LA cardinal's deposition in abuse case released

[Ed Barrow]

Source: Associated Press

Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony didn't call police in 1986 after a priest admitted to molesting two boys, and he didn't warn parishioners because the priest told him the children were illegal immigrants who had returned to Mexico, according to court documents released Tuesday.

Mahony, 74, said he didn't take stronger action against the Rev. Michael Baker because he didn't know the victims' identities and because Baker told him the abuse happened outside the parish.

The cardinal testified that he also did not ask his staff to search for the boys but instead sent Baker to a residential center in New Mexico for treatment and later placed him on restricted ministry.

...

"I believed too readily in Baker's contrition, and in our ability to treat and monitor him effectively," Mahony said in a statement Tuesday. "The past has informed the present, however, and I have made sure that our sexual abuse prevention policies and procedures will keep our children and young people safe from predators like Michael Baker."

Read more: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100615/D9GBUMTO0.html

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[pnwmom]

3. Child abuse has existed universally forever. And until the second half of the 20 th

century, it was universally ignored and/or covered up.

The Catholic Church did lag behind the secular world in dealing with this problem, but it didn't invent the problem.

[msanthrope]

4. The CC didn't "lag behind" others in dealing with rape.

It made a volitional choice to protect rapists. It's not that the CC was slow to act. It merely decided on a policy that is disgusting.

I can understand adherents needing to believe that the CC is somehow guilty only of statism. But no-they rather swiftly moved to abet rape.

[pnwmom]

5. Other institutions did the same thing, religious and secular.

When the very topic of child rape and molestation is taboo, whole cultures turn their backs on the victims.

[No Elephants]

7. What's your point? that we should not be criticizing the institutional, worldwide

practice of protecting the molester while harming past and future victims because molestation existed in other institutions?

the topic of the OP is excuse-making by this Cardinal for his 1986 cover up and other misdeeds. (I'm betting that wasn't the only time, either, but that's only my gut.) So, we are discussing that. When we have something specific about some other institution, such as Boy Scouts, we discuss that, too. And?


"When the very topic of child rape and molestation is taboo, whole cultures turn their backs on the victims."


You've just made a case for condemning this guy and all like him even more, yet that does not seem to be your point.

"Johnnie did it, too" is not a successful defense when attempted by a 3 year old, let alone by clergy or the Church itself, or by someone attempting to quell criticism of them. I can't imagine a confessor accepting that as an excuse. Why should anyone else?

[pnwmom]

10. I was initially responding to a bigoted smear on the whole Catholic Church --

a post that the mods deleted.

"Johnnie did it, too" IS a defense to the claim that the Catholic Church is uniquely and pervasively evil.

[No Elephants]

6. It only invented transferring clergy from parish to unsuspecting parish and

settlements that required victims to join the conspiracy of silence.

"The Catholic Church did lag behind the secular world in dealing with this problem..."

Lagged? It was publicly termed "petty gossip" in the presence of Pope Bendict as recently as Easter 2010 (without reprimand or even contradiction from Bennie).

The Catholic Church should have led in protectiing victims, not lagged. Especially given the trust and reverence parents and children gave Catholic clergy, as representaives of Christ.

"but it didn't invent the problem"

What's your point? Who said the Church invented child moleatation?

[Bluenorthwest]

2. I am proud to say that while this duplicitous man was covering

for child abusers, my friends and I were protesting his atavistic, hate fill, self serving tenure, direct to his face. His crimes are many. May justice find him soon.

[No Elephants]

8. Good for you and your friends.

I can't take any credit, whatsoever, but I am proud to know someone involved in the massive lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Boston (Cardinal Law--before his promotion to the Vatican :puke:).

[No Elephants]

9. Even his current, patently false, excuses are heinous.

First, I mentally called bs on the "illegal immigrant" part of the current story, even before following the link an reading that his earlier version of the story did not include that.

Second, since when is the status of the victims a reason not to report admitted molestation to the police? "Oh, gee, no sense reporting this, even though I know for certain that's he's guilty bc the victims aren't in the U.S. anymore (and, to the haters of 2010, they were "illegal Mexicans anyway--'nuff said!") No search for the victims, but cover up and treatment for the perp?

As far as his belief in the perp's contrition, the complaints continued for years, ffs.

I wish I could interview this lying "willing to use hatred of undocumented Mexicans" Cardinal.