The Stockton lawyer who helped litigate the largest settlement against the Roman Catholic Church for priestly sexual abuse of children said Monday that he still awaits an apology from Cardinal Roger Mahony, archbishop of the Los Angeles Diocese, for his role in the long-standing scandal.Mahony, who served as bishop of the Stockton Diocese from 1980 to 1985, asked forgiveness Sunday from the hundreds of people abused by church personnel in the Los Angeles area.
"I again offer my personal apology to every victim who has suffered sexual abuse by a priest, religious, deacon or layperson in this archdiocese. It is the shared hope of everyone in our local church that these victims, many of whom suffered in silence for decades, may find a measure of healing and some sense of closure," Mahony said.
But Larry Drivon, who took a deposition from Mahony in 1997 and questioned him on the witness stand in 1998 concerning the statutory abuse by former Stockton priest Oliver O'Grady, said that apology didn't go far enough to absolve Mahony of his actions that, Drivon said, helped escalate the abuse.
"He apologizes for everything and everybody else," Drivon said. "He doesn't apologize for covering this up, for putting people through grinding litigations for years or for moving priests around the diocese without alerting anybody that he was sending them a predator.
"When is Roger Mahony going to apologize for what he did?"
Archdiocese spokesman Tod Camberg said Mahony's apology was personal and professional.
"The cardinal has apologized just about every time he's spoken about the abuse situation, and he's acknowledged very forthrightly his own mistakes and asked for forgiveness in more than 70 private meetings with victims," Camberg said.
For the church to achieve a lasting consequence from this weekend's $660million settlement, however, leaders must be willing to do more than say they're sorry, said Paul Lakeland, director of the Center for Catholic Studies at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Conn.
They must change behaviour
"I'd like to believe the worst of it is over, but I'm not confident in that," Lakeland said.
"The fundamental questions that remain are, Have the bishops learned anything? And if so, what?"
Lakeland, who has written two books on the role of laity in the Catholic Church, said bishops such as Mahony and Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law have been clearly at fault for stonewalling plaintiffs, hiding evidence and transferring priests charged with abuse.
"The worst examples of that seem to be in Los Angeles," Lakeland said.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.
The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Sotto Voce