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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsVatican impeded Mahony attempts to remove priests, files show
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mahony-vatican-20130216,0,1445263.storyVatican impeded Mahony attempts to remove priests, files show
Newly released documents trace the cardinal's frustration with ongoing delays in his efforts to get some accused abusers out of the priesthood.
By Victoria Kim and Ashley Powers, Los Angeles Times
In 1993, Cardinal Roger Mahony wrote to the Vatican with an urgent problem. One of his priests in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles had been accused of plying teenage boys with alcohol and molesting them, sometimes during prayer.
In less than eight years, Father Kevin Barmasse had, as one church official put it in newly released files, "left a wake of devastation that is hard to comprehend." Mahony yanked Barmasse out of his parish and wanted to make sure he couldn't return. But Barmasse appealed to the one body that could overrule Mahony: the Vatican.
"The case has been there for many, many months," Mahony wrote to one Vatican office tasked with handling priest misconduct. "The lengthy delay has created serious problems for my own credibility as a Diocesan Bishop."
In the wake of the court-ordered release of 12,000 pages of confidential archdiocese records, Mahony has been criticized for hiding abuse allegations from police and failing to protect parishioners from accused molesters. But the documents suggest that Mahony at times had to press an unresponsive Vatican to get molesting priests out of the church.
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Vatican impeded Mahony attempts to remove priests, files show (Original Post)
jsr
Feb 2013
OP
I will never understand why any of this is tolerated at any level by Catholics worldwide.
MichiganVote
Feb 2013
#1
MichiganVote
(21,086 posts)1. I will never understand why any of this is tolerated at any level by Catholics worldwide.
Sure he was trying to do right by those kids. Whenever reasonable people find evidence of child abuse they inform the police, not the vatican. There is plenty of evidence that indicates this sick disregard for the lives and safety of children was shared by Ratzinger. Mahoney and the pope should spend the rest of thier disgusting lives in prison with the rest of the scum. The only thing I would be worried about is the amount of evil Mahoney and the Pope would teach to thier fellow prisoners.