UNITED KINGDOM
UK Progressive
by Carl Matthes
“I look forward to traveling to Rome soon to help thank Pope Benedict XVI for his gifted service to the Church, and to participate in the Conclave to elect his successor,” announced Cardinal Roger Mahony, not the real Archbishop of Los Angeles.
The remarkably deft Mahony, who’s obviously been anointed with PR awareness, posted his statement online at 8:38 am, two hours before his successor, The Most Rev. Jose Gomez, could issue his own remarks about the Pope’s abdication. At midday Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Gomez, the real Archbishop of Los Angeles, said, “…the pope’s decision to resign is a beautiful, Christ-like act of humility and love for the church.”
Mahony showed no such deftness or awareness in his multi-year obfuscation investigating possible sex abuse cases among his subordinate priests in America’s largest Catholic archdiocese. And, there is confusion over Mahony even releasing his got-mine-out-before-you-got-yours-out statement. On January 31 Gomez announced he had removed Mahony (in secular terms, “fired him”) from all public duties amid revelations that he plotted to conceal child molestation by priests from law enforcement.
It’s very hard for everyone to accept priests as pedophiles, but it’s obviously much harder for the Archbishop of Los Angeles to effectively silence Mahony.
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