LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times
As surprise washed over Catholic parishioners Monday after the resignation announcement by Pope Benedict XVI, retired nun Mary Dispenza was left saddened that Cardinal Roger M. Mahony will have a hand in picking the pontiff’s successor.
Mahony, who was stripped of his public duties last month following new disclosures in the priest sex-abuse scandal, says he will travel to Rome to vote on the next pope.
“Cardinal Mahony still has his powers under the church’s law,” said Dispenza, who received a 2006 settlement from the archdiocese over claims of molestation by her parish priest in the 1940s.
“It is a sad commentary that he walk into Rome and cast his vote despite his behavior,” she said. “But church law is that way.”
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