Archbishop emeritus Roger Mahoney comes to mind.



He's disgraced, but is he disgraced enough?

Los Angles is one of those 77 Dioceses lead by a Archbishop. The 28,345 Diocese are divided in 525 "Metropolitans". Each of these "Metropolitans" is an Archbishop. There are 77 other Archbishops, those are tied in with old Diocese that no longer exists, but the names are kept for priests that the Pope wants to make a Bishop BUT has no active Diocese o give that Bishop.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy_of_the_Catholic_Church#Metropolitans

The actual power of an Archbishop is limited, he can do an inspection and report problems of a Bishop to the Vatican, he can appoint an administrator at the death of a Bishop IF THE PRIESTS OF THAT DIOCESE FAIL TO DO SO THEMSELVES. Archbishops can perform mass throughout his metropolitan area, if he has permission of the Bishop of any diocese other then his own.

For all practical purposes an Archbishop is more a first among equals then anything else. He can NOT even remove the Bishops of the Diocese within his Metropolitan area.

Roger Mahoney was like most of the other bishops involved in the sex scandal, his problem was an inability to discipline his friends (i.e. the Priests under his control). For more details see his wikipedia site:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Mahony

Thus for purposes of the Sex Scandal, there is no real difference between a Bishop and an Archbishop. As to law, the same can be said of him, he just could NOT find himself disciplining his friends:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Francis_Law

As to Criminal charges, none have been made against Law, the reason being he did NOT do any of the sexaul abuse himself, he is only accused of covering up the incidents AFTER there happened. That is a Civil Matter not a Criminal Matter. Thus Law is NOT hiding out in Rome under Vatican Protection from CRIMINAL CHARGES. He is still a strong advocate against women priests and that is what Law is best know to be involved with at the present time.

Isn't he hiding at the Vatican

See Law on Wikipedia for details:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Francis_Law

Perhaps he should be sent back. After all, the statute of limitations is held in abeyance for fugitives from justice.

In fact if you want to extradite someone, you have to charge that person with a CRIME FIRST. Thus the fact that Law is in the Vatican does NOT prevent anyone in Boston from bring criminal charges against him. The problem is what he did was NOT criminal. i.e he did NOT conspire to cover up a crime, all he did was move someone who had been ACCUSED of a crime to another parish. In fact he had NO personal knowledge of the alleged crime, except by hearsay. The person who could make a criminal accusation was the victim or if the victim was a minor, their parents (or whoever had custody of the minor).

Thus you have someone who covered up a crime, after he had been told of the crime, but his information was at best second hand. The persons with first hand information did NOT take that information to the Police till after the minor was an adult, and even then only after any Criminal statute of limitation had expired (Most criminal Statute of Limitations tend to be only two years from the date of the crime). On the other hand most statute of Limitation for Civil Litigation tend to be four years from the time the victim turned 18 years of age. This difference in time is why we hear of these cases, the civil lawsuits are what we hear about. Few criminal charges can be brought for the statute of limitations kick in.

Cardinal Law did a lot of harm in how he handle the pedifile cases, but from what I can tell nothing Criminal.

but he should excommenicated and deported.

He just can NOT receive Communion and the other members of the congregation are to have limited contact with the person excommunicated. People are often shocked when I tell them the Catholic Church still REQUIRES people it has excommunicated to still go to Mass each Sunday. They can NOT be denied entry. They can be denied communion, if the priest KNOWS the person had been excommunicated (If the Priest does NOT know, the Priest must still give Communion on the presumption that anyone lined up to get communion is in full communion with the Catholic Church).

AS to being Deported, he is a Cardinal of the Catholic Church and as such a "Parish Priest" of one of the churches of the City of Rome and as such is a "Citizen" of the Vatican City. Thus you are asking them to deport someone who is a Citizen. The US does NOT do that (we first deprive them of Citizenship, if a naturalized Citizen and then deport them).

reasons to keep him in Rome and protect him, just as he protected child molesters. I just thought the Church, just for once, might decide to stop consorting with and protecting such people.

Thus with Cardinal Law, you have to take the bad with the good. Law was and is a strong headed person i.e. he sees things in Black and White, thus he opposed and did all he could to help African Americans while he was in Mississippi and Missouri, but has opposed gay rights and abortion rights today and when he was Bishop of Boston. He does NOT know when to keep his peace (as seen in his interaction with the President of Ireland when she visited Boston) but taken as a whole he has been a "Good person" as far as the Catholic Church is concerned.

Law's handling of the pedifile cases in Boston, reflected a belief that Priests could NOT do such things and thus the accusations had to be false (a lot of false accusation of such sex crimes are made all the time, mostly in divorce cases but there do appear in other cases). His handling also reflect the belief that such "tendencies" could be corrected with proper treatment (this was the position taken in the 1960s, but since that time has fallen out of favor among psychiatrists).

Law had a problem he was ill equipped to deal with. How do you handle priests (and anyone else for that matter) who did such acts? Law entered the Priesthood when the policy was to send such people to treatment, The problem it was found by the 1970s that such treatment was ineffective. Law was a stubborn person and took a long time period to accept that his actions made the situation worse not better. What he needed to do is keep the priest so accused away from children and the policy of seeking treatment and then assigning such priests to location where contact with children were minimal was and is a good policy. The problem with Law is he took it one step further, he assume since no new accusation the treatment had to have worked and then assigned the Priest to a Parish with Children. Law did this several times instead of saying NO to such transfers after the second accusation. In this Law did the same as other bishops, they refused to disciplined the people they work with (a similar inability to go after criminal one works with is often seen in Police Departments and for the same reason, they all know each other and their coworkers can NOT be doing illegal acts).

Please note, Law did admit he had not been the best bishop he could have been, and often that is enough to get him forgiven within the Catholic Church. Thus Law remains in the Vatican where he comes out every so often and showing his stubborn side again, comes out against Abortion or Gay Marriage. Best to leave him alone, he has no real power. He can no longer even vote for the next pope is a papal election. That seems to be the position of Pope Francis and I see no reason to seek another solution. i.e. do you really want him back in Boston?

it on a SS check like the rest of us proles.

No, I don't have to take the "bad with good" because whatever good he may have done he has pretty much undone with how he has protected pedophiles. Also, while he has been in Rome he was also agitating for the Inquisition to go after "disobedient" nuns. So, he is a misogynist on top of everything else.

(By the way, please don't take my tone as uncivil torward you, I commend your mercy. I am just at the end of my thether on a few subjects, and this is one of them).