LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times
[A force in society, politics and entertainment]
Starting in the 1950s, Msgr. Benjamin Hawkes got L.A. churches built, hobnobbed with the rich and helped the poor. Ten years after his death, he was accused of sexual abuse.
BY HARRIET RYAN
May 12, 2013
By the time the letter arrived, the grass on Benjamin Hawkes’ grave had grown thick. Historians had chronicled how he transformed the Los Angeles archdiocese into a billion-dollar institution. His portrait had been etched into a metal plaque and bolted to the wall of a sprawling church on Wilshire Boulevard.
The archbishop, Roger Mahony, who had presided at the dedication of that plaque, had become a cardinal with thinning hair and deep wrinkles.
The letter came to rest on his desk.
“It’s my turn to stand up and set the record straight,” the shaky cursive read. “Msgr. Hawkes was not a great priest, he was a sick man who used his status to abuse many.”
In the postwar boom that created modern Southern California, Msgr. Benjamin Hawkes was a power broker. The second-in-command to two cardinals, he ran the Los Angeles church for three decades, a span during which it grew into the largest, most diverse and by some counts wealthiest archdiocese in the nation.
His knack for money and real estate gave him influence from Rome to Hollywood. He socialized with real estate titans, advised Vatican officials and even taught actor Robert DeNiro how to play a priest for a film role inspired by Hawkes’ life.
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