BishopAccountability.org
	Mahony's Defiance Los Angeles Daily News April 19, 2006 http://www.dailynews.com/opinions/ci_3724696 Now that the United States Supreme Court has rejected his legal wrangling, we can only hope that Cardinal Roger Mahony will at last cooperate fully with the law. As the priestly sexual-abuse scandal has slowly unfolded these past few years, Mahony has been reluctant, at best, in his dealings with authorities or the public. First, he failed to notify police upon learning that some of his priests were predators. And ever since, he has refused to turn over key information to a criminal investigation, citing some hitherto unheard-of legal claim to a bishop-priest privilege supposedly implied in the First Amendment. But as the Supreme Court made clear by rejecting Mahony's arguments Monday, such a privilege does not exist. The information in question - archdiocesan personnel files - aren't covered by the seal of the confessional, and the right to the free exercise of religion doesn't include protecting sexual predators. So now Mahony has a choice: Come clean and give prosecutors the information they seek, or defy the law. For a man trusted with the pastoral care of millions - and one who should be a moral teacher, first and foremost, in his example - the choice should be obvious. However shameful the information in those files may be, far worse would be to protect abusers and give rise to further scandal by violating a court order to release them. It's time the public learned the secrets that Mahony has spent years trying to keep. The cardinal's day of reckoning has arrived.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.