LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times
By Paul Thornton
January 22, 2013
About a dozen readers have sent their reactions to The Times’ front-page story Tuesday reporting that Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, archbishop of Los Angeles from 1985 to 2011, plotted to conceal child molestation by priests from law enforcement. While several of the letters raise legal questions for Mahony, many also call out the former archbishop for his moral failure to protect children. Others blame Roman Catholic Church policy for setting the conditions that led to child sex abuse.
Here is a selection of those letters, some of which may be printed later this week on The Times’ letters page. Check latimes.com/letters this week for more reader reaction.
Melonie Magruder of North Hollywood says Mahony acted as if protecting the church was more important that protecting children:
“Mahony’s claim that clergy weren’t ‘legally required to report suspected child abuse until 1997,’ and, therefore, he was absolved from responsibility to do so, is staggeringly self-serving. It’s as if he’s saying, ‘It was other people’s job to report child sexual abuse,’ with the implicit caveat that his responsibility was to protect the institution he served.
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