UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture
By Phil Lawler | February 06, 2013 8:28 PM
Last Friday I was rejoicing over the news that one American archbishop, at least, finally seemed to “get it” regarding the sex-abuse scandal. Now I’m afraid I was celebrating too soon. Within hours the smile had been wiped off my face, by two separate incidents that showed how thoroughly many bishops have missed the point.
Cardinal Mahony’s sad apologia
First Cardinal Roger Mahony, clearly stung by the news that Archbishop José Gomez had stripped him of his public functions in the Los Angeles archdiocese, released a defense of his own record, in the form of an open letter to his successor. Petulant and self-serving, the cardinal’s statement regurgitated the tired old arguments that American prelates have been making for over a decade to justify their failures.
Back in 2002, Cardinal Mahony was wondering aloud how Cardinal Bernard Law could live with himself after covering up evidence of abuse; now the disgraced former Archbishop of Los Angeles was making the same feeble attempts at self-justification that the disgraced former Archbishop of Boston had made before his resignation. He was only doing what the “experts” had recommended, the cardinal said; he had not yet come to appreciate the severity of the problem; he was doing what other American bishops had done. Ah, isn’t that the truth!
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