As Sexual Abuse Scandal Breaks Open….

LOS ANGELES (CA)
Religion Dispatches

As Sexual Abuse Scandal Breaks Open, Los Angeles Catholics Hear Words of Renunciation, Recrimination from Clergy

Post by Joanna Brooks

Yesterday, monsignors and priests across the Los Angeles Catholic diocese read out during Sunday masses an historic letter from Archbishop Jose H. Gomez decrying the Church’s record on child sexual abuse after the court-ordered release of 12,000 pages of documents detailing abuse by priests.

“There is no excuse,” wrote Gomez, for the Archdiocese’s efforts to cover-up the sexual abuse of children: “The priests involved had the duty to be their spiritual fathers and they failed.”

Gomez also declared Cardinal Roger Mahony, his predecessor as the Archbishop of Los Angeles, “released” from his “administrative or public duties.”

The National Catholic reporter called Gomez’s open rebuke of Mahony “remarkable” given for “br[eaking] with the unspoken but nearly ironclad rule of the culture of Catholic hierarchy that bishops do not publicly criticize other bishops.”

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