LOS ANGELES (CA)
National Catholic Reporter
by Thomas Doyle | Mar. 2, 2013
Viewpoint
Way back in 2004, in the early days of the seemingly endless struggle for justice by the victims of several priests from Los Angeles, I had a conversation with one of the attorneys who represented several of these men and women. He said, “By the time this is over we are going to find out just how much Roger Mahony’s cardinal hat is worth.” I suspect that neither of us realized that this was truly a prophetic statement. In the end, the cost was calculated in dollars, trust, respect and faith.
The cost must also include the loss of truth.
The media responses to the final order to disclose all the files of predator priests and descriptions of the 10-year saga that preceded the court’s decision on Jan. 31 do not come close to telling the full story of the nightmare that led up to that day. The last major act, Archbishop Jose Gomez’s meaningless censure of Mahony and Mahony’s whining retort on his blog, is all about them and not about the real core of this almost incredible decade of events. At the heart of it all are the victims of Los Angeles priests, several hundred men and women. Yet the legal battle that went on and on not only overlooked them but continued to heap pain on their already scarred souls.
The media could not possibly recount the massive toll this took on so many people. The price of Mahony’s red hat is certainly steep in dollars. He retained an army of expensive lawyers to defend his intentional mishandling of reports of sexual abuse, and then to create legal roadblocks to the disclosure of the culprits’ files. The real cost of his hat was in people.
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