LOS ANGELES (CA)
Religion News Service
David Gibson | Feb 1, 2013
(RNS) Retired Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony has been stripped of his official duties in an unusual public rebuke by his successor that followed the release of thousands of pages of internal church documents showing how Mahony and aides for years conspired to cover up the sexual abuse of children by clergy.
The current archbishop of Los Angeles, Jose Gomez, also announced late Thursday (Jan. 31) that Auxiliary Bishop Thomas J. Curry, a longtime aide to Mahony who was deeply involved in the cover up, had resigned his position overseeing the Santa Barbara region.
“I find these files to be brutal and painful reading. The behavior described in these files is terribly sad and evil,” Gomez said in a statement addressed to Catholics after the archdiocese lost a long legal battle and posted on its website personnel files for 122 priests who were accused of molesting children.
“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,” said Gomez, who Pope Benedict XVI named to replace the embattled Mahony in 2011.
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