Amid calls to recuse himself from the upcoming conclave because of his record on clergy sex abuse, Cardinal Roger Mahony said that the Vatican, acting through its ambassador to the United States, had instructed him to take part in the election of the next pope.
Oh, so it’s not his decision. It’s the Vatican that said he should be there. Because when I think obedience I think Cardinal Mahony, don’t you?
My issue isn’t about him being at the conclave. This is about him constantly pointing the finger at others about his decisions. This reminds me of a recent public letter he wrote taking a shot at Archbishop Gomez.
He began that one by saying, “I have been encouraged by others to publish it, so I am do so on my personal Blog. I hope you find it useful.” So it wasn’t his fault he published an attack on Abp. Gomez. He just did it because others encouraged him to do so.
Uhm. This would seem to be a habit. When confronted with a difficult decision, Cardinal Mahony points fingers and says, “They made me do it” or someone else said he should.
In fact, when one looks at what he said about how he handled the sex abuse scandal in his diocese, he didn’t say he did the right thing he just said it’s what everyone else did at the time.
Cardinal Mahony has a disturbing habit of absorbing praise and deflecting responsibility.
March 8, 2013 at 5:13 am
Word.
March 8, 2013 at 5:34 am
Not to defend the indefensible but we're judging him for past acts with current standards; the problem is that the Bishops went to an expert who himself is attracted to boys. His solution was to move the pervs to new victims. If you look at the timeframe, it wasn't until the 80's that molesting children was treated as a criminal offense; prior to that cops and prosecutors wouldn't touch it, people were expected to deal with it themselves.
I'm glad they told him to come on down and help elect the pope; that's what Cardinals do. No Cardinal before O'Brien has ever sat out a Conclave due to personal scandal. He himself was an abuser; there are no allegations that Mahony is.
March 8, 2013 at 6:54 am
Nan, what is the standard when a kid or parent comes to you and says "this man raped me". I don't see how the standard changes based on the era in which one served (which by the way, his positions of power started in the mid 70's). Rape has always been a crime, and whether or not he knew it would be prosecuted wasn't up to Mahoney. The very fact he didn't remove these men from contact with children period is inconceivable. He is not a stupid man. Even if he felt these men had been "cured", by allowing them to stay in parish life, dangling children in front of these monsters, it was reckless.
March 8, 2013 at 8:52 am
@ StarbucksMom. I agree, Mahony's actions were reckless.
Mahony, the consummate liberal progressive, has learned to veil his arrogance and blame others for his shortcomings. His attitude has left monuments which testify to his arrogance: e.g., that house of hubris many call the Taj Mahony. That building, more barn of banality than basilica, is one huge reminder of Mahony's highly inflated sense of self importance.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to embrace the sufferings of others when one is more concerned with self preservation than justice.
March 8, 2013 at 1:03 pm
Why does Mahony's "They made me do it" sounds so much like the late Flip Wilson's "The Devil made me do it." to me?
March 8, 2013 at 2:06 pm
Nan is on to a topic too seldom addressed.
As AmBishops were, more and more, schooled in the New Theology (St Thomas Aquinas was ditched) and as they, more and more, opened their own selves up to "science" and secular "experts" (like the anti-Catholic frauds Freud and Jung) the Bishops began to solicit and follow the advice of those in the psychiatric cabal and they believed them when they told them that Fr. Fanny-Feeler, who was discovered nekkid in bed with 12 year old, Danny, an altar boy he got drunk, was perfectly fine to return to ministry after he had a long chin wag with Dr. Christ-Denier.
This is what the " best-educated generation of Catholics ever" began to believe once they sloughed-off Catholic Tradition.
March 9, 2013 at 12:29 am
This embarrassment to the Church should go off quietly into the night and not show his face again.
And I can think of a dozen other Cardinals who should follow him.
March 9, 2013 at 2:16 pm
@StarbucksMom: Your assumption that the victim would even think of it as "rape" is shortsighted. We really didn't have a concept of "homosexual rape" till very recently; the legal definition was "carnal knowledge of a woman without her consent".
Hell, even women who are raped don't just come out and say "I was raped", a lot of the time, because they're understandably reluctant to put a name to it and thus acknowledge it. And that's an act described by a known legal definition—homosexual rape wasn't nearly so easy for them to get their heads around. There was a reason Bertrand Russell compared anal intercourse to non-Euclidean geometry.
March 9, 2013 at 6:17 pm
Children didn't speak up because they were told they were guilty or threatened into silence. Many of the children were from dysfunctional homes with absent fathers, alcoholic parents, etc. If they did speak up, their parents were not available or supportive, didn't listen or were the kind of Catholics who idealized the Church and believed priests were demi-gods. Back then, professionals didn't know the lifelong damage that abuse/exploitation/sexual assault violating a child's sacred boundaries inflicted on his/her emotional and identity development and the consequences of these wounds in later life.
In most cases, the first wound to the child was by their parent/s. The child's consequent hunger for love made them vulnerable to priest sexual predators who were often the victims of fatherlessness and abuse themselves.
March 11, 2013 at 2:05 am
SF and Not Spartacus, how morally dense does one have to be not to recognize child abuse when one sees it? Hasn't anybody heard of the phrase, "statutory rape"? That means that minors cannot give consent, under the law?
Moreover, Not Spartacus, this phenomenon of pederasty isn't new, not by a long shot. Do some research on St. Peter Damian and "Liber Gomorrahianus," which he wrote in 1049.
March 11, 2013 at 7:01 am
Oh my Lord, and I mean that. What the heck is wrong with people who don't know diddling with little children, messing around with underage teens is illegal, always has been? How come my parents knew that when I was a kid in the 70's, their parents knew it when they were children of the 40s and 50's? Sophia's Favorite, that is just a ridiculous explanation. I am so saddened and frankly disgusted by the comments explaining Mahony's behavior.
March 11, 2013 at 7:27 am
Joe the Amazon Queen: I didn't say it wasn't child abuse, I said they didn't think of it as rape. I'm sorry you cannot grasp that distinction.
Starbucks Mom: you show me where I said anything that could be remotely construed as "explaining his behavior" (aside from the fact that to explain is not to excuse). I was actually pointing out that the victims would not—and did not—come out and say, "I was raped", and why.
I am "saddened and frankly disgusted" by your reactions to what you assume I meant, rather than to what I actually wrote. Maybe I read old books on ethics, but I'm pretty sure you're only allowed to blame people for actual things, not stuff you made up about them.
March 11, 2013 at 4:51 pm
You "explained his behavior" by stating that people didn't understand rape or pedophilia to be those very things, whether they be victim or a Priest managing a diocese. How could Mahony be held accountable to punish a Priest if he didn't understand that a crime occurred? Then, you proceeded to pass the blame from Mahoney, to another Bishop who told the Bishops to move their priests. It is what you said & inferred by your comments. I don't have to make stuff up, because it is plain as day above, and I'm not the only one who understood that.
Your explanation that we didn't have a concept of homosexual rape? We have always had an understanding that pedophilia is illegal. Statutory rape, illegal. REGARDLESS… a man in power, regardless of the organization, but especially one in charge of forming the conscience of his flock, who doesn't have a basic understanding of the nature of men? Does the Cardinal think his own sexual desires can be wiped out? It is inconceivable to me, what took place in this diocese, as well as the Church worldwide.
Finally, I blamed you for NOTHING. I don't like your opinion, and stated so. But blame or condemn, I did not.
You weren't the only one who attempted to "explain his behavior" either.
March 11, 2013 at 9:14 pm
SF, why do you think I phrased my questions without mentioning any names? Don't take personally what wasn't meant personally.
On a far more important note…
Mahony is living proof that power not only corrupts, it isolates. It's an utter tragedy, let alone a profound moral failing, for him to be impervious to his role and responsibility.