UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
Jerry Slevin
LA Catholics’ longtime “quarterback”, Cardinal Mahony, reportedly continued this week trying to run his shameful “hide the ball” plays right under the judicial official’s nose. When the judge blew the whistle, however, Mahony’s new coach, the current Archbishop, Gomez, was forced presumably by his lawyers to bench permanently Mahony and his old complicit “receiver”, Bishop Curry. Gomez, of course, had to have known of Mahony’s misdeeds for some time and appears just to be trying to protect his assets.
What a farce. Where have the Los Angeles prosecutors been for a quarter century? It is time for POTUS, the President of the United States, Barack Obama, to “suit up” and tackle Mahony now. Cardinals Mahony, Law, Bevilacqua, Rigali, Brady, Egan and others get caught “red-handed”, give a phony apology and get sent off with lucrative retirement packages and the power to vote in the upcoming papal election. It is a disgrace and a mockery of the legal process. Bevilacqua has now met his maker just before he was likely about to be prosecuted. The others must be brought to justice now! As a lawyer, I am confident a determined prosecutor can get over the statute of limitation defenses with creative prosecutions. It has been done before.
It seems evident that this is just the tip of the iceberg of child sexual abuse in religious organizational settings. What is disturbingly also evident, to me as a parent and a retired experienced lawyer, is that neither local legislators nor prosecutors have dealt with many of these cases adequately, timely or comprehensively. President Obama was just re-elected with the strong support of mothers and mothers-to-be who wanted him to protect their access to family planning. They also expected, and still expect, his help in protecting the families they have, and will yet have, from sexual violence in institutional settings. These families need his help now!
A petition has been opened for signatures asking President Obama to set up a national investigation commission into the sexual abuse of children by priests, rabbis, ministers and other religious leaders. Please take 30 seconds to sign it no matter where in the world you live. This is a worldwide epidemic. Just click on the below link at:
[Click here for the petition.]
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