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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...