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Preserve us from the Catholic Church
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the scars of sexual abuse and broken trust run deep
Roger Michael Mahony

(born February 27, 1936) is an American Cardinal of the Roman
Catholic Church. He is the fourth and current Archbishop of Los
Angeles, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1991.
Roger Michael Mahony was born in Hollywood, California, the son of
Victor and Loretta (ne Baron) Mahony. His father was a poultry
farmer, and he has a twin brother, Louis, and an older brother, Neil.
As a child he attended St. Charles Grammar School, north of
Hollywood, and at age 14 he entered the minor seminary of the
Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
After studying at the Our Lady Queen the of Angels Seminary and St.
John's Seminary, Mahony was ordained to the priesthood on May 1,
1962 by Bishop of Monterey-Fresno Aloysius Willinger, CSsR. He
graduated from The Catholic University of America in 1964 with a master's degree in social work. For
the next 13 years, he held pastoral and curial assignments in the Diocese of Monterey-Fresno and the
newly formed Diocese of Fresno, and was named a Monsignor in February 1967. He also taught social
work at Fresno State University during this period.
On January 7, 1975, he was appointed auxiliary bishop of Fresno and titular bishop of Tamascani.
Mahony received his episcopal consecration on the following March 19 from Bishop of Fresno Hugh
Donohue, with Bishops William Johnson and John Cummins serving as co-consecrators. That year,
Governor Jerry Brown appointed Mahony the first chair of the California Agricultural Labor Relations
Board, where he worked with the United Farm Workers and various growers in the state to resolve labor
disputes.
On February 15, 1980, Mahony was appointed Bishop of Stockton by nuncio Jean Jadot. Mahony has
admitted to firing at least two priests for sexual abuse during his tenure at Stockton, although critics
believe there were additional cases during this time.
On July 16, 1985, Mahony was promoted to Archbishop of Los Angeles, the first native Angeleno to
hold the office. Mahony was created Cardinal Priest of Santi Quattro Coronati by Pope John Paul II in
the consistory of June 28, 1991.
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After the former Cathedral of Saint Vibiana was damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, Mahony
began plans to construct the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, one of the largest Catholic churches
in the United States. It was dedicated on September 2, 2002.
In 2000, he criticized the tone of the document Dominus Iesus on religious relativism, writing in The
Tidings that it "may not fully reflect the deeper understanding that has been achieved through
ecumenical and interreligious dialogues over these last 30 years or more".
Mahony was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 2005 papal conclave that selected Pope
Benedict XVI. Mahony will be eligible to participate in any future conclaves that begin before his 80th
birthday on February 27, 2016.
Civic involvement
Mahony serves on a number of committees of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops,
including those on Liturgy and Pro-Life Activities.
He was a member of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (1984-1989) and the Pontifical Council
for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerants (1986-1991), Pontifical Council for Social
Communications (1989-present), and Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See (2000present).
He is a member of the Board of Trustees of The Catholic University of America.
Controversies
Mahony has caused controversy among different segments of people in the Church. Some Catholics
were upset about the large amount of money that was spent on the new Cathedral of Our Lady of the
Angels, outside of which the Los Angeles Catholic Worker Movement held protests. Mahony defended
the expense of the new cathedral to replace the previous earthquake-damaged church citing the need for
a community to have a religious center that united people in faith and spirituality.
Some Catholics were upset by statements by Mahony on celibacy and the liturgy. Mahony wrote a letter
on the Mass entitled "Gather Faithfully Together: A Guide for Sunday Mass". The resulting controversy
from this letter over the liturgy and the Eucharist led to a public feud between Mahony and Mother
Angelica.
Mahony spoke out on provisions in immigration bills, such as the Sensenbrenner-King Bill, debated by
Congress in late 2005 and 2006. He wrote to President Bush that certain proposed measures would
effectively outlaw the provision of charitable assistance and religious ministry to individuals not in valid
immigration status. On Ash Wednesday, 2006, Cardinal Mahony announced that he would order the
clergy and laity of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to ignore H.R. 4437 if it were to become law. He
personally lobbied senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein to have the Senate consider a
comprehensive immigration reform bill, rather than the enforcement-only bill that passed the House of
Representatives. Mahony also blamed the Congress for the illegal immigration crisis due to their failure
to act on the issue in the previous 20 years, opposed H.R. 4437 as punitive and open to abusive
interpretation, and supported S. 2611.
In July 2007, Mahony claims to have been violently attacked by an assailant who recognized him while
he was mailing a letter near the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels; he did not report the incident to
police and it only came to public attention after it was mentioned at an October gathering of priests.
Sexual abuse cases
The sexual abuse scandal in Los Angeles archdiocese is a major chapter in the series of Catholic sex
abuse cases in the United States and Ireland.
[top]
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U.S. Says Pope Immune From Molestation Lawsuit

Fox News September 20, 2005
The U.S. Justice Department has told a Texas court that a lawsuit accusing Pope Benedict XVI (search)
of conspiring to cover up the sexual molestation of three boys by a seminarian should be dismissed
because the pontiff enjoys immunity as head of state of the Holy See.
Assistant U.S. Attorney General Peter Keisler said in Monday's filing that allowing the lawsuit to
proceed would be "incompatible with the United States' foreign policy interests."
There was no immediate ruling from Judge Lee Rosenthal of the U.S. District Court for the southern
district of Texas in Houston. However, U.S. courts have been bound by such "suggestion of immunity"
motions submitted by the government, Keisler's filing says.
A 1994 lawsuit against Pope John Paul II (search), also filed in Texas, was dismissed after the U.S.
government filed a similar motion.
Keisler's motion was not unexpected, as the Vatican Embassy in Washington had asked the U.S.
government to issue the immunity suggestion and do everything it could to get the case dismissed.
The former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (search) was named as a defendant in a civil lawsuit by three
plaintiffs who allege that Juan Carlos Patino-Arango, a Colombian-born seminarian on assignment at St.
Francis de Sales church in Houston, molested them during counseling sessions in the church in the mid1990s.
Patino-Arango has been indicted in a criminal case by a grand jury in Harris County, Texas, and is a
fugitive from justice.
The lawsuit alleges Ratzinger, who headed the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
before becoming pope, was involved in a conspiracy to hide Patino-Arango's crimes and help him
escape prosecution.
The lawsuit cites a May 18, 2001, letter from Ratzinger written in Latin to bishops around the world,
explaining that "grave" crimes such as the sexual abuse (search) of minors would be handled by his
congregation and that the proceedings of special church tribunals handling the cases were subject to
"pontifical secret."
Daniel Shea, attorney for one of the plaintiffs, has said such secret proceedings amounted to a
conspiracy to cover up the crimes.
The Vatican (search) and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have insisted the secret church
procedures in the sex abuse case were not designed to cover up abuse nor to prevent victims from
reporting crimes to law enforcement authorities. The document deals with church law not keeping
secrets from secular authorities, they say.
The pope's lawyer, Jeffrey Lena, said Tuesday it was "appropriate" the Justice Department had
determined the pope was "the sitting head of state of the Holy See."
In a telephone interview, Lena said the motion would now be considered by the Texas court, "which
should be bound by the executive's determination" and rule accordingly.
Many lawsuits stemming from the U.S. church sex abuse crisis have named the pope, the Vatican and
other high-ranking church officials, but they failed because the officials could never be served with the
papers. This case got further than most because Ratzinger was actually served with the documents.
Shea said Tuesday he would challenge the constitutionality of the U.S. diplomatic recognition of the
Holy See on the grounds that it goes against the First Amendment's "establishment clause" that bars any
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laws respecting the establishment of religion.

Shea noted that in trying to have the case dismissed, Ratzinger's lawyers have already admitted in court
papers that the Holy See is a church. A May 26 motion to dismiss the suit, citing the First Amendment,
says the case should be thrown out because it would "invite court intrusion into the internal affairs of the
Roman Catholic Church."
However, legal experts said such a challenge would be difficult to win, partly because previous
challenges have failed and because the U.S. has maintained diplomatic relations with the Vatican since
1984.
"The courts have become a lot less interested in the establishment clause in the last few years," said
Kent Greenawalt, a professor of First Amendment and legal philosophy at Columbia Law School.
Officials at the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See said they were familiar with the case but had no other
immediate comment. The Vatican said it had no comment.
Along with the pope, the lawsuit names as defendants Patino-Arango, the Diocese of GalvestonHouston, Archbishop Joseph Fiorenza and the Rev. William Pickhard, Patino-Arango's vocational
director
[top]
Sex Abuse in the Catholic Church

One of the most disturbing modern manifestations of the practical consequences religious irrationalism
is the current scandal of widespread sexual abuse [a] of children within the Roman Catholic Church.
A detailed look at some of the cases is enough for anyone to see the horrible and criminal nature of these
acts.
The above examples represent only the tip of the iceberg. In fact the depth and breadth of the abuse
cases in the US and elsewhere is almost beyond comprehension. The scale of the predation reveals the
systemic nature of the problem.
The handling of this issue by the Roman Catholic Church is horrendous.
The victims carry the scars with them throughout their lives. Some were not able to live with it.
There are of course many causes for what is a complex problem. But the structure of the church and
celibacy are two of the major causes of the genesis and continuation of the problem.
The case of sexual predation within the Catholic Church is just another in a series of historical examples
of how much misery the church has visited on the humanity.
The Notorious Predators
The whole scandal broke into public consciousness in January 2002 when the Boston Globe published a
series of reports detailing the exploits of Father John Geoghan. Geoghan was certainly one of the most
despicable of the child molestors within the Catholic Church. To date his known victims number almost
two hundred. [1]
Geoghan predation lasted throughout his whole career in the priesthood; from his first parish assignment
at the Blessed Sacrament Church in Saugus, north of Boston, in 1962 until his last assignment in 1995.
(He was not defrocked then, and remained a priest until 1998) At the Blessed Sacrament Church, Church
records show that Geoghan was accused of, and admitted to, molesting four children. He would have the
children sit on his lap while he fondle them through their clothes.[2]
Through his early experiences, Geoghan would develop his simple but effective modus operandi. He
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would hone in on children from poor families and broken homes. These children are normally more
vulnerable emotionally. The single parent (usually the mother) would think it heaven sent to have a
"man of god" around the house, providing a role model and company for the children. [3]
One such single parent is Joanne Mueller. When Geoghan was transferred to St. Paul's Church in
Hingham, south of Boston, in 1967, she befriended him. As a devout Catholic, she gladly allowed
Geoghan access to her home and her four boys. Geoghan would take the boys out for ice cream and had
free access to the boys' bedroom. He even "helped" the boys getting in and out of the bathtub. The truth
suddenly came out in 1973 when Joanne's third son, then around eight, told her he did not want the
priest in their home. When she pressed him for the reason, the boy finally blurted out that Father
Georghan was "touching my wee wee". She summoned her three other boys, only to be told the same
story. The priest had abused them all, the youngest boy was only five. [4]
In 1974 Georghan was posted to St. Andrew's Church in the Forest Hills section of Jamaica Plain. Again
he befriended a single mother with four children of her own; this time three boys and a girl. The woman,
Maryetta Dussourd, was also taking care of four of her niece's boys. For two whole years, from 1978 to
early 1980, he would visit the family home almost every night. He would take the boys out for ice cream
and put them to bed at night. It was while he was in the bedroom with the boys that Geoghan would
commit the abuse. He would perform oral sex on them, fondled their genitals or forced them to fondle
his. Some times he would pray while committing these acts. When Maryetta finally found out about this
(the children had told her sister), she complained to a pastor in a nearby parish. [5]
Geoghan would spend the next year on "sick leave". In early 1981 he was sent to St. Brendan's Church,
another church in Boston. Here too, his predation continued unabated. In 1982, after hearing of
complaints again, the Church shipped Geoghan to Rome on a scholarly renewal program; a much
sought-after perk by priests. [6]
The trip to Rome did not help. In 1984, perhaps learning of Geoghan's penchant for befriending single
parent blue collar families, the Church assigned him to St. Julia's Church in Weston, an affluent suburb.
This unfortunately did not stop his predation. He preyed on the altar boys. However altar boys were not
enough. To satisfy his appetite, he visited the blue collar neighborhoods closeby. One of his victims
there was Patrick McSorley. Having learnt of Patrick's father's suicide, Geoghan went to the McSorley's
home ostensibly to offer his condolences. He offered to take Patrick, who was twelve then, out for some
ice cream. The boy accepted. In the ride home, the priest patted the boy's thigh and then started to slide
his hand further up to his groin. The old priestly pervert than started the masturbate the boy. McSorley
reported that Geoghan then started to gratify himself and moaned like he had ejaculated. The little boy,
holding an ice cream, simply froze up. [McSorley was awarded $200,000 in a 2002 settlement.
Unfortunately the story did not have a happy ending. Probably unable to live with the psychological
pain, Patrick McSorley died of a drug overdose in June 2004. He was 29.] [7]
In 1994 law enforcement officers were beginning to hone in on Georghan. The church then moved
Geoghan into Regina Cleri, a clergy retirement home, as an associate director. Yet, even here, Geoghan
was still able to hunt for victims. He was accused of molesing boys in nearby Waltham. Geoghan was
finally removed from active duty in January 1996. In 1996 the first civil lawsuit against Geoghan was
filed. To date the Church have settled a dozen of these, to the tune of $10 million.[8]
In February 2002, 40 years after his criminal predation began, Father John Geoghan, was sentenced to
ten years in prison for one of his acts of sexual predation. [9]
John Geoghan, of course was not the only one, as the next section shows. Even more amazing, this
scandal is not new, in fact reading through it gives one a sense of deja vu. For ten years ago, in 1992, a
similar scandal had broken out and had received as much press attention. Then the "star" predator, was
one Father James Porter.
Like Geoghan, Porter's victims were legion; at least 125 boys and girls in at least four states. Like
Geoghan, Porter's crime spree went on for a long time, from 1960, until 1974. And finally, again like
Geoghan, he was shuffled from parish to parish until he was finally defrocked in 1974.
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Porter's predation started in 1960 straight out of the seminary. His first assignment as a priest was at St.
Mary's Church in North Attleboro, Massachusetts. While there he would molest both boys and girls of
St. Mary's Grammar School. Within a week of his arrival, he had claimed his first victim, fifth grader
Paul Merry. The boy was molested for three years. At least once a week, Father Porter would grab and
fondle the boy. Within a month of his arrival, he had molested Patty Poirier, another fifth grader, and his
first female victim. Porter's predation went beyond molestations. He actually raped many of his victims.
In 1963, a mother complained to two priests at St. Mary's about Porter's abuse of her twleve year old
son. Porter was the transferred to another parish. At St. Mary's, Porter's victims numbered around forty
children.
Porter's pattern of abuse continued from parish to parish. In 1965, while working as chaplain at a
hospital in New Bedford, he started abusing altar boys he was training. When he was sent home to
recover due to complaints regarding his behavior, he molested children at a nearby parish. When he was
sent for treatment in 1967 at Jemez Springs in New Mexico, he would fill up for a priest on leave in a
church nearby. There he claimed at least six more victims. He was shuttled to Houston and molested still
more children. When he was shipped back to New Mexico, he molested some more. Finally, after more
complaints, Porter was advised to petition to leave the priesthood. He was granted his petition by the
pope in January 1974.
Porter's victims essentially kept their dark secret until 1992 when one of them, Frank Fitzpatrick, by
then a private detective, located Porter and started the process of filing criminal charges against him.
Porter was finally arrested in September 1992 and sentenced to twenty years in prison. In that year, more
than 100 people charged Porter with molesting them. The Fall River diocese paid out more than $7
million to his victims.[10]
The Scale of the Predation
As was mentioned above, John Geoghan and James Porter are not isolated abberations of what is an
otherwise decent and law abiding group of priests. Given below is a very incomplete list of priests in the
US that have been convicted of child abuse, some pending cases and the results of some civil lawsuits
brought by the victims or their families:
Father John Geoghan: Sentenced to ten years imprisonment in 2002. Accused of molesting around 200
children over a 33 year period from 1962 to 1995. The church admitted (in 1998) that it had settled 12
lawsuits against Geoghan. The settlements totalled $10 million. Other lawsuits are pending and the
Boston archdiocese is expected to pay up to $45 million in damages when all these are settled.
Father Paul Shanley[b]: Charged with three counts of child rape dating to the 1980s in May 2002.
Pleaded not guilty-case is ongoing. The Boston archdiocese had already made at least five settlements
with his victims one of which was for $100,000 in 1998 to a man who claimed he was abused by Father
Shanley for a period of four years beginning from 1965 when he was in the fifth grade.[11]
Father Rudolph Kos: Sentenced to life imprisonment. In an earlier civil suit, in 1997, the Dallas
archdiocese was ordered to pay $119.6 million to the families of eleven boys that were abused by Kos at
the All Saints Catholic Church from 1981 to 1992. The reporters of the Boston Globe wrote "It was the
largest verdict ever awarded against the Catholic Church."[13]
Father Ronald Paquin: Arrested in May 2002 for child rape. Later indicted on three counts of child
rape. Paquin had admitted to molesting boys in an interview with the Boston Globe in January 2002. In
that interview he told the Globe reporter that he had abused two boys for fifteen years, from 1975 to
1990. The abuse stopped when the Boston archdiocese removed him from active ministry.[14]
Father John Hanlon: Convicted in 1994 of raping altar boys in Hingham, south of Boston. Sentenced
to three life terms. [15]
Father James Porter: Sentenced to 20 years in a Massachusetts prison in 1992. Known to have
molested and/or raped at least 125 children. The Fall River diocese agreed to pay more than $7 million
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to the victims of his abuse.(see above section)

Father Gilbert Gauthe: Sentenced (in 1984) to 20 years in prison on convictions including rape and
child pornography. Soon after his release ten years after, Gauthe was charged again, this time with
molesting a Texas boy. In 1984, the Lafayette diocese secretly settled with nine of his victims. The total
settlement was $4.2 million. [16]
Father Thomas Adamson: A civil suit in 1990, filed by one of his victims, was decided against Father
Adamson. The victim, a former altar boy, was awarded almost $1 million in compensatory and punitive
damages. Many other suits were settled out of court. Father Adamson had a known history of child
abuse beginning from his first victim in 1961 until his removal from the priesthood in 1987. [17]
Father David Holley: Sentenced to 275 years in prison in New Mexico. Father Holley started his abuse
of children in Worcester, Massachusetts. After being transferred to Alamogordo, New Mexico, he
molested again. He retired in 1989, active till the end; his last assigment was as a chaplain in a hospital
in Denver. His diocese in Mew Mexico has settled at least 17 lawsuits against him. [18]
Father Donald Heck: Sentenced (in July 1992) to four years imprisonment in Missouri for sexually
assaulting an altar boy after Mass. [19]
Father Robert Kelley: Pleaded guilty and inprisoned for molesting a nine year old girl in the early
eighties in Gardner, Massachusetts. [20]
Father Mark Lehman: Sentenced in 1992 to ten years in prison for molesting three girls from his
wealthy parish in Phoenix, Arizona. [21]
Father Richard Lavigne: Sentence in 1992 to prison after he pleaded guilty to twelve counts of child
rape. The priest, from Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, was also implicated in the 1972 year old murder
of a 13 year old altar boy but was never charged with murder due to lack of evidence. [22]
Father Daniel Calabrese: Found guilty (also in 1992) of sodomizing a boy in his church in
Poughkeepsie, New York and was sentence to 90 days jail. [23]
Some men of the cloth could not take the shame of the revelations and chose to take their own lives
instead:
A Benedictine monk of St. Bernard Abbey in Cullman, Alabama shot himself in the head just before he
was about to go on trial for molesting a 12 year old boy.
Monsignor Willaim Reinecke also shot himself in the head (on August 11th 1992) after he was
confronted by a man two days before who accused him of abuse twenty years earlier. [24]
Father Donald Rooney killed himself in April 2002. He shot his head with a handgun at a drug store
parking lot. He had been summoned by his superiors to discuss allegations about sexual abuse of a
young girl twelve years before. [25]
In May 1992, a priest from Bridgeport, Connecticut hanged himself at the St. Luke Institute, a
psychiatric hospital in Maryland. He had recently been removed from his parish when 17 men accused
him of molesting them during their childhood. [26]
Even this admittedly cursory look should convince that the scale of the problem in the US is immense.
The most authoritative research on priesthood and sexuality is that done by psychiatrist, Richard Sipe, a
former monk himself. He estimated that, out of 45,000 priests in the US, up to seven percent, or more
than three thousand are child molestors. Of these, about one third are true pedophiles, while the rest are
ephebophiles (showing more interest in post pubescent children). [27] In the past 15 years some 1,500
American priests have faced allegations of sexual abuse. [28]
Some apologists have tried to argue that Catholic priests are no more prone to child sexual abuse than
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those of other denominations or in secular caring professions. This defense is not convincing. The best
estimates for abuse among Protestant clergy is 2 to 3 percent, which is only one third that of their
Catholic counterparts. [c] [29] We will take a closer look at why the Catholic Church seems more
susceptible to this culture of abuse in the section below.
This problem is not merely confined to the US. It seems that sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests on
children is a worldwide phenomenon:
In Newfoundland, Canada, four priests were convicted of child sexual abuse. The children were from a
local orphanage. The priests and brothers "sodomized, whipped, punched, fondled and degraded at least
thirty Mount Cashel Boys for more than twenty years" until the scandal was discovered in 1989. Similar
to their US counterparts, the church hierarchy there essentially ignored the problem although they knew
about it.[30]
In Poland, Archbishop Juliusz Paetz of Poznan resigned in March 1998 after accusations surfaced about
him making sexual advances to young seminarians. He would cuddle up with young clerics in public,
paid visits to the rooms of seminarians at night and used an underground tunnel to visit the dormitories
of young priests. Archbishop Paetz denied the charges saying that people "misunderstood his words and
gestures". [31]
In Ireland, Bishop Brendan Comisky, resigned a month after that for mishandling a case of a pedophile
priest Father Sean Fortune. Father Fortune committed suicide in 1999 after he was charged with abusing
boys. [32]
In France, a priest in Normandy, Father Rene Bisset was convicted and imprisoned in October 2000 for
sexual abuse of eleven boys. The Bishop responsible for that diocese, Bishop Pierre Pican, is also facing
charges for his handling of the case and his failure to report the crime. [33]
In Wales, in the same month, a priest, Father Joseph Jordan, was jailed for eight years for child sexual
abuse. The bishop of the archdiocese of Cardiff, Wales had been informed earlier of Father Jordan's
pedopilic tendencies but did nothing about it. [34]
In Australia, Father Gerald Drisdale, pleaded guilty to 46 counts of indecent assault, including sodomy,
against 26 childen. His victims were mainly altar boys aged between 11 and 14 years old from the
Ballaret Doicese in Western Victoria. [35]
In South Africa, Church officials admitted to knowing about a dozen cases of clergy sexual abuse there
in the past decade. [36]
In Hong Kong, China, local newspapers reported about three cases of child sexual abuse by priests in the
1990's that were hushed by the Church heirarchy. [37]
[top]
The Management of the Problem by the Catholic Church

The church hierarchy's method of handling the problem has been much criticised, and rightly so. In this
section we will look at what was done and what was not done by the Church in its approach to this
problem.
The most common reaction by the Church hierarchy to individual cases when they are reported to it is to
remove the offending priest from his parish or current posting, only to move him somewhere else! This
was how it handled the cases John Geoghan, James Porter, Paul Shanley, Rudolph Kos, James Paquin
and many others. Always the results remain the same.The method and its result is aptly summarised by
the reporters of the Boston Globe:
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Like Geoghan, [Father Joseph E.] Birmingham served as a priest for three decades, from his ordination
in 1960 until his death in 1989 at the age of fifty-five. Like Geoghan, he was rotated through six
parishes, despite a string of complaints about his sexual compulsion. Like Geoghan, he allegedly
accumulated dozens of victims even though high Church officials knew he was molesting childen. And,
like Geoghan, the number of Birmingham's alleged victims is large-as many as twenty five alone from
his third assignment at St. Michael's parish in Lowell, north of Boston, in the 1970's. But in
Birmingham's case, the public evidence that the Church stood by and did nothing to stop him early in his
career appears to be even stronger. [38]
To exarcebate the problem, the Church never told the parishioners at the former church the reason why
the priest was leaving and, more importantly, the parishioners in the new congregation were never told
about their new priest's past. All this was to avoid causing an embarrassment to the Church. As the
reporters of the Boston Globe wrote, the Catholic bishops "sacrificed the safety of children to the
Church's desperate desire to avert scandal." [39]
Indeed, the offending priests access to children were hardly ever restricted. The archbishop of Boston,
Cardinal Bernard F. Law, has come under much criticism for his handling of the crisis in the Boston
archdiocese. In 1984, when he took over the office of archbishop, Law received a letter dated December
7th from Bishop John D'Arcy, the Auxiliary Bishop of Boston about Geoghan. In that letter he explain
to the new archbishop that Geoghan's assignment to St. Julia's may be unwise due to his previous
"homosexual involvement with young boys" and urged that Geoghan's work should be restricted to
saying weekend Masses. Yet Geoghan was permitted to remain at St. Julia's with no restriction to his
movement. As we have seen above, he molested altar boys there and went prowling around the
surrounding blue collar neighborhoods looking for more victims. From that date until the year Geoghan
was finally removed from active duty, Geoghan molested at least another thirty children-children which
could have been saved the trauma had Law heeded the warning in that fateful letter in 1984. [Postscript:
Facing tremendous pressure from the laity and general public, Cardinal Law resigned his position as
Archbishop of the Boston Archdiocese on December 13th 2002] [40]
Cardinal Law handling of this case was not at all unusual. The Bishop of Fall River Diocese, James
Connolly, handled Porter the same way Law handled Geoghan. Porter was shuffled from parish to parish
(with some brief period of "treatment" thrown in between some of these transfers) whenever complaints
about his sexual abuse arose. All in all, Porter was transferred at least eight times to different parishes
and at no time was his access to children restricted. [41]
Another bishop that came under fire was Archbishop Robert Sanchez, of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe in
New Mexico. The allegations involved how the treatment center for priests, Servants of the Paraclete,
which was located within his archdiocese were handled. Among other things priests were sent there for
treatment of child abuse. Yet these very same priests were allowed to serve Mass around the treatment
center in the weekends-allowing them free access to children. Sanchez himself was eventually forced to
step down in 1993 when it was revealed that he had had sexual relations with five women.[42]
Examples of how Catholic bishops worldwide handled these could be added ad nauseum but the three
examples above should suffice. Marian Walsh, a state senator from Boston, summarized best the
feelings of most people when she said (specifically referring to Cardinal Law's handling of the
situation):
I never though that a leading facilitator for child abuse would be the Church, where the Church would
supply the victims and hide the perpetrators. I understand why pedophiles do what they do. I still can't
understand, I still can't appreciate, how the Church could do this, how sophisticated and how diabolical
it was. And how the cardinal should preside over it. [43]
In between moving the priests from parish to parish, the church would send some of problem priests for
treatment. Two of the centers most frequently used by the Catholic church for sex abusers within their
clergy are the Servants of the Paraclete in Jemez Springs, New Mexico and the St. Luke Institute in
Suitland, Maryland.
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There are a few problems with these treatment centers. Firstly, these institutes see the Catholic Church
as their boss. The whole treatment is premised upon getting the priests, "fixing them" and getting them
back to work. Secondly, the mixing of religious concepts, like prayers and forgiveness, with science
tends to make for an inadequately unbiased evaluation of the patients. Father William Peri, one of the
directors of the Servants of the Paraclete said this in an interview in 1987 that the center's main approach
is "forgiveness" and that "forgiveness leads to healing". As to how they know the priests no longer need
treatement, Father William Foley, head of Paraclete order, said that they "just get an intuition that
they're going to work out". Thirdly, the centers, according to psychologist Gary Schoner, who have
himself treated many victims of molests by priests, trust the priests too much and depend on them
wanting to be cured. Victims were not interviewed, there were no attempts to get access to independent
background data on the incidents and the victim. [44]
Of course we have direct evidence that the treatment and final evaluation were far from adequate.
"Graduates" from both centers continued their pattern of abuse. From Jemez Springs we have James
Porter, Jason Sigler, Rudolph Kos and David Holley; all of which continued to abuse children after
treatment there. Indeed they were molesting children while in treatment when they were allowed to
celebrate Mass in local parishes surrounding the center. From St. Luke there were John Geoghan,
Rudolph Kos and Gilbert Gauthe, who also continued their abuse after (sometimes multiple) treatment.
[45]
One of the few hard won truths about child sexual abusers is that once they molest, they tend to do so
again and again. This is something the Catholic Church (with its naive believe in "prayer" and
"forgiveness") have difficulty accepting. As early as 1967, a consulting pyschologist for the Servants of
the Paraclete, met with the archbishop of Santa Fe and the head of the Paraclete order and explained to
them that long term treatment was required and advised against returning the priests to working with
children. His contract was terminated after that meeting. [46]
The Victims: Scarred for Life
While child sexual abuse may leave no permanent physical marks, it leaves deep psychological scars.
Child abuse is a betrayal of trust, a rape of innocence. What more when the abuser is supposedly a man
the child has been taught to look up to and trust. We will look at the effects on the survivors of these
truly horrendous crime.
Patricia Nolan, from Boston, who was abused by a priest as a little girl, suffers from panic attacks for
years after the incident. She has difficulty trusting people (who could blame her?) and this in turn makes
it hard for her to form meaningful relationship.
Peter Pollard, also from Boston, was abused when he was sixteen. The altar boy, who had been an
honour student prior to the abuse, saw his grades drop and his ambitions disappear. He dropped out of
college and essentially lived the life of an itinerant, celibate hippie. It took twenty years before he was
able to begin to pick up his life again.
Patrick McSorley was abused by John Geoghan in 1986. The twelve year old boy was fondled by the
priest. The abuse traumatised him and he suffered from depression and alcholism for years due to this
incident. [47]
There are, of course, even more drastic effects of these abuses:
Christopher Schultz, a twelve year old from the New Jersey suburbs of New York City was abused by a
Franciscan brother, Edmund Coakeley, who was his teacher and scoutmaster. Among other things the
six grader was made to wear flimsy underwear and forced to act out the Stations of the Cross in the
nude. The boy was so depressed that he had to be hospitalised. In May 28th, 1979, seven months after
his depression started, the boy went to the bathroom and drank a full bottle of oil of wintergreen. He fell
into a coma and died the next day.
One man, who was abused by a Florida priest, hung himself in his parents backyard in the late 1980's.
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A thirty-two year old man committed suicide by driving his car into a bridge abutment. His suicide note
left no doubt the reason for his suicide. He was unable to live with the fact that he had been abused by a
priest when he was seven.
Sometimes the victim unleash their anger back at the priest. In May 2002, a man in Baltimore shot a
Catholic priest who had abused him in the early 1990's. [48]
Despite its efforts to portray itself as a caring "Mother Church" to believers, the handling of victims by
church officials betrays its actual nature. In view of the examples above, it is inconceivable how anyone
could say something like this:
We are not involved in the dynamics of rape but with the far subtler dynamics of persuasion by a friend.
As we speak to and about the victims we must be aware that the child sometimes retains a loving
memory of the offender. [49]
Yet this is exactly what Father Canice Connor of St. Luke Institute wrote in America Magazine in May
1992! That a Church-recogized expert on child sexual abuse could make such a statement shows how
out of touch it is with the victims.
Indeed the Church, in general, showed very little concern for the victims. When Patricia Dolan, a victim
of child abuse (see above), got her archdiocese to pay for her therapy sessions, they tried to get access to
her personal files from these sessions. When these were denied them, the payment for the therapy
stopped. Furthermore a nun specializing in abuse victims actually chided her for claiming she was
abused - as the priest was way past middle age. "He couldn't have done that much to you." was what the
nun said-adding insult to the psychological injury. [50]
Another example is Tom Blanchette. A victim of abuse in his childhood in the 1960's, he approached
Cardinal Law during the funeral, in 1989, of the priest (Father Joseph Birmingham) who had abused
him. [d] He told Cardinal Law he was one of those molested by Birmingham. According to Blanchette,
Cardinal Law reacted defensively and then laid his hands on Tom's head while saying "I bind you by the
power of the confessional never to speak about this to anyone else." Faced with victims, all Cardinal
Law could think of was to make him not say anything to anyone! [51]
Indeed there is a tendency in the Church hierarchy to blame the victims for the crime commited on them.
This statement regarding Rudolph Kos and his victims by Monsignor Robert Rehkemper was made in an
interview with a reported from The Dallas Morning News in August 1997:
They [the children] knew what was right and what was wrong. Anybody who reaches the age of reason
shares responsibility for what they do. So that makes us all responsible after we reach the age of six or
seven. [52]
So the monsignor is telling us that a child of seven years old is in a perfect position to resist the
advances of a Roman Catholic priest; a man who would probably be seen by the child as the pinnacle of
morality and authority! If that is not enough, Monsignor Rehkemper, lashed out at the parents of the
victims as well:
No one ever says anything about the role of the parents was in all this. They more properly should have
known because they're close to the kids. Parents have the prime responsibility to look after their kids. I
don't want to judge them one way or another, but it doesn't appear they were very concerned about their
kids...Why let boys go and stay an unlimited amount of time in a church rectory with priests? I just don't
understand it. [53]
In other words, he is saying, why were the parents, devout Catholics probably, so dumb as to trust their
children with priests? I do not think moronic rhetorical questions like this deserve an answer!
Monsignor Rehkemper is not the only Catholic ecclesiastic holding such views. In 1992 a midwestern
bishop called a woman, who was abused as a fourteen year old girl by a priest, a "little lolita" out to milk
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as much money from the church as possible. [54] Cardinal Law, in his recent defense to the charges that
Father Shanley molested a six year old boy, asserted that both the six year old boy and his parents were
negligent and contributed to the abuse. [55] This is how Kevin Burke, the district attorney in Essex
Country, summarized his experience dealing with the church in Boston when he bought charges against
a church worker accused of molesting more than twenty children:
[W]hat really struck me, in communications with the archdiocese, was that there was never any concern
shown for the victims. Not the slightest nod of concern for these young people whose lives were turned
upside down by this abuse. In hindsight, it's striking and shocking that Chruch leaders failed to meet
their moral responsibility...They weren't sorry for what happened to those kids. They were sorry they got
caught."[56]
[top]
The Causes: The Church Implicated
Conservative Catholics have been quick to blame the prevalence of homosexuality in the priesthood for
the current scandal.[57] Indeed recent estimates put the number of homosexual priests around 20%. [58]
For the conservative, the solution is neat, for it suggests that somehow it is not the Church that is at fault
but abberant priests who probably have no right to be in the priesthood anyway!
Inviting as the solution seems to be, it seems mistaken. There is no credible research that links the
sexual abuse of children with homosexuality. As we can see from the examples above, girls and well as
boys were molested. Indeed men who molest little boys are more likely to be heterosexual than
homosexual in their adult involvements. Richard Sipe, a psychiatrist, summarized it succinctly, "Child
sexual abuse has as much to do with homosexuality as rape has to do with heterosexuality." [59]
Two of the main causes of this widespread systemic problem of child sexual abuse are the Church
culture of celibacy and the monolithic authoritarian structure of the church.
Celibacy was originally introduced in the Church during the end of the third century (or the beginning of
the fourth). It did not become widely enforced until Pope Callistus II called the First Lateran Council in
1123 where he declared all clerical marriages invalid. However continued reiteration of this rule through
later councils showed that the enforcements were by no means fully successful. It was only during the
Council of Trent in 1563 that celibacy became an absolute rule. [60]
Note that is is not celibacy per se that causes the sexual abuse of children. It is the celibate culture, one
in which sex is renounced, that forms an attraction to people already struggling with sexual issues. True
pedophiles tend to develop their inclination early and contrary to what many may believe, many of them
feel ashamed of such feelings and fight to contain and, in many cases, to repress it completely. If the
person happens to be a Catholic male and religious, the celibacy of the priesthood with its promise of
grace from God and the provision of the "gift" of celibacy seems just the antedote for his predeliction.
Dr. John Morney, a reknowned authority on human sexuality wrote: "These future priests become
seminarians partly in the belief that they will, through religion, gain control over the very sexual desire
that they resist or fight against". [61]
This is view is shared by another prominent psychiatrist, Dr. Glen Gabbard, who, in an interview with
the authors of The Gospel of Shame said:
The most striking thing is the number of them who went into the profession as a way of dealing with
these very impulses. The impulses to molest children, the sexual feelings to molest children, don't
emerge de novo after they enter the priesthood. They are there consciously, subconsciouly, or
preconsciously. They're present when one makes a vocational choice. They have the feelings that these
impulses are overwhelming and hard to control, so they think that maybe the structure of the Church and
the code of celibacy will somehow help them avoid acting on them."[62]
To that is added the fact that priests are normally given a high level of prestige among Catholic
communities. Most Catholic parents would be proud to have a priest they know take their sons to the
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ball game or for some ice cream. The priest function both as chaperone and companion. Thus this twin
aspect, respect/trust coupled with easy access to children, would prove too much for priests already
inclined to child molestation. [63] Another important cause of the prevalence of child sexual abuse
within Roman Catholicism is the structure of the Church itself. As Bruni and Burkett wrote:
At heart, the problem is that the Catholic Church, in its structure and mentality is a medieval institution
trying to cope with modern problems in a very modern world...the entire structure may be tilting on its
foundation. The Church...simply does not have the flexibility to deal with a crisis that lingers at the
intersection of sexuality, secrecy, patriarchy and blind obedience. Child sexual abuse has become a
scandal within the Church not as the result of conscious, or even unconscious, error or evil, but because
it is embedded in the very structure of Roman Catholicism. [64]
The Roman Catholic Church has always been authoritarian. As Pope John Paul II said in 1987 "The
Catholic Church is a theocratic institution, not a democratic one." [65] Furthermore the Catholic bishops
view their Church as a divine institution, descended from the apostles of Jesus. It was their
responsibility to protect and make sure people respect the Church. Somehow they would be failing their
tasks as bishops if the church reputation is damaged in any way. [66] Thus bishops all over the world
did (do?) their utmost to hide the molestors and somehow look upon the victims reporting the crimes as
enemies out to destroy their beloved church.
Having identified the causes, some Catholic liberals had tried to suggest some solutions. On celibacy, it
has been suggested that ending mandatory celibacy in the priesthood could help. However even a
cursory thought shows that this may not work. For there will still be a group of priests that would be
celibate. In fact if church history is any guide, celibate priests in a non-mandatory celibate culture will
probably be held in higher esteem than married ones. Thus it would not prevent men already
predisposed to pedophilia to join and be celibate for reasons cited above. [67]
Attempting to democratise the structure of the Catholic Church is also a non-starter. For the church is
committed to maintain the fiction that it is an unchanging, divinely sanctioned, institution. This is part of
what Garry Wills called the structure of deceit within the Catholic Church. The statement below made in
1965 by the Catholic theologian, John Ford, on the reason why the Church could not change its
teachings on contraception is equally applicable to its structure:
The Church could not have erred through so many centuries even through one century, by imposing
under serious obligations very grave burdens on the name of Jesus Christ, if Jesus did not actually
impose these burdens. [68]
The structure of the Church is governed by the sixth canon of the Council of Trent (1545-63) which
states:
If anyone says that the Catholic Church there is not a hierarchy, instructed by divine ordination and
consisting of bishops, priests and deacons, let him be anathema. [69]
The hierarchical structure precludes democratization. And using the logic outlined by Father Ford
above, the church could not have condemned so many people in the past ("anathema" means "to
condemn" or "accursed") if the Church was not actually a hierarchy!
In the final analysis two of the major causes of the problem lie at the very core of Roman Catholicism.
When the structure of a building is damaged beyond repair, there is only one solution-pull the whole
structure down.
Notes
a. The technical term pedophilia is used by psychiatric profession to describe the disorder in which an
adult sexually abuses a pre-pubescent child, normally defined as someone below the age of thirteen.
Many of the cases of abuse in the Catholic church however is that of adults abusing post-pubescent
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children or teenagers. This is known by the relatively new term: ephebophilia. Since there are incidences
of both pedophilia and ephebophilia in the Catholic Church, I have used the more all encompassing
term: sexual abuse. In any case I think this term is also more accurate in the sense that, unlike the
technical terms, it brings to fore the criminal nature of the acts.
b. Father Paul Shanley's case is an interesting one. Again the pattern is similar, starting from his
graduation from the seminary in 1960, his abuse of children started almost immediately. In 1965 he
started a four year sexual relationship with a boy in the fifth grade. (In 1992, the man received a
$100,000 settlement from the Boston archdiocese after reporting this.) Complaints were raised about
him in 1967 when he apparently took three boys to a cabin in the woods. He was moved from parish to
parish to avoid complaints. In 1977, as Church record shows, Shanley publicly defended pedohilia. In
that event, he was alleged to have said that "the adult is not the seducer. The kid is the seducer, and
further the kid is not traumatised by the act per se. The kid is traumatised when the police and authorities
drag him for questioning." Father Shanley, according to the church records, also spoke in the 1979
meeting of the NAMBLA (Noth American Man-Boy Love Association.) The church is known to have
settled at least five lawsuits against Father Shanley. The whole thing only came to public attention in
2002 Gregory Ford filed a lawsuit claiming that he was raped repeatedly by Father Shanley in the
1980's. Father Shanley was "active" in the priestood from 1960 to his retirement in 1996. The total
number of his victims may never be known.[12]
c. That abuse happen in the Protestant clergy is undeniable. In October 1992, an Episcopal priest,
Reverend Wallace Frey, had to resign after accusations surface about him molesting ten teenage boys.
d. The priest who abused him in the 1960's, Father Joseph Birmingham, died in 1989. In March 2002,
details began to emerge about Father Birmingham's widespread sexual abuse of children. About forty
victims have appointed lawyers. The total number of his victims may never be known, but it is suspected
that he abused many more children in the six parishes he served during his priesthood. (Caroll, Betrayal:
p91)
References
1. Bruni & Burkett, A Gospel of Shame: pxii
Caroll et.al., Betrayal: p14
2. ibid: p18
3. ibid: p35
4. ibid: p19-20
5. ibid: p21-22
6. ibid: p23-25
7. ibid: p32-35, 82-83
Boston Globe: McSorley's death recalls a life long lost (June 13, 2004)
8. ibid: p26-29, 53
9. ibid: p125
10. Bruni, op cit: p3-25, 89
Carroll, op cit: p42-45
11. ibid: p66, 71
12. Bruni, op cit: p xx-xxii
13. ibid: p43
Wills, Papal Sin: p178
14. Carroll op cit:: p60-65
15. ibid: p124
16. ibid: p37-38
17. Bruni, op cit: p153-155
Carroll, op cit: p41
Carroll, op cit: p41, 173-174
19. Bruni, op cit: p198
20. ibid: p72-75
21. ibid: p84
22. ibid: p34
23. ibid: p35
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24. ibid: p91

25. Carroll, op cit: p113
26. ibid: p118
27. ibid: p195
Cornwell, Breaking Faith: p147, 164-165
Wills, op cit: p186
30. ibid: p222
Wills, op cit: p185
31. Carroll, op cit: p114-115
32. ibid: p115
33. Cornwell, op cit: p161
34. ibid: p161
35. The Sydney Morning Herald, June 2nd 2002
36. Boston Globe, August 16th 2002
37. Boston Globe, May 19th 2002
46. Bruni, op cit: p47, 168
51. ibid: p96
52. Wills, op cit: p180
53. ibid: p179-180
56. ibid: p130
60. de Rosa, Vicars of Christ: p559-590
62. ibid: p51
65. ibid: p233
66. ibid: p170
67. ibid: p229
[top]
Cardinal Untruths
Mahonys testimony in sex scandal clashes with earlier statements and reality
Jeffrey Anderson December 16, 2004
Confidential documents and sworn statements by Cardinal Roger Mahony were released last week,
ending two years of legal maneuvers to shield "his eminence" from examination in the Catholic clergy
sex abuse scandal. The cardinals testimony, memos and letters offer a rare glimpse into Mahonys
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formative years as a priest and young bishop in Fresno and Stockton from 1962 to 1985, and reflect on
his moral standing as shepherd of 5 million Catholics in Los Angeles and ranking prelate in the United
States.
Mahony emerges as a man of contradictions and memory problems. A man who claims never to have
known a priest to have sex before 1968, who struggles to remember steps he took or did not take
to address a pedophilia crisis of epic proportions. A man whose fitness to lead must now be examined in
light of whether he is telling the truth or not.
Compelled by the court after months of resistance, Mahony was deposed recently at his lawyers office
in downtown Los Angeles. Five lawyers representing hundreds of sex-abuse victims questioned Mahony
for six hours about how he responded to accusations that priests in his charge had molested children. His
stubborn refusal to answer all questions with candor was a virtual dare to his adversaries to dig deeper
for the truth.
Victims who witnessed the deposition struggled to contain their emotions as Mahonys attorneys
coached the cardinal and cajoled victims lawyers, who in their blunt questioning conveyed a sense of
moral outrage on behalf of people whose lives were ruined by a priest who might have been stopped had
the cardinal done more. At stake was not only the tenuous negotiations of hundreds of lawsuits alleging
sexual abuse, or the pending prosecution of a few rogue priests, or even the possibility of broader
conspiracy charges against Mahony and his colleagues, but the credibility of the last remaining symbol
of influence, power and authority in the U.S. Catholic Church.
The result is 265 pages of testimony that shows Mahony distancing himself from his own career. "As I
get older, more distant things I cant remember," he says. Like a crooked screw, his story just doesnt fit,
no matter how hard he twists.
For instance, despite new, damaging evidence, Mahony insists he did not lie when he testified in a civil
trial in 1998 that he dealt with just one priest accused of molestation while he was the bishop of
Stockton from 1980 to 1985. He says he simply forgot about memos in his own hand in 1981 and 1984
that show him lowering the boom on two previously undisclosed priests accused of molestation.
Meanwhile, in 1984, he transferred a pedophile priest to a new parish where he molested again. Church
personnel documents are cryptic but suggest a broader problem than the one Mahony denies
remembering.
Such evidence undermines Mahonys credibility as a witness and an administrator. After his sworn
testimony, lawyers accused him of perjury, and sent a transcript to prosecutors in Northern California
for investigation. Fallout could reach Los Angeles, where his decisions to leave priests in ministry after
he knew they had molested children are being investigated. A criminal trial of one, Michael Wempe,
begins in January, and prosecutors know of key witnesses who could revive charges against another,
Michael Baker.
"No amount of public relations can turn this into a poor memory," says A.W. Richard Sipe, a
psychotherapist, author and former priest. "For a man of his background and administrative capability to
make such a claim is disgusting. Were scratching at the surface of his character here. And you are
seeing the philosophy of the Catholic hierarchy, which is, I only lie when I have to. "
Mahonys credibility will be an issue in 544 lawsuits headed for settlement in Los Angeles. Lawyers for
abuse victims have shown they will relinquish the fight for accountability if the price is right. They
recently settled 87 lawsuits with the Diocese of Orange for $100 million, after the diocese promised not
to conceal documents that likely will emerge only after lawsuits are dismissed. While attorneys contend
a large enough settlement could cost Mahony his job, Sipe believes the truth could be more effective. "If
the real story gets told, lay people will realize that Los Angeles is more corrupt than Boston," he says.
Some of the discrepancies may appear small. For example, the Catholic Church for decades has called
upon a variety of institutes to evaluate and treat priests with sexual disorders. Mahony, in his deposition,
said he had no knowledge of them until 1985. Likewise, he seemingly was rising through the ranks of
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some other Catholic Church when the Vatican was disseminating procedures for dealing with priests
accused of solicitation and pedophilia in the 1960s. Mahony was ordained in 1962, and was a licensed
social worker in Fresno from 1964 to 1970. He served there as a chancellor and a vicar between 1975
and 1980. Yet he barely acknowledges being aware that the church was rife with molestation. He even
denies knowledge of priests breaking their vow of celibacy until after the Second Vatican Counsel, in
1968. "I wouldnt have any way of knowing," he said.
"Mahony would have to be deaf, dumb and stupid not to have known of priests breaking their vows in
the 1960s," says a member of the clergy in Los Angeles. "Having sex is one way many found out
whether the priesthood was the right calling for them." Father Thomas Doyle, an Air Force chaplain and
canon law expert says, "As chancellor and vicar, the number one issue that takes up your time is dealing
with problem priests."
One case that Mahony had trouble recalling is illuminated in confidential memos from 1970 that show
him overseeing the transfer of Monsignor Anthony Herdegen from one parish to another. Mahony, in his
deposition, denies any knowledge of reports that young boys visited Herdegen in his private residence in
the rectory. He says Herdegen was transferred for being too conservative. But in December 2003, the
Fresno Bee reported that two brothers accused Herdegen of sexually abusing them in the 1960s and 70s.
Herdegen served in 10 parishes before retiring in 1985.
More explicit records from the Diocese of Stockton show Mahony knee-deep in personnel problems.
Yet he maintained in his deposition that three accused molesters were reported to him before 1985 a
claim that contradicts trial testimony he gave in 1998, in which he admitted only one. Personnel records
suggest there may have been more than three.
The subject at trial in 1998 was Oliver OGrady, a pedophile Mahony transferred in 1984, despite a
1976 letter of apology from OGrady to an 11-year-old molestation victim, and a psychiatrists report
stating OGrady had a "severe defect in maturation in the matter of sex and social relationships."
Mahony claims he never looked in OGradys confidential file, however, so he could not have possibly
seen the letter. And, he said that he did not consider the psychiatrists report to pose a serious problem.
Even if true, such indifference is shocking. Sources say OGrady was the subject of numerous
molestation settlements before Mahony arrived. But again, as incoming bishop, Mahony says he never
inquired about the fitness of the priests in his diocese. He says he didnt even have a key to the
confidential-file cabinet, which is odd, because such files are kept secret from most everyone except the
bishop. OGrady was convicted of lewd conduct involving a child in 1993 and later deported to Ireland.
At the 1998 trial Mahony was asked if any other priests were involved with any kind of sexual
misconduct with children. Mahony replied, "I cannot recall another case." Jurors, some of whom said
they did not believe Mahony, awarded $30 million to OGradys victims. A judge later cut the award to
$7 million.
In fact, OGrady, who responded to a recent lawsuit with a 10-page anatomical explanation claiming he
could not have anally raped a boy 150 times based on his own "medical research, including the
Internet," was not the only accused priest Mahony dealt with at Stockton. Newly surfaced documents,
some handwritten by Mahony, show that he took swift action against two accused priests visiting from
Mexico in the early 1980s.
In 1981, Mahony learned of families who complained that Father Antonio Munoz had taken their sons to
Tijuana and "had some type of sexual misconduct." Mahony fired the priest. "Your assignment and your
faculties were canceled because of problems of a very serious and grave nature," he wrote to Munoz in
1982. Mahony then met with a family in 1984 that claimed their two boys drank beer with Father Hector
Camacho in his bedroom, where the priest later molested them. Mahony typed a five-page memo of his
firing of Camacho. "It is my intention to take every possible step to be certain that no other young
person is harmed," Mahony wrote. Mahony also wrote two letters to the Modesto police and letters to
the bishops in all of the western states warning them not to hire Camacho, who returned to Mexico
under threat of prosecution.
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At his deposition Mahony was asked why he did not acknowledge these incidents at OGradys trial in
1998. "It was some 13 years after I had left Stockton," Mahony said. "We had many events in the
Archdiocese of Los Angeles and I was very preoccupied. We had the visit of the [Pope]. We had
earthquakes. We had riots. We had everything. I simply did not remember everything that happened in
Stockton."
Sipe, who witnessed the deposition, was astounded. "Lawyers might call that perjury, but a lay person
would say, My God, thats a lie. Even if he had a genuine memory lapse it raises questions about his
ability to lead." Such perceptions devastated Cardinal Bernard Law in Boston, when a judge ruled that
his deposition testimony did not appear truthful.
A review of personnel records during Mahonys tenure as bishop of Stockton suggest he was more
involved with priest pedophilia problems than he admits. Clergy Personnel Board minutes from
December 12, 1984, concern a man named Father Titian Miani. "[Miani] seems to be causing dissension
in the parish," the minutes state. "Reports have come from very credible witnesses. We have no process
to deal with priests who act unprofessionally, nor a way to listen to credible witnesses in such cases."
Miani was charged in 2003 with two counts of committing a lewd act on a child in the mid-1960s.
Charges were dropped in 2003 after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Californias statute of
limitations for child sex abuse.
Then there are cryptic entries such as one about a priest who "is back after visiting missionaries. Hell
try to use moral persuasion. We are informing anyone from Welfare, etc., to use civil arm of Stockton to
deal with him if necessary." And this, related to another priest: "OK right now, not bad-bad." Sipe, the
author of the book Celibacy in Crisis, says, "Bad means alcohol problems. Bad-bad means fucking
kids."
After scandal erupted in 2002 Mahony admitted to leaving eight accused molesters in ministry as
cardinal in Los Angeles. That includes Michael Baker, who admitted to Mahony in 1986 that he had
molested several youths, but who Mahony kept in ministry for 14 years. Baker was charged with 34
counts of molestation, which were dismissed as a result of the Supreme Court ruling. And it includes
Michael Wempe, who faces new criminal charges after 42 counts of sex crimes were dismissed last year.
Yet Mahony states that even in the 1980s he knew he must remove priests from ministry when he
received credible allegations of molestation. "I knew that we wanted priests serving in our parishes who
were not going to be a danger to anybody," he testified. But he also said that OGradys admitted sexual
urges toward a 9-year-old would not lead to his removal. Last Thursday, Mahony told a reporter from
CNN that the protocol of the 1980s was to leave accused priests in ministry because, "We
misunderstood pedophilia to be a moral weakness or a sin, something that could be dealt with through
spiritual counseling. We now know that is inadequate." Mahony has offered similar explanations to
explain Baker, Wempe and others who remained in ministry well into the 1990s.
Thomas Brandlin, a deacon in Los Angeles, has a theory about Mahony. In 1986, Brandlin was accused
of molesting a boy in Santa Barbara. Even after Brandlin obtained a declaration of factual innocence
from the Santa Barbara District Attorneys Office, Mahony denied his full faculties for 10 more years,
until Brandlin hired a canon lawyer and brought his case to the Vatican. "He has no plan," Brandlin says
of Mahony. "He does and says what he needs to get out of whatever situation he is confronted with."
Maybe Mahony should stick to memory loss after all.
[top]
THE AMAZING 'TEFLON CARDINAL'

By Steve Lopez, Los Angeles Times April 7, 2002
4/30/2009
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In 1998, Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony was a central figure in one of the most notorious sexabuse trials in Catholic church history.
The case involved two Stockton-area brothers who had been abused by a priest from the time they were
toddlers until they were in their late teens, both before and after the Stockton diocese had received
complaints against the priest.
A jury was so disturbed by the drama that unfolded in San Joaquin County Superior Court, it awarded
$30 million in damages to the brothers, an amount later negotiated to $7 million. Mahony was not a
defendant in the case, but he was the bishop of Stockton during a critical period addressed in the lawsuit.
He had ordered an evaluation after the priest himself admitted he was a molester, then reassigned him to
another parish, where he abused victims for years to come.
"Mahony is the Teflon cardinal," says Jeff Anderson, who represented the victims and was amazed that
Mahony's reputation in Los Angeles was scarcely tainted by the Stockton verdict, which at the time was
the largest-ever per-person settlement in such a case.
One witness at that trial, Nancy Sloan of Fairfield in Solano County, says that to this day, she doesn't
know how Mahony can sleep at night
"I'm absolutely convinced Mahony knew all about the priest," says Sloan, now 37, who was abused by
the same priest years before he abused the two brothers and many others.
Mahony, who insisted at trial that he was unaware of all the allegations against the priest, did not answer
my request for an interview on the subject. But a review of the transcripts, which seemed prudent in
light of the growing church scandal in Los Angeles and other cities, reveals a staggeringly familiar
pattern: A priest who was a known molester kept getting shuffled from one parish to another, claiming
more victims along the way.
In this case, the priest was Father Oliver O'Grady. Nancy Sloan says that in 1976, when she was 11,
Father O'Grady molested her. Father O'Grady wrote a letter of apology to her parents, who met with
church officials. Sloan deeply regrets that her parents didn't notify the police, and, of course, the diocese
didn't call the authorities, either.
"My parents went to the bishop [one of Mahony's predecessors], because they trusted him to do what
was right," Sloan says. What was "right," by diocesan standards, was to pay for Sloan's therapy, file the
incident away, and leave it at that.
Four years later, when Mahony was bishop, an entirely unrelated case came before him. He became
aware of an "improper relationship" between Father O'Grady and the mother of the brothers who would
later be the subjects of the $30-million verdict. Mahony claimed he was unaware of a report that
O'Grady was seen alone with one of the brothers, who was then 2. But he told O'Grady not to see the
woman again, and later transferred him.
Now we come to 1984, when O'Grady himself confessed that he was a molester. According to the police
report, the priest told a county medical practitioner "he had contact of a sexual nature approximately two
weeks ago and other past behaviors of a similar nature." O'Grady also told the medical practitioner that
he had touched the penis of one of the brothers, then 9, while the boy slept. Police began a child-abuse
investigation that ended when the boy could not confirm the abuse.
The police report says the diocesan attorney assured police they "interviewed the suspect and feel the
incident only occurred once and is an isolated incident. The suspect will be sent to counseling through
the church."
Less than one month later, Mahony transferred O'Grady again, this time to a church in San Andreas. In a
letter dated Dec. 10, 1984, Mahony said, "I commit you to the full care of souls in that parish with all
faculties, duties, rights, and privileges.... "
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For the next several years, O'Grady continued to molest his 1984 victim and as many as 10 others,
according to attorney Anderson. Finally, in 1993, after being molested for years, a 19-year-old victim
went to the police. Father O'Grady was criminally convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison.
At the civil trial that followed, Mahony took the witness stand and denied any knowledge of the 1976
molestation of Nancy Sloan, denied knowing about the 1982 report of O'Grady being alone with a 2year-old, denied knowing the full extent of O'Grady's molestation confession in 1984, and denied
ordering his attorney to tell Stockton police there was only one known incident.
"When I was informed," Mahony testified regarding the 1984 incident, "I was not informed that this
priest had admitted to molesting a child. That was not the information I was given. I was operating
under the assumption that an allegation had been made, been thoroughly investigated, and dismissed."
Plaintiffs' attorneys tried to chip away at Mahony, expressing disbelief that the bishop of a small diocese
of fewer than 100 priests would be unfamiliar with the entire file on a priest who had admitted molesting
an 11-year-old girl and a 9-year-old boy. They asked how it was possible that a bishop could not know
every detail of a police investigation that took place on his watch. But Mahony stood his ground,
insisting that his underlings often handled such matters for him.
Mahony testified that he ordered a psychiatric evaluation of O'Grady after the 1984 incident, and was
satisfied with the results, even though the report said: "Father O'Grady reveals a severe defect in
maturation. Not only in the matter of sex, but more importantly in the matter of social relationships, and
shows a serious psychological depression."
There were positive recommendations as well, Mahony testified, and he was comfortable that with
further counseling, Father O'Grady was fit to continue in ministry.
During a break in his testimony, Mahony spoke to reporters outside the courtroom, telling them he
thought the diocese did everything humanly possible to make sure there was no problem with O'Grady
before sending him to San Andreas in December of 1984. When court resumed, attorney Anderson
repeated the cardinal's statement about doing everything humanly possible, then asked:
"At the time, Cardinal, did you talk to the police?"
"No," Mahony said.
"You could have."
"Well, I'm not sure I could have. But .... "
"What was restraining you?" Anderson asked.
It went on like this for several minutes, Anderson knocking down Mahony's claim that everything
humanly possible had been done to prevent future abuse.
Did you send O'Grady to a doctor specializing in sex offense? he asked.
"At the time, I was really unaware that there were such specialists," Mahony said.
Did you check O'Grady's file?
No, Mahony said.
Did you conduct an investigation of your own?
Sending him to a psychiatrist seemed appropriate enough, Mahony answered.
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Did you interview witnesses? Anderson asked.

No, Mahony said, but the police did in 1984, "and dismissed the case."
In 1986, after Mahony's move to Los Angeles, Nancy Sloan returned to the Stockton diocese because
she was wracked with guilt for not making sure Father O'Grady never got near another child. O'Grady
was still at the church Mahony had sent him to, but church officials told Sloan there was nothing to
worry about. Sloan, a nurse, weeps as she tells her story.
"If I had any idea whatsoever when I had gone back there in 1986, there are so many children who could
have been saved from O'Grady, because I would have blown the story out. And if Mahony says he didn't
know anything about O'Grady, my question is, how could you possibly do your job as bishop and not
read any of the files on your employees?"
Sloan says she has thought about paying a visit to Mahony.
"I'd like to tell him he has a moral obligation. If any of these bishops and priests would take
responsibility instead of pretending they didn't know what was going on, and then making excuses ... ,"
she says, not finishing the thought, and pausing to compose herself.
"I have so much guilt for not doing more," she says. "I don't know how Mahony can live with himself
when I can barely live with myself."
[top]
MOUTH WIDE SHUT

Cardinal Roger Mahony's harboring of pedo-priests didn't just start with the current Roman Catholic
sex scandal. As his protection of a predator cleric in Stockton reveals, he's been at it for a long time
By Ron Russell (Los Angeles) New Times April 18, 2002
When the now-infamous e-mails between Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and his top lieutenants were
leaked to a Los Angeles radio station earlier this month, revealing a religious leader obsessively
preoccupied with spin control, John Durham was one person who wasn't surprised. "They don't call him
Roger the Dodger for nothing," says the Stockton loading-dock supervisor, referring to Mahony's
tireless efforts to avoid revealing the names of child-molesting priests he claims to have purged from the
Los Angeles Archdiocese. First, someone inside the archdiocese told the press that he had booted six to
12 priests. Mahony next said it was "a few." Then, in the hacked e-mails, he wrote that it was eight. And
in recent days, while remaining characteristically fuzzy, he has backpedaled once again, acknowledging
that at least 15 sex abuse cases occured in the archdiocese during his watch.Durham is no ordinary
Mahony critic. In fact, he is among a handful of people (12 to be precise) who can say they've judged
the powerful cleric's utterances regarding sex abuse among Catholic clergy up close and under oath, and
found them extremely wanting. As a juror in a 1998 civil trial in which the Stockton diocese -- where
Mahony was bishop before coming to Los Angeles -- was accused of harboring a priest who had
molested children, Durham thought Mahony was lying then, and he thinks he's lying now. Of the
cardinal's role as the star witness in the case involving former priest Oliver O'Grady, Durham insists, "I
found Mahony to be utterly unbelievable." And he is not alone. "I didn't believe Mahony," echoes
Abraham DeLeon, a lifelong Catholic, who also served on the panel. "I think it's pretty obvious that
none of us [jurors] did."
Lawyers for two boys molested by O'Grady, James and Joh Howard, argued that Mahony and other
diocesan officials knew that O'Grady was a child molester and that they covered it up for years, during
which time the Irish-born priest abused at least 20 children. O'Grady was an equal opportunity
pedophile, targeting males and females, with whom he variously engaged in oral and anal sex,
masturbation, digital penetration, groping and fondling. This, while having illicit affairs with at least two
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of the children's mothers. At one parish where Mahony sent him despite a psychiatrist's warning that
O'Grady was sexually and emotionally troubled, the priest kept a play pen at the rectory to make
unsuspecting parents more comfortable leaving their children in his care. His youngest victim -- a girl
who medical tests suggest was digitally raped -- was 9 months old. After a seven-week trial, the jury of
four women and eight men awarded the Howards $24 million in punitive damages (later cut in half by a
judge) and another $6 million in compensatory damages. Although the church has had to fork over
larger compensatory damages in other cases, the punitive judgment awarded by the Stockton jury
remains the largest ever in a child-molestation case.
However, more significantly, especially in view of the current scandal engulfing the church, not to
mention Mahony's well-publicized stonewalling of Los Angeles law enforcement, the verdict was a
repudiation of the man who presides over the nation's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese and has even
been mentioned as a future pope. As bishop of Stockton from 1980 to 1985, Mahony shuffled O'Grady
around and even promoted him in 1984 shortly after the diocese persuaded the Stockton Police
Department to drop its investigation of a sexual incident with a child in which O'Grady was implicated.
But when he took the witness stand as the highest-ranking American Catholic official ever to testify in a
molestation case, Mahony tried to convey the impression that he knew little about the wayward priest.
He repeatedly said that he never knew or couldn't recall key episodes related to his handling of the
O'Grady matter. Stockton was, and is, a small diocese. During the time Mahony was there, it employed
only about 80 priests. By contrast, there are some 1,200 priests in the sprawling L.A. Archdiocese that
encompasses Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.
Indeed, a New Times examination of hundreds of pages of trial testimony and interviews with principals
in the case raises numerous questions about the role of Mahony -- who declined to be interviewed for
this article -- in the Stockton matter. A Catholic psychiatrist who evaluated O'Grady testified at the trial
that it was common knowledge at the diocese in 1984 that O'Grady was a pedophile. A letter of apology
from O'Grady to the parents of a young girl he molested in 1976 was included in his personnel file, to
which Mahony had access. So was a 1980 letter from the Howard boys' father, who, although estranged
from his wife, nonetheless wrote the diocese to complain that O'Grady was spending too much time with
his children. Yet Mahony claimed no knowledge of the 1976 letter. He said he never bothered to
examine the priest's personnel file and had no idea about what might have been in it. He acknowledged
having been told by a subordinate about the 1980 letter, but said he didn't recall any issue related to
children, and assumed that O'Grady's troubles were limited to his "excessive" visits to a married woman.
Amazingly, during four hours of sometimes hostile questioning, the cardinal conveyed the impression
that it was his underlings at the chancery office -- certainly not him -- who advanced O'Grady's career.
If it all sounds similar to accusations against Cardinal Bernard Law and the scandal that has riven the
Boston Archdiocese since it was revealed that a pedophiliac priest under his watch molested up to 130
children while being shuffled from parish to parish for years, news media in Los Angeles and nationally
didn't care much about the O'Grady case. The Boston scandal -- in which at least 80 priests by now have
been accused of pedophilia -- set off a wave of recent media coverage focusing on sex-abuse cases
across the country, many of which (we know now) had been brewing for up to two decades or longer.
Yet the Stockton case -- which would have brought the problem of pedophilic priests in the Roman
Catholic Church to light much sooner, and spared countless victims -- was barely covered in the press.
"We were just flabbergasted that there was so little attention paid to the story," says Nancy Sloan, 37,
who was abused by O'Grady as a girl and who testified at the Stockton trial. "I can remember calling up
reporters and trying to get them to cover it and getting nothing but a ho-hum response. Now, since
Boston, it's funny. I've got reporters from those same newspapers who refused to write much of anything
about Mahony calling up begging me for interviews."
The result -- to the amazement of child- protection advocates and those victimized by Catholic clergy -was that Mahony managed to skip away from the trial with minimal damage to his carefully cultivated
image. Except perhaps in California's Central Valley.
After the trial got under way, lawyers for the plaintiffs were told that the only way to guarantee
Mahony's testimony would be to provide him a private jet -- which was done. At the conclusion of his
day on the witness stand, the cardinal flew home and immediately entered USC's Norris Cancer Center
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to undergo a prostate operation. There, for the next two weeks -- during which time the jury returned its
blockbuster verdict -- Mahony remained conveniently unavailable for questioning. "I call him the Teflon
Cardinal," says Jeff Anderson, a St. Paul, Minnesota, attorney who represented the Howards and has
handled more than 300 sex-abuse cases against members of the clergy, including scores of priests.
"Nothing has stuck to him yet."
Even now, as he continues to bob and weave regarding the unfolding scandal in L.A., Mahony displays
the kind of behavior that rendered him unbelievable in the Stockton case. Besides stonewalling
authorities, he has hunkered down in his residence overlooking the soon-to-open $193 million Our Lady
of the Angels Cathedral, refusing to speak to any but a carefully chosen few reporters. His public
pronouncements have been textbook examples of spin doctoring, either coming after leaks (as in the
purloined e-mails that wound up in the hands of KFI radio) or as an attempt to put the best face on an
unflattering story by offering scraps of information once reporters have gotten wind of something.
For instance, last week Mahony apologized publicly for having reassigned a priest who had been
removed from his parish in 1988 for molesting two boys to chaplain duty at Cedars Sinai Medical
Center -- without ever telling officials at the hospital that he had sent them a pedophile. Mahony said
that if he had it to do over he would have drummend Father Michael Wempe out of the priesthood. But
the episode involving Wempe (whose known track record as a child molester doesn't hold a candle to
O'Grady's) raises more questions about Mahony's actions than it answers. It was only a month ago, amid
the fallout from the current sex scandal, that Mahony finally saw fit to dump Wempe, forcing him into
retirement. And as recently as two years ago, the cardinal thought well enough of the pedo-priest to be
the star guest at a luncheon in his honor.
Almost from the time Mahony, 65, arrived in Los Angeles on Labor Day of 1985 after becoming
archbishop here (Pope John Paul II elevated him to cardinal in 1991), he has been a larger-than-life
figure. From humble origins as the son of a Hollywood electrician who later opened a poultry business,
Mahony has surrounded himself with powerful and politically influential friends. (Former L.A. mayor
Richard Riordan once gave him a $400,000 helicopter, which the cardinal flew around his archdiocese
for several years before he was persuaded to give it up.) He has long cultivated a reputation as
hardworking, organized and with a politician's facility for recalling the names of people, places and
events. According to several priests in the archdiocese who agreed to speak about Mahony on condition
of anonymity, he always has been intimately involved with even the most trivial affairs in his
gargantuan realm. He's legendary for keeping a tight rein on his troops, including sending out midnight
missives known as "snot-grams" to his subordinates to keep them in line. "The term control-freak comes
to mind," confides one priest.
In essence, he doesn't strike anyone as the type who could be clueless about a potential scandal brewing
in his midst. "If you really want to know who Roger Mahony is, all you need to do is look closely into
the Stockton fiasco," says Father Thomas Doyle, a U.S. Air Force chaplain who is coauthor of a
pioneering 1985 report on priestly sexual abuse that was distributed to every bishop in the United States.
Doyle testified as an expert witness for the Howards. "Mahony was a key player in the grossly immoral
cover-up involving Oliver O'Grady, and when I see him and others stand up now and apologize on
behalf of the church for these sorts of crimes I have to ask myself, "Do they think we're stupid?'"
Oliver O'Grady's exploits would have stood out in the smarmy world of priestly child molesters even if
such a prominent figure as Mahony weren't linked to his tragic legacy. "I've never seen a longer and
more clearly documented pattern of cover-up by a diocese," says David Clohessy, who heads SNAP, the
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. Although no one could have known it, O'Grady was
carrying heavy emotional baggage when he arrived at the Stockton diocese as a newly ordained 25-yearold priest in 1971. He confided to one of his victims that he had been sexually abused by two priests in
his native Ireland during a rough-and-tumble childhood in which his father died when he was six and his
mother struggled to make ends meet while raising seven children. "Everyone liked Oliver," recalls
former priest Cornelius DeGroot. "But he kept people at a distance. You could never really get to know
him." O'Grady served as associate pastor to DeGroot in the Central Valley town of Lodi in the
1970s.For diocesan officials, alarm bells went off in 1976, four years before Mahony arrived in Stockton
as the new bishop. While helping oversee a church youth camp in the Sierra foothills the previous
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summer, O'Grady had struck up a friendship with a Fairfield, California, couple who were parents of a
young girl. They were thrilled when O'Grady invited their daughter, 11-year-old Nancy Sloan, to visit
him in Lodi for what amounted to a four-day weekend. "My parents considered it an honor that a priest
would take such personal interest in me," recalls Sloan, now a registered nurse. During her visit with
O'Grady, she says, he groped between her legs while they were in a swimming pool, forcibly kissed her
on the lips in a church after performing a wedding ceremony, fondled her at the state capitol during a
day-trip to Sacramento and forced himself on her as she lay sleeping in a downstairs bedroom of the
Lodi rectory. Horrified and confused, she revealed the abuse to her parents upon returning home,
including O'Grady's threats against her if she told anyone.
Upon receiving a phone call from the parents, DeGroot confronted O'Grady, who confessed. DeGroot
says he then called Bishop Merlin Guilfoyle to tell him what had happened, and drove O'Grady to the
chancery office in Stockton to "turn him over" to Guilfoyle. However, to his surprise, Guilfoyle took no
action against the errant priest other than to suggest that he seek counseling from a local psychiatrist at
the diocese's expense. "It was shocking really," recalls DeGroot, 72, who eventually left the priesthood
to practice law in Stockton. "It should have been curtains for [O'Grady] as a priest right there. It wasn't
just an allegation. He was an admitted child molester."
But O'Grady got even luckier. The staunchly Catholic Sloans did not press criminal charges, and neither
did they sue. Instead, they chose to let the diocese pay for therapy for their daughter. The now-deceased
Guilfoyle, who was then nearing retirement, swept the budding scandal under the rug. Neither he nor
anyone else from the diocese contacted authorities. "My impression," says DeGroot, "was that he
decided to leave O'Grady for his successor [Mahony] to deal with." The one thing the bishop did do was
ship O'Grady to another parish. But before O'Grady left Lodi, DeGroot persuaded him to write a letter of
apology to Sloan's parents for molesting their daughter. The typewritten two-page letter, dated August
23, 1976 (a copy of which was placed in O'Grady's secret file at the chancery office), played a role many
years later in convincing the civil jury that the diocese had covered up the matter during the Mahony era
and beyond.
Nancy Sloan wasn't the first person O'Grady molested. He was regularly abusing a young girl in the
Lodi parish while a guest in that family's home. The girl's parents had been clueless, with the mother
even putting out pajamas for the priest during his occasional overnight stays. Of the suspected 20
victims that prosecutors and plaintiffs attorneys say exist, only nine came forward -- most of them long
after it was too late to file criminal charges or civil suits because statutes of limitation had expired.
Except for Sloan, all the known victims, from the mid-'70s to the early '90s, attended parish churches to
which O'Grady was assigned. They included three boys and a girl from among Roland and Ann
Howard's nine children. The Howards were living in the town of Turlock when O'Grady landed there as
associate priest after he was transferred from Lodi. By the late '70s, he had begun to molest James and
Joh Howard, while both were preschoolers. He did so, off and on, for 10 years.
At the same time, court records show, he had also begun an affair with the boys' mother that continued
after the Howards moved away to Merced. In October of 1980 -- six months after Mahony arrived as the
new bishop -- Roland Howard wrote his letter to the chancery office. In it, he complained, although the
couple had split up, about O'Grady's continued visits to his wife and about the priest's spending too
much time around his children. He groused that O'Grady had showed up on his day off dressed in "street
clothes" and had taken his two-year-old son away alone for the day. That letter also went into O'Grady's
secret file.
The letter prompted Mahony to summon O'Grady to meet with him. At the conclusion of their talk, the
bishop ordered the priest to stay away from Merced. O'Grady didn't. In fact, his accusers say he
continued to molest the Howard children while carrying on his priestly duties. Whether or not it was to
keep a better eye on him, Mahony transferred O'Grady into Stockton in 1982. It was there in 1984 that
problems with him erupted anew. Just what prompted what follows isn't certain, but Mahony's vicar
general, Monsignor James Cain, approached a local Catholic psychiatric social worker in October of that
year about providing counseling for O'Grady. It was an unusual request for a couple of reasons. Not only
was the counselor, William Guttieri, a parishioner in O'Grady's Stockton church, but the two socialized.
Nevertheless, during one of their sessions, O'Grady alluded to having engaged in recent pedophiliac
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activity with a boy, who turned out to be James Howard. As he was obligated to do under state law,
Guttieri reported what he had been told to Stockton police and to San Joaquin County Child Protective
Services. He also informed Tom Shephard, the diocese's lawyer.
What happened next was extraordinary. Stockton police detective Jerald Cranston went to Merced to
interview Ann Howard, who acknowledged that some of her children had spent nights with O'Grady at
the rectory 50 miles away in Stockton and that O'Grady was an occasional overnight guest in her home.
The detective had less luck talking to the alleged victim, her son James, who was nine at the time. The
boy didn't volunteer that he had been molested and the detective didn't press him. When Cranston got
back to Stockton, he received a call from Shephard, the diocese's lawyer. According to police records,
Shephard told him that diocese officials -- he didn't say who -- had interviewed O'Grady and felt the
alleged episode involving the boy was an isolated incident. According to the police officer, the diocesan
lawyer assured him that O'Grady would get counseling through the church and that he would be
transferred to a new assignment where he would be working with adults away from any children.
Shephard was essentially making a pitch to Stockton police to leave O'Grady's future in the hands of
Bishop Mahony -- who, by then, enjoyed an almost legendary reputation among the farm belt diocese's
many Latino parishioners for his early support of United Farm Workers president Cesar Chavez during
the labor organizer's struggle against wealthy San Juaquin Valley grape producers. (Ironically, Mahony's
image as a friend of poor working people later took a beating when he snuffed out efforts by mostly
Latino workers at the L.A. Archdiocese's cemeteries to organize a union in the early 1990s.) After the
call from Shephard in late November, the police investigation fizzled.
Mahony did order a fresh psychological evaluation of O'Grady. But amazingly, he then shipped the
priest to a parish in the remote Sierra foothills community of San Andreas two weeks before Christmas
of 1984, without even waiting for the psychiatrist's report. When the report arrived nearly three weeks
after O'Grady was in the new assignment, it couldn't have been what Mahony wanted to hear. O'Grady
had admitted to the psychiatrist, John Morris, that he had molested children, although he didn't say how
many or for how long. Although Morris didn't include those particular facts in the written report he sent
to Mahony (and, at the 1998 civil trial, didn't seem to recall exactly what he told Mahony during one or
more conversations with him years earlier), the written document spelled out clearly Morris' conclusion
that O'Grady exhibited serious sexual and social immaturity. In a rather revealing suggestion -considering that the secular psychiatrist was informing a Roman Catholic bishop about one of his priests
-- Morris also urged that O'Grady be given "spiritual" help.
But O'Grady had already lucked out again by that time, and Mahony wasn't about to do anything to
change that. Interestingly, O'Grady, always before an associate pastor, had been promoted by Mahony
when he was transferred to San Andreas. So instead of landing in jail or getting defrocked, O'Grady -despite the psychiatrist's shocking evaluation -- would continue handling the administrative duties of an
ailing elderly priest in a parish brimming with children. The year after the pedo-priest's promotion,
Mahony was himself promoted and transferred. He became archbishop and headed to L.A., presumably
putting O'Grady behind him.
It was while at San Andreas that Oliver O'Grady came into his prime as a sexual predator. The crimes
committed against James and Joh Howard that eventually got him sent to prison occurred after he was
transferred there. It was also after the transfer that he allegedly committed offenses against two of the
boys' siblings. He was never prosecuted as a result of those allegations since authorities didn't become
aware of them until statutes of limitation had expired. While he continued a long-distance relationship
with Ann Howard in Merced, O'Grady also zeroed in on a young married woman -- and her children -in his new parish. The woman, now 46, who has never been identified publicly in connection with
O'Grady, agreed to tell her story to New Times on condition that she be identified only as Jane Doe. She
and her husband agreed to an undisclosed settlement with the Stockton diocese in 1995 stemming from
O'Grady's molesting two of their children, including a daughter who was only nine months old when the
abuse began.Doe and her husband were among the unsuspecting parishioners on hand to welcome
O'Grady to San Andreas. Slender -- barely five feet five inches tall and sporting a comb-over to conceal
a thinning hairline -- O'Grady scarcely fit the description of a lady's man. But those who knew him say
he was the quintessential nurturer. "He had this quality of seeming to always be absolutely listening to
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you, of hearing everything, being emotionally supportive, feeding you the things you needed to hear,"
recalls Doe. He became "like a member of the family," a confidante to both her and her husband. The
couple didn't consider it unusual that the priest gave their grade-school-age son gifts and showered him
with attention. After their daughter was born, he volunteered to baby-sit. For her part, Doe had turned to
O'Grady for pastoral help as she struggled with episodic depression and her husband's excessive
drinking. Gradually, she says, she became emotionally involved with him. "Looking back on it, I was
pathetically ill at the time. I actually thought I loved this man." Their first sexual encounter occurred
during a counseling session at the rectory in 1992. It was the start of a year-long affair that ended
abruptly -- with what she describes as the most horrifying phone call of her life.
The call, from one of Ann Howard's grown daughters, came the Monday after Father's Day in June of
1993. "She told me who she was, that she and three of her brothers had been molested by Oliver
O'Grady as children, and that she feared he may have now moved on to my children," recalls Doe.
O'Grady's brazenness had triggered the warning. A short time earlier, the priest had flown to San Diego
to attend a wedding of a Howard relative. At the reception, one of the Howard sons, whom the priest had
molested, noticed O'Grady paying undue attention to one of his little brothers and exploded in anger,
creating a scene. The San Diego episode left O'Grady visibly shaken, but by the time he greeted Doe,
who picked him up at the Oakland airport upon his return, there was no hint that anything was wrong.
However, the incident had pushed four of the Howard children to a horrible mutual realization -- they
had each been victimized by O'Grady without the others ever knowing.
Doe recalls feeling suicidal while listening to the Howard daughter's voice on the phone. But by the time
the conversation ended, she says, "I was very calm, and I believed her." She called her husband and told
him to come home immediately to stay with the kids. Then she called her sister-in-law to accompany her
on the 45-minute drive to the town of Hughson, near Modesto, where O'Grady had been transferred
recently. She was so shocked and angry that she was determined to confront him. In the church parking
lot she was greeted by Ann Howard, who had driven up from Merced with her daughter and the
daughter's boyfriend so that Doe would not have to face the priest alone. The daughter and her friend
were already inside the rectory talking to O'Grady. By the time Doe and Howard entered, fisticuffs had
broken out between the cleric and the boyfriend. O'Grady grabbed a phone to dial 911. "If you do, I'm
going to tell the whole world what you did!" Doe recalls Howard's daughter shouting. O'Grady put down
the phone, but it was too late. The emergency center already had determined the number from which the
call had been placed. Within minutes, sheriff's deputies arrived.
The deputies took a disturbance report without making an arrest. But it was the beginning of the end for
O'Grady. Doe and her husband, as part of a preliminary criminal investigation, pushed to have their
daughter, who by then was barely two years old, examined by doctors at UC Davis to determine the
extent to which she may have been molested. The results revealed vaginal scarring consistent with
digital penetration. Since the little girl had not begun to talk when the abuse occurred, the local district
attorney's office shied away from pursuing charges. As for their son, who then had just turned 14, Doe
and her husband embarked on the difficult task of drawing the boy out about what O'Grady had done to
him. "He was extremely traumatized and became extremely withdrawn," Doe recalls. After finally
breaking down and telling his parents what had happened, he became so distraught that he attempted to
kill himself.
Meanwhile, James and Joh Howard (whose abuses, like those of the Doe children, hadn't happened so
long ago that O'Grady couldn't be prosecuted because of statutes of limitation) decided the time had
come to go to the authorities. O'Grady was arrested in early August of 1993, based on charges brought
by the brothers. Still, it was little consolation to Jane Doe, who wanted to know the truth about what the
priest had done to her children, especially to her daughter, who couldn't speak for herself. When he
refused to talk to her when she visited him in jail shortly after his arrest, she sent a pastoral counselor,
the Reverend Deborah Warwick Fabino, an Episcopal priest, to see him. To Fabino's surprise, O'Grady
confessed to molesting the Doe children and several others. "His attorneys were advising him to plead
not guilty" to molesting the Howards, Fabino tells New Times, "but when I said I needed to let the
police know [about his confessions] they apparently changed their minds." Charged with 21 counts of
lewd and lascivious conduct involving the two Howard boys, O'Grady admitted guilt to four of the
counts as part of a plea bargain. He was sent to Mule Creek State Prison in nearby Ione to begin serving
4/30/2009
Page 27 of 32
seven years behind bars.

Doe says she feels fortunate -- though she was shattered spiritually and her son, now 22, has been
rendered "emotionally unstable" by the abuse, despite years of therapy. The week she confronted
O'Grady her husband quit drinking. "He told me that I'd stuck with him for years, and that it was his turn
to stick with me. It's a nightmare we've lived through, but we're still there for each other." Citing a
confidentiality agreement, she declines to say how much the Stockton diocese paid to settle their civil
complaint, but she is convinced that it was far less than what a jury would have awarded had they not
chosen to forego a trial to spare their children further trauma.
She says Mahony has been the biggest impediment in her healing process. In 1994, after O'Grady went
to prison, Doe, using Fabino as an intermediary, sought an audience with the cardinal as a way of
seeking closure. "I just wanted to understand from him how he could have allowed this man to have
continued as a priest and how he could have sent him [to San Andreas] knowing what I'm convinced he
knew," says Doe. Fabino says she wrote a letter to the cardinal appealing to him as a pastor, asking him
to see Doe, but that Mahony refused. "I got a cursory letter back from one of his representatives saying it
wasn't possible," Fabino says. "That was it."
Had Nancy Sloan followed through with a promise she made to herself, the Doe family and others might
have escaped a lot of pain. Sloan had turned 21 in 1986 and with support from a therapist felt compelled
to confront O'Grady for what he had done to her as a child 10 years earlier. Mahony had moved to L.A.,
and the Most Reverend Donald Montrose had taken over as bishop in Stockton by then. Sloan wrote to
the chancery office seeking information about O'Grady, and was immediately put off by the response.
Diocesan officials didn't tell her much of anything. Persisting, she drove to Stockton in May 1986 and
sat down with several of them, including Monsignor Cain, who was still the vicar general. The
interchange became testy, she says, especially after one of the priests tried to explain away the church's
handling of her abuse by saying that there might have been a different response if she had been a boy.
Sloan says she was assured by diocesan officials that O'Grady had voluntarily submitted to counseling;
that there had never been another incident with him involving a child after her 1976 experience; that he
had been assigned to duties that kept him away from children and that he was a highly respected priest
doing wonderful things.Of course, it was all lies.
She told Cain and the others that she wanted to confront O'Grady as part of her healing process, but they
didn't think it was a good idea. Neither did her parents. So she backed off. But not for long. On a winter
Sunday in March of 1987, she drove an hour-and-a-half from her home to Saint Andrew's Parish Church
in San Andreas, knowing that O'Grady would preside at mass that morning.
Since she doubted he would recognize her, she had a plan. She would confront him before the entire
parish. She would pretend to partake of communion, and just before he extended the Eucharist, she
would blurt out what she had come for. If she couldn't get her nerve up, there was a backup plan. She
would go into the confessional and tell him that she had been abused by a priest and wait for his
response before revealing herself to him. "I think more than anything I wanted to hear him offer some
mitigating circumstance, or say he was sorry, or that he felt self-loathing, just something, anything. But
mostly I wanted to see the look on his face when I told him about how he robbed me of my childhood."
Driving past the town cemetery on the way to the church she fantasized that he might be dead, even
though she knew better. She had printed copies of the apology letter DeGroot had compelled him to
write a decade earlier and intended to put one on every car in the parking lot.
But none of it went as intended. He was already at the sacristy when she entered the church, and she
took a seat near the back. When the service was over, she waited until a contingent of parishioners
gathered around their priest near the front of the church had thinned out before approaching. But just as
she got close, a woman with a little girl stepped in front of her. "Give father a hug," the woman
exhorted. "It was more than I could take," recalls Sloan, who says she sat in a pew and wept. O'Grady,
she says, walked past her without saying a word.
By the time she composed herself and left the church, there were no cars in the parking lot on which to
place O'Grady's letter. But she had another chance. He had headed off to the nearby community of
4/30/2009
Page 28 of 32
Mokelumne Hill, eight miles up the road, to preside at a second mass that morning. Sloan followed.
Again, she sat through the service. This time, in a scene that she says was reminiscent of Little House on
the Prairie, the parishioners lined up outside on the front steps of the tiny church to greet the priest after
the service. Biding her time, she waited until the last person left before drawing close. "Nancy, isn't it?"
she recalls him saying, as if she were an old chum. He quickly became agitated and asked her to leave.
"He wanted to pretend it never happened," she says of his abuse of her, "and he let me know in no
uncertain terms that he wanted me to disappear. He even threatened to sue me when I told him I was
thinking of distributing his apology." Disappointed yet pleased that she had had the courage to face her
abuser, Sloan got in her car and drove away. Except for O'Grady, not a soul in San Andreas -- least of all
Jane Doe -- knew why she had come.
Considering O'Grady's many alleged victims, the priest's arrest, guilty plea and prison sentence related
to just the four felony counts regarding the Howard brothers must have seemed a momentary blessing in
disguise for the diocese and Mahony. Avoiding a nasty criminal trial, not to mention civil litigation,
meant less publicity. The diocese quickly instituted settlement talks with Doe and her husband, who in
truth were never keen on a rigorous court proceeding.That left the Howards, and they were a different
story. Their local attorney, Laurence Drivon of Stockton, teamed up with Anderson, the Minnesota
lawyer, who had already gained a tough-as-nails reputation in prosecuting dozens of civil cases across
the country involving priestly sexual abuse. In James and Joh Howard the lawyers had clients who were
not only willing to endure the emotional strain of going to court, but who stood to help inflict heavy
financial damage on the diocese once a jury heard about how Mahony and the others had embraced a
sexual predator. Drivon and Anderson would have a field day making the three bishops of Stockton -especially the, by then, exalted Mahony -- appear derelict in letting O'Grady run amuck among the
unsuspecting faithful.
It's no exaggeration to say Mahony came off horribly on the witness stand, and it wasn't because the airconditioning in a storage area converted into a courtroom was no match for Stockton's muggy June heat.
"I did not know of [O'Grady's] admission to these matters at the time of these appointments," Mahony
told the rapt courtroom. But what the bishop-turned-cardinal acknowledged about his priest struck
Durham, the juror, as unconscionable -- especially in view of Mahony's approach of merely shuffling the
pedophile from parish to parish. For instance, when asked about Roland Howard's 1980 letter, Mahony
said he hadn't seen it, but that Cain, the vicar general, had told him about it and that he had no
understanding at the time that the letter alluded to any concern Howard may have had about O'Grady's
being around his children.
"Apparently there was a concern that [O'Grady] was still having some kind of visitation or relationship
with this woman in Merced, and that's the basis of the -- that's where I learned about it," Mahony
testified, referring to the letter. He told the court that Cain informed him that the avowedly celibate
priest had been carrying on a relationship with Ann Howard, that she and her husband were having
marital problems and that O'Grady's involvement with her "may have been excessive." (Ann Howard did
not respond to interview requests for this article. A long-time acquaintance says "she and her children
want to put the O'Grady saga behind them.")
Mahony's explanation of the events surrounding O'Grady's 1984 admission of having engaged in sexual
conduct with James Howard and the diocese's role in talking the police out of pursuing the matter was
particularly troublesome, Durham recalls. He refers to Mahony's contending that he didn't know about
previous allegations of misconduct by O'Grady involving children -- which was disputed by at least one
other witness who testified that O'Grady's reputation as a child molester was well-known among
diocesan priests. "That's the sort of thing that, once it gets out, it spreads," DeGroot, who pulled the plug
on O'Grady in 1976, tells New Times. For that matter, O'Grady's written admission of his misconduct
with Nancy Sloan was on file in the chancery office. "To me it's inconceivable that [Mahony] didn't
know," DeGroot says.
Even more jaw-dropping was the cardinal's Orwellian rationale for not probing the 1984 O'Grady
confession to Guttieri, the psychiatric counselor, about O'Grady's abuse of James Howard before
assigning the pedophile to the San Andreas post. Mahony testified that he never once bothered to speak
to Guttieri about O'Grady. The mere notion of a bishop -- and especially a hands-on manager like
4/30/2009
Page 29 of 32
Mahony -- not deigning to consult with someone to whom one of his priests had confessed pedophilia
smacked of incredulity. Not only that, but the counselor had already testified that he had informed the
diocese's attorney about O'Grady's revelation even before notifying the police and child welfare
authorities. Mahony said the police had investigated the matter, dismissed it and there was therefore "no
need to pursue it." Never mind that Cranston, the Stockton police investigator, refuted that assessment in
court. According to the officer, it was the diocese, through Shephard, its lawyer, who approached him
seeking to sweep the matter under the rug. Cranston said Shephard assured him that there were no
previous allegations of misconduct with children involving O'Grady and that the diocese would reassign
him to duties that didn't place him in contact with children. (In his testimony, Shephard denied telling
that to the officer.) For someone who dismissed what O'Grady had confessed to his counselor as not
worth pursuing, Mahony wasted no time in calling Morris, the psychiatrist, to have O'Grady evaluated in
November, even as the police were trying to collect the facts about what O'Grady had done to the boy.
But it was Mahony's attempts to shift responsibility for O'Grady's being shuffled around that provide
perhaps the most revealing insight into the cardinal's mindset concerning child-molesting priests. "If you
had known that he had, in fact, admitted to touching a child in 1976, would you have committed to him
the full care of souls at [San Andreas]?" attorney Drivon asked. "No," said Mahony, who quickly
jumped to defending his response to O'Grady's 1984 problem: "We relied on the judgment of
professionals."
Drivon: "Cardinal, if you had known that he had admitted to a touching of a nine-year-old boy to Mr.
Guttieri in 1984 and conduct of [a] similar nature, would you have committed to him the full care of
souls at the church in [San Andreas]?"
Mahony: "It's a bit speculative. In any case and all cases we -- if there's a suspicion or problem -- refer to
competent professionals to assist in making the recommendations. And if the competent professionals
do not raise any flag or cautions or concerns, then we act according to their judgment."
Drivon: "Are you saying, Cardinal, that if Father O'Grady had admitted to you that he had molested a
child and you referred him to a professional that said he could be placed [in a parish], you would have
placed him?"
Mahony: "Again that's hypothetical. If Father O'Grady had had a conversation with me that raised
suspicions with me, I would have most likely put any permanent assignment on hold until we got it
clarified one way or the other."
A moment later, Anderson, the Howards' cocounsel, bore into the sensitive point one more time:
"Cardinal, are you suggesting that you would have considered placing him in that parish [at San
Andreas] if a professional would have recommended it notwithstanding a molestation by Father
O'Grady?"
Mahony replied, "No. I said we would have withheld [an appointment] depending on what the situation
was. We would have either taken him out of there possibly for further evaluation. We would not have
proceeded without taking adequate steps to make sure there were no problems."
As the trial made clear, no such steps were taken. And before it was over, lawyers for the plaintiffs made
certain the point wasn't missed. O'Grady, looking haggard and dressed in prison garb, took the witness
stand to be glared at one last time by accusers who had waited years to hear words of contrition. He
didn't bestow any. Neither did he have anything to say upon being released from prison early last year
over the objections of numerous of his alleged victims. Having forced him to serve a required seven
years behind bars, state officials declined to evoke a law that allows convicted child molesters to have
their sentences extended when their release is deemed a threat to society. O'Grady walked out of jail into
the arms of agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. They promptly escorted him to the
airport in San Francisco, where he was placed on a flight bound for his native Ireland. "I guess the
thinking was why let American taxpayers pay for his upkeep, when they could just turn him loose to
molest Irish kids," says Sloan, who opposed the release.O'Grady wasn't on trial in Stockton, but in a real
sense, Mahony was. "In order to bring in that verdict, the jury had to believe the cardinal was not telling
4/30/2009
Page 30 of 32
the truth," says Anderson, the attorney. "If they had believed the cardinal, there would not have been
punitive damages under the law." After the verdict, when some of the lawyers were standing around
talking to jurors, Anderson says he asked a 50-year-old woman juror and lifelong Catholic how she felt
seeing Mahony walk into the courtroom. "I just prayed that you wouldn't be too hard on him because my
mother and dad always taught me that a cardinal is like a saint," she told him. "And so I said, "Well,
how did you feel afterward?' She just broke down sobbing, and said, "He lied.'"
[top]
L.A. CARDINAL'S ROLE OUTRAGES ABUSE VICTIMS

Mahony lacks credibility to protect kids, critics say
By Don Lattin San Francisco Chronicle April 19, 2002
Abuse victims familiar with a Stockton pedophile case are outraged that Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los
Angeles -- one of eight U.S. cardinals called to Rome next week over the sex scandal rocking the
Catholic Church -- is entrusted with carrying out new policies to protect children from harm.
Testimony in the 1998 Stockton case, in which a jury awarded two brothers millions of dollars in
damages, indicated that Mahony had knowingly allowed a pedophile priest to continue working and
taken no action to keep him away from children.
This year, an admission of similar malfeasance from Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston was a key factor
in precipitating the current atmosphere of crisis in the church.
"I'm particularly troubled that someone like Mahony can be considered a potential part of the solution
when his own track record has been very dismal," said David Clohessy, national director of the
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
Mahony, Clohessy said, lacks the credibility needed to find real solutions at the unprecedented meeting
with Pope John Paul II.
With similar issues shadowing Mahony and Law, Clohessy said the Vatican trip was like "calling the top
officials of Enron together to prevent another economic fiasco."
Mahony served as the bishop of the Diocese of Stockton from 1980 to 1985, when he was elevated to
head the nation's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese. According to sworn court testimony, Bishop
Mahony ignored documented evidence presented to him warning that the Rev. Oliver O'Grady was a
dangerous child molester.
Stockton attorney Larry Drivon, who won the verdict against O'Grady and the Stockton Diocese, was
shocked that Mahony would be called on to help the church find a way out of the sex abuse crisis.
"The thought of having this guy protect children against pedophile priests is sickening," Drivon said.
"Parents should ask whether they want a solution left in the hands of Roger Mahony."
Nancy Sloan, a Fairfield woman who says she was molested by O'Grady in 1976, when she was 11
years old, said she thought Mahony -- the West Coast's only cardinal -- should resign as the archbishop
of Los Angeles.
"Mahony betrayed our trust and hasn't taken responsibility for his part in all this," Sloan said. Among
the material presented in the 1998 trial was a 1976 letter in the files of the Stockton diocese in which
O'Grady admitted to inappropriate behavior with Sloan.
The evidence implicating Mahony in the O'Grady case was offered by the very psychiatrist whom
Mahony, as bishop, had hired in 1984 to assess the pedophile priest. O'Grady was sentenced to 14 years
4/30/2009
Page 31 of 32
in prison after pleading guilty to four counts of lewd and lascivious acts.
In his testimony in the Stockton trial, Mahony denied that he knew O'Grady was a child molester.
But that statement was contradicted by the testimony of Dr. William Morris. According to the trial
transcript, Morris testified that O'Grady had admitted being a "molester of children" and that Mahony
had told Morris that he knew about O'Grady's pedophilia problem.
Morris' written report warned that O'Grady suffered "a severe defect in (sexual and social) maturation"
and "is not truly called to the priesthood." Nevertheless, Mahony sent the priest on to other parishes,
where the molestations continued.
Drivon, who calls Mahony "the Teflon cardinal," noted that there had been numerous calls for Law to
resign as archbishop of Boston over his mishandling of problem priests.
Mahony "did what Cardinal Law did," Drivon added. "But I don't believe Cardinal Law had the
opportunity to lie on the witness stand under oath."
Drivon said the Stockton jury had found in its verdict that Mahony "acted with malice and that his
conduct was despicable." To reach that conclusion, Drivon said, "they had to find that he (Mahony) was
lying."
Attorneys for two victims of O'Grady molestation, brothers Joh and James Howard of Turlock, said
Mahony was one of three bishops who had covered up for O'Grady.
In 1998, when The Chronicle first reported the evidence against Mahony in the O'Grady case, Clohessy
said the case was "the clearest documented history of coverup by a diocese." At the time, neither the
cardinal nor his spokesman chose to comment.
Repeated phone calls yesterday and Wednesday to Mahony's spokesman, Tod Tamberg, were not
returned.
But Mahony gave a series of interviews yesterday about new plans to protect children in the Los
Angeles diocese.
"One of our main roles is forgiveness, reconciliation, restoration," Mahony said.
Among his proposals are:
-- Expanding the authority of a panel overseeing sexual abuse allegations in the archdiocese. He is
considering appointing a sexual abuse victim to improve credibility.
-- Creating a separate task force to address how much the archdiocese has paid to settle abuse claims
against clergy members.
-- Adding spiritual programs that aid victims who are members of the church but want separate guidance
from other forms of counseling.
Mahony and 20 lower-ranking bishops from across California were wrapping up a private meeting in
Los Angeles yesterday. Ned Dolejsi, executive director of the California Catholic Conference, said the
state's bishops had been told by leaders of the U.S. bishops conference to come up with proposals to
help solve the sex abuse crisis.
The bishops issued no public statement at the adjournment of their meeting yesterday afternoon.
But whatever they did come up with will also be presented at a June meeting of all the U.S. bishops in
Dallas. That meeting -- unlike the California bishops gatherings or next week's session at the Vatican --
4/30/2009
Page 32 of 32
are open to the press.

The initial $30 million verdict in the O'Grady case -- $6 million in compensatory damages and $24
million in punitive damages -- was never collected.
A judge later reduced the award, and in 1999 the Diocese of Stockton agreed to pay the Howard brothers
$7.65 million.
See also:
Catholic church in LA to pay 325m compensation to child abuse victims
Victims of paedophile priests seeking justice
Pope criticised over 'anti-Semitic' priest
Catholic Church suspends gay priest whose cover was blown
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laws respecting the establishment of religion.

Sex Abuse in the Catholic Church

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to the victims of his abuse.(see above section)

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The Management of the Problem by the Catholic Church

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24. ibid: p91

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THE AMAZING 'TEFLON CARDINAL'

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Did you interview witnesses? Anderson asked.

MOUTH WIDE SHUT

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seven years behind bars.

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L.A. CARDINAL'S ROLE OUTRAGES ABUSE VICTIMS

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