CALIFORNIA
The Monterey County Herald
Posted: 02/05/2013
The horror, the sordidness of the awful abuse of children by figures of spiritual authority is not much assuaged by current Archbishop Jose Gomez relieving Cardinal Mahony of “all public duties” after mounting evidence showed he shielded pedophile priests from law enforcement.
So Mahony won’t be overseeing the Sacrament of Confirmation at Our Lady of the Angels any time soon. But he is not only still a priest who can perform Mass— he is still one of the 120 cardinals who form the leadership of a church with more than 1.1 billion adherents worldwide.
Given what we now know about Mahony’s active efforts to protect known and suspected sexual abusers in clerical collars, this removal of him from public life is not only not enough — it’s no punishment at all.
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