Cardinal Mahony Stays Above the Fray (and Above the Law)
As I blogged earlier this week, Roger Cardinal Mahony has managed to keep himself and his Archdiocese from a full public accounting of the priest abuse scandal by paying $660 million dollars to survivors. In today's St. Petersburg Times, the editorial lays out the same argument I've made. It's not good for society, or for that matter the Church, when leaders like Mahony can escape judgment by offering a monetary payout in order to escape the truth.
I had an interesting conversation this week with a former priest who appeared with me on the local Fox station about the abuse issue. He reminded me that it was the same Cardinal Mahony who called on Cardinal Law to resign when the Boston revelations were threatening the Catholic Church on the east coast. In his press conference, Mahony apologized to the survivor of sexual abuse but never offered an apology for his coverup and behavior. If there's ever any real healing, people like Mahony have to pay for what they've done.