Church Personnel Documents Released After Years of Resistance

LOS ANGELES (CA)
The New York Times

By JENNIFER MEDINA and LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Published: February 1, 2013

LOS ANGELES — The release of 12,000 internal personnel documents late on Thursday by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles came after six years of resistance to a settlement reached in 2007 with more than 500 victims of abuse.

The documents reveal how Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, now retired, and other church leaders kept priests accused of sexually abusing young people in ministry and failed to report them to the authorities.

To signal action, the church packaged the document release along with an announcement that Cardinal Mahony had been disciplined by his successor, Archbishop José H. Gomez, who has been in office less than two years. Archbishop Gomez released a statement saying that Cardinal Mahony will “no longer have any administrative or public duties.”

The censure amounts to a dramatic public repudiation of a cardinal who dominated Catholic life in Los Angeles for more than two decades, but may have little import other than to bolster the church’s public relations, according to church experts. The retired Cardinal Mahony has now been restrained from speaking in public, but he retains his priestly authorities and may still celebrate Mass.

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