We were chatting about the news while waiting for a movie to start.
“Did you hear about the recently released documents that show the Cardinal Archbishop of Los Angeles covered up the activities of some 124 pedophile priests?”
“Sure,” he said.
“Well…what do you think?”
He shrugged. “Isn’t it what you’d expect?”
His cynicism stopped me. But what really made his remark unsettling was the realization that his cynicism can be justified.
The question about the documents had to do with the court-ordered disclosure of some 12,000 incriminating files from the Los Angeles archdiocese. Cardinal Roger Mahony and his minions had fought fiercely for five years to keep the files secret. With reason.
The documents clearly indicated that now-retired Cardinal Mahony deliberately broke California law. He had refused to alert police that he received credible information predatory priests in his diocese were abusing children. Instead he shielded the accused priests, moving them from parish to parish and even suggesting that they move out of state to avoid prosecution.
The document release was required as part of a $660 million settlement between the archdiocese and victims in 508 child abuse cases. When the documents were finally released, the public and press gained access.
At that point, Cardinal Jose Horacio Gomez, the current Archbishop, belatedly took action. He rebuked his 76-year-old predecessor and ordered that he cease his public activities. The scolding meant little. Cardinal Mahony retains his priestly faculties and is expected to join his fellow Cardinals in Rome to elect a new pope come March 15.
Cardinal Gomez also relieved Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Curry of his duties as Bishop of the Santa Barbara region, citing his role in the cover-up and protection schemes. Yet even in taking these actions the archdiocese showed its stubbornness. The court had ordered the documents submitted with no names obliterated. Yet wire services report that the archdiocese blacked out many names, continuing the cover-up.
And revelations keep coming. On February 13, Reuters reported the archdiocese has quietly added the names of 24 formerly unlisted priests and brothers implicated in child abuse complaints.
The gross criminal activities of the LA priests and their vicars haven’t lost power to shock even though priestly misdeeds have been reported in dioceses across the country--and even though we’ve seen the spectacle of Monsignor William Lynn of Philadelphia being jailed.
The Monsignor is serving three to six years for child endangerment resulting from his part in concealing the crimes of priests in his diocese. Judge M. Teresa Sarmina delivered the sentence and said she meant to punish the cleric for protecting “monsters in clerical garb who molested children.” She added that the priests destroyed “the souls of children to whom you [the Monsignor] turned a hard heart.”
Add to all this the heinous cases of child molestation and brutal abuse of orphans in Ireland and similar cases in Germany, Australia and other countries. Also add the revelation that the late Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the 9,500- member conservative sect Regnum Christi led a double life. Rev. Degollado, reportedly a favorite of Pope Benedict, was involved in sexual misconduct and fathered a daughter, now 20 years old.
The list of clerical abuses goes on and on. No wonder that outsiders and even some among the catholic faithful have become cynical about the Church.
Still, real wonder is this:
Despite the long history of clerical abuse, malfeasance, corruption and outright criminal activity dating from the Middle Ages to the present, more than a billion persons cling to the faith.
And despite the scandals, Church members actually manage to achieve much good in the world.
You might call it a miracle.
----Gus Gribbin
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