LOS ANGELES (CA)
Canberra Times
February 6, 2013
Barney Zwartz
Jose Gomez has set a stunning example of what the church should be doing.
‘IFIND these files [about priests who sexually abused children] to be brutal and painful reading. The behaviour described in these files is terribly sad and evil. There is no excuse, no explaining away what happened to these children. The priests involved had the duty to be their spiritual fathers and they failed.”
These are the words, last Thursday, not of a victim nor an advocate, a lawyer, policeman or judge. They are the words of Los Angeles Catholic Archbishop Jose Gomez. Of themselves, they are perhaps franker than the usual church apology, but what made them really remarkable is what came next.
”My predecessor, retired Cardinal Roger Mahony, has expressed his sorrow for his failure to fully protect young people entrusted to his care. Effective immediately, I have informed Cardinal Mahony that he will no longer have any administrative or public duties.” In a striking and unprecedented humiliation of the cardinal, Archbishop Gomez also had Mahony’s former right-hand man in handling abuse allegations, Thomas Curry, resign as regional bishop of Santa Barbara.
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