreds of victims, the Daily News has learned. Mahony, 71, revealed the attack during an annual conference in October before hundreds of stunned priests, saying a man assaulted him because of the scandal, according to four priests who attended the conference. News of the assault comes as the bulk of the church's $660million settlement with victims began being paid out Monday, with more than $500million in checks going out in the mail. The settlement with 508 alleged...

Cardinal Roger Mahony has honored Jesuit Fr. Robert Lawton, president of Loyola Marymount University of Los Angeles, as one of the recipients of the 2008 Cardinal’s Award, according to a story in the Sept. 21 edition of the Tidings, the weekly newspaper of the Los Angeles archdiocese. Since 1999, Lawton has had “the vision to integrate the university into all aspects of community life of Los Angeles,” said the Tidings’ article. Under Lawton, the archdiocese and the university have enjoyed amicable relations. With the archdiocese’s Hindu-Catholic Dialogue, the university offered an April 2005 symposium featuring “ecofeminist” Rosemary Radford Ruether, who...

Three nuns who recently learned that their Santa Barbara convent would be sold to help cover the costs of Los Angeles' multimillion-dollar priest sexual abuse settlement say they have been overwhelmed with offers of help -- and media attention."The support has been just unbelievable," said Sister Angela Escalera, the local superior of the Sisters of Bethany house. "It's come from all parts of Santa Barbara and outside too. And from all denominations. It's just astounding." She and two other nuns at the small, eastside convent received word in late August that the dwelling, which is owned by the Roman Catholic...

In order to raise the cash to make its pederasty payment, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles is selling a convent that currently provides a residence for three nuns. The anticipated selling price is a drop in the bucket of the roughly $250 million needed to keep the archbishop out of the witness box meet the Archdiocese's liabilities in the sex-abuse settlements, and the convent is one of about 50 non-parish properties to be sold. The sisters have been asked to vacate the house by the end of December. From the point of view of the archdiocesan business office it's not...

Los Angeles, Sep 5, 2007 / 10:11 am (CNA).- Thanks to local preservationists and an astute developer, the former cathedral of Los Angeles was returned to its previous structural glory last week. The former St. Vibiana Cathedral, now simply named Vibiana and converted into a concert and events hall, got its 3,500-pound cupola back Aug. 30, reported the L.A. Times. The moment ended an 11-year campaign to save the downtown landmark. The historic cathedral was marked for demolition after it suffered structural damage in a 1994 earthquake. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles decided that repairs would cost more than the...

Massive PR machine? Some say Cardinal Mahony’s willingness to meet with sexual abuse victims nothing more than a public relations stunt Over the past year, Cardinal Roger Mahony has met individually with 70 victims of clergy sexual abuse. Archdiocesan spokesman Tod Tamberg told the July 30 Los Angeles Times that Mahony has scheduled more meetings with sexual abuse victims and that “he has said he will meet with any victim who wants to meet with him.” But Lee Bashworth, 37, who claims abuse by former priest Michael Wempe, told the Times, that, though he would “relish an opportunity to tell...

...but it's not gonna happen. Why not? Two reasons: First, from all appearances, the standing policy of Rome is not to micromanage particular Churches (meaning "local dioceses and archdioceses") unless the bishop is directly involved in the abuse of victims. That's why O'Connell was removed but bishops who merely shuffled or covered up abusers are still there. This would appear to be partly due to Ut Unum Sint, which goes a long way toward articulating a role for the Pope as "first among equals" and not as an Innocent III Christian Caesar who treats all other bishops as flunkey and...

Phil Lawler of CWNews: Five years ago Cardinal Roger Mahony was reportedly encouraging Vatican officials to ask for the resignation of Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law. Using the same logical arguments that the American prelate presented in 2002, the Vatican should now ask Cardinal Mahony himself to step down. The sensational cost of the sex-abuse scandal for the Los Angeles archdiocese far exceeds the devastation in Boston. The $660-million legal settlement announced on July 16 is nearly five times the total of the financial damages in Boston. Combining that settlement with previous agreements, lawyers' fees, and other associated costs, the...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The leader of the largest U.S. Roman Catholic archdiocese apologized on Sunday for what he called a "terrible sin and crime" as the church confirmed it would pay a record $660 million to people who were sexually abused by priests. Facing trial on Monday over abuse allegations dating as far back as the 1940s, the Archdiocese led by Cardinal Roger Mahony agreed to pay 508 victims the largest-ever group settlement. "I have come to understand far more deeply that I ever could the impact of this terrible sin and crime that has affected their lives," said...

Karen Hall posts: In the middle of the L.A. Times article, one happens upon this staggering statistic: In Los Angeles, some 75% of the archdiocese's 288 parishes were served at some time by a cleric accused of molesting, according to a Times study. As the scandal's details slowly emerged, it became clear that the church hierarchy knew about complaints against some priests and that at least a dozen were allowed to continue working in ministry after their conduct with children was questioned. (emphasis mine) Now, just for fun, name another industry or organization wherein the boss could have overseen operations...

Cardinal Rogery Mahony celebrates a Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los...LA Cardinal Apologizes to PlaintiffsSunday, July 15, 2007 6:27 PM EDTThe Associated PressBy GILLIAN FLACCUS LOS ANGELES (AP) — Cardinal Roger Mahony, leader of the nation's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese, apologized Sunday to the hundreds of people who will get a share of a $660 million settlement over allegations of clergy sex abuse."There really is no way to go back and give them that innocence that was taken from them. The one thing I wish I could give the victims ... I cannot,"...

Amy Berg's documentary "Deliver Us From Evil" has powerful and horrifying material to work with: a Catholic priest, the Irish-born Fr. Oliver O'Grady, who admits--right on film--that he molested at least 25 children during his 20-odd years in parishes during the 1970s and 1980s in the Stockton diocese in rural California. The bishops of Stockton, who included Roger Mahony, now archbishop of Los Angeles, instead of yanking "Father Ollie" from his pulpit and calling the police, either ignored complaints about him or ordered "counseling" and transferred him from parish to parish, always one step ahead of the outrage of his...

Unless you're thinking mid-1940s East Coast priestly ordination, your eyes aren't deceiving you with that shot above. Then again, said conjure wouldn't have taken place on a football field: it's a scene from the aforementioned liturgy last weekend at which 60 permanent deacons were ordained for the Santa Barbara region of the archdiocese of Los Angeles, with Cardinal Roger Mahony as ordaining prelate. Glad Tidings in the archdiocesan weekly: The ordination of 60 men to the Permanent Diaconate at Santa Barbara City College's La Playa Stadium represented the largest single group of deacons ordained at one time in the...

ARCHDIOCESE BEGINS PROCESS TO FUNDFUTURE SETTLEMENTS IN CIVIL CASES By Cardinal Roger M. MahonyArchbishop of Los Angeles May 15, 2007 Last December, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles settled 46 civil cases in which clergy abuse had been alleged. The total settlement cost was $60 million, with the Archdiocese contributing approximately $40 million of the total amount. At the time of that settlement, I wrote: “Now that this settlement is finalized, our attention will focus on the resolution of all remaining cases. To reach a settlement in those cases will require the active participation of the many insurance companies who provided...

There was a time when Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, leader of the largest Roman Catholic diocese in the United States, was a formidably influential political figure. A decade ago, he was a member of Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan's inner circle and the spiritual leader of a growing community with exponentially expanding power.Today, Mahony remains one of the region's most recognized leaders and a sought-after voice on certain issues. But time, scandal and the shifting demographics of Los Angeles politics have diminished Mahony's might to the point that his recent remonstrations — in which he took to task Fabian Nuñez,...