Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony approved a record clergy-abuse payout, opened the files of the Roman Catholic priests involved and looked into the camerasand apologised last week for the victims’ treatment.And it still might not be enough to satisfy some.
To fund the archdiocese’s share of the US$660 million settlement, the cardinal will have to sell property, liquidate investments and cut spending, dismantling part of what he built in more than two decades as the city’s archbishop.
Even so, critics question whether the cardinal should have done more to rein in predatory priests in the largest United States archdiocese.
Bishops answer only to the Vatican, which had to sign off on some funding of the settlement, but every church leader needs the trust of the parishioners.
Settlement deal
“He acknowledged he made some mistakes, he apologised,” said the Rev. Thomas Reese, a fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.
“Now, the people of Los Angeles are going to have to weigh the good that he’s done over the last 22 years versus the bad things he did and decide whether they can continue to accept him as their bishop.”
Last week’s deal was made on the eve of a civil trial in which Mahony would have been grilled about why he left some abusive priests in churches without telling parents or police.
As part of the settlement, the archdiocese agreed to release the personnel files of accused clergymen, which could reveal any direct links between Mahony and the guilty priests he supervised.
But each priest tied to the 508 Los Angeles cases can challenge his records’ release – another potential obstacle to full disclosure.
Mahony, 71, has acknowledged the suffering of victims. He was among only a handful of bishops who revealed the names of suspected clergy so the public could be protected from them.
Fought disclosures
At the same time, his lawyers fought disclosure of priests’ files to prosecutors all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
They also challenged Cali-fornia’s one-year window that allowed abuse claims to be filed no matter how far back they dated.
None of the manoeuvres succeeded, but they contributed to delays inreaching a settlement, which took four years to negotiate.
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