Catholic Church in Los Angeles Pays out $10m over Sex Abuse

Telegraph
March 12, 2013

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9926193/Catholic-Church-in-Los-Angeles-pays-out-10m-over-sex-abuse.html

Cardinal Mahony has defied his critics and turn up for the conclave Photo: AFP

Church lawyer J. Michael Hennigan confirmed the $9.9 million settlement for the cases, which alleged abuse by former priest Michael Baker.

Recently released files show Baker met with Cardinal Roger Mahony in 1986 and confessed to molesting two brothers for nearly seven years.

Cardinal Mahony sent Baker for psychological treatment but eventually put him back in ministry, where he molested again.

Despite calls for him to stay away, Cardinal Mahony is now in Rome helping to select a new pope.

Baker was convicted of molesting one boy in 2007. Two of the latest plaintiffs are that boy's brothers.

As part of the settlement, none of the parties admitted wrongdoing, according to a plaintiff's attorney in the case.

Mahony, 76, the former archbishop of Los Angeles, was last month relieved of all his church duties for allegedly trying to conceal abuse cases involving dozens of priests in the US.

He was stripped of those duties by his successor, Archbishop Jose Gomez, who took over from him in 2011.

Catholics on both sides of the Atlantic said it would be wrong for the disgraced cardinal to attend the conclave, the secretive gathering of cardinals inside the Sistine Chapel which will choose a new pontiff sometime in mid-March.

But Cardinal Mahony has defied the criticism and arrived in Rome to take part in the papal conclave.