The Worthy Adversary

Author: Joelle Casteix

  • Mahony’s back to his favorite pastime

    Just when you thought he was going away quietly …

    Sources say that disgraced Cardinal Roger Mahony is embarking on a “mandatory attendence” PR campaign to convince local priests that he’s the good guy in cases of dozens of clerics who sexually abused hundreds of children during his tenure as Archbishop of Los Angeles.

    Cardinal Mahony’s second pastime: depositions

    Although this information has not been confirmed with the Archdiocese (they really don’t like to return my phone calls), we are hearing that Mahony has (allegedly) scheduled meetings in each of the pastoral regions in Los Angeles. All priests in the region will be required to attend the meetings, where Mahony is slated to discuss the recent conclave and his role in the management of sex offending priests.

    Considering that Mahony’s blog and Twitter feed discuss how he’s being scape-goated, and how he is big enough to pray for all of those nasty folks who dare protest him, I sincerely doubt he will be answering the “tough questions.” Or any questions at all, for that matter.

    “But wait?” you ask. “Isn’t Mahony suspended from public duties?”

    Hardly. Even though Archbishop Gomez said that Bishop Curry and Cardinal Mahony would have no public duties in the Archdiocese, a spokesperson quickly back-pedaled. Curry and Mahony are “priests in good standing,” according to the statement, “with full rights to celebrate the Holy Sacraments of the Church and to minister to the faithful without restriction.”

    So priests will (allegedly) be forced to sit silently and listen to Mahony, who, documents now show, has criminal culpability in the cover-up of dozens of sex crimes in the Archdiocese. I am doubting that atonement and accountability will be a part of the message.

    “But wait?” you ask again. “Didn’t Pope Francis JUST say that ‘hypocrisy undermines the Church’s credibilty’?”

    Mahony’s been personally undermining the Church’s credibility for decades. Why should he suddenly change course now?

    I will update when I have more information.

  • If he didn’t care yesterday … why such urgency today?

    On April 5, The Wall Street Journal reported that:

    As the church’s most powerful official in Argentina, [Pope Francis] didn’t comply with a Vatican call to create guidelines for handling sexual-abuse allegations in the country.

    But then, in the next paragraph:

    On Friday, Pope Francis met with Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, who heads the office in charge of leading the Vatican’s global crackdown on abusive priests and instructed him to continue the Vatican’s strategy for fighting sex abuse. The pope urged him to “act decisively with regard to cases of sexual abuse, pushing above all the measures to protect minors,” the Vatican said. Swift detection, Vatican officials have said, is crucial to stopping abusive priests.

    So I ask: Why is it so important for Pope Francis to crack down on abusive priests NOW, when it wasn’t such a big deal three weeks ago, when he was still Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires?

    How can he possibly implement a program on a global level when he couldn’t even draw up simple guidelines to prevent abuse in his own country … on time?

    Yesterday, he couldn’t do his homework. Today, he’s the principal of the school. Only one conclusion comes to mind – and it’s not terribly optimistic.

    Sure, I’ll wash your feet – as long as you keep silent about that pesky abuse crisis.

    Here’s my take: All we have to go on with Francis is his record. Promises are nice. But as every election cycle (no matter the political system) shows us, most of those promises soon forgotten and ignored.

    What really matters are concrete and transparent actions with outcomes that are tangible and measurable. And right now, we are not seeing that.

    Instead, this is what we know:

    • As Cardinal of Buenos Aires, Bergoglio “declined to meet” with victims of sexual abuse, as requested by the Vatican.
    • Although the spokesman for the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires says that there have been no accusations of abuse in that Archdiocese in the past six years, there is at least one church-owned predator priest treatment facility in the immediate area: La Domus Mariae (the House of Mary), north of Buenos Aires. (If there have been no allegations in the past six years, wouldn’t this place be shuttered?)
    • There is no tangible record of action on the part of Bergoglio or his priests to punish abusers and hold accountable the men and women who protected them.
    So while there is much talk of Pope Francis’ humility and simple grace, victims must remain wary. Predators and enablers can hide just as easily under a simple while cassock as they did under papal ermine.

     

  • My first week to-do list for Francis I

     

    I’m not good at predictions. If I were, I’d be in Vegas and this blog would be a money-generating machine. Despite this failing, I’ve been asked a lot by the media what I think of the new pope, his record, what I expect to see in the next few months.

    So I made a “to-do list” for the pope’s first week. Then, if any of it comes true, it’ll be like Christmas in March.

    Pope Francis I’s to-do list:

    • Strip Cardinal Mahony of his title and force him to live a life of silence, poverty, prayer and penance in a mental health facility that treats victims of child sexual abuse,
    • Require Pope Emeritus Benedict to sit in a video recorded deposition and tell what he knows about child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church,
    • Mandate that bishops worldwide cease legal and verbal (that means you, Cardinal Dolan) battles with survivors and survivors groups, 
    • Turn over all secret personal files globally to law enforcement and the media, and
    • Turn over to law enforcement all accused clerics currently in hiding in the Vatican and other countries.

    Yep, I think that would be a great first week. And no, I’m not hopeful.

    But a girl can dream, can’t she?

     

     

     

  • Victims settle with LA Archdiocese, SNAP responds

    Statement by Joelle Casteix of Newport Beach, SNAP Western Regional Director

    How many more millions in payouts and hundreds of victims will it take before the Vatican realizes that Cardinal Mahony must be punished?
    These four brave men fought long and hard to get justice for the abuse they suffered at the hands of former priest Michael Baker. The tragedy of this situation is that if Cardinal Mahony had called the police when he first learned of Baker’s crimes, these men and many others could have been spared the shame and lifelong pain of childhood sexual abuse.
    Cardinal Mahony called Baker his greatest “mistake.” However, we have learned that the Baker case is only one of a long list of child sex abuse cover-ups in the Archdiocese. Mahony’s inaction in the Baker case is nothing less than criminal. He had many years to report Baker’s crimes, but instead, it is only because of brave victims that any sense of justice has been achieved.
    Although Baker has served time for his crimes, we fear that there are many more victims in Los Angeles and elsewhere who are suffering. Baker remained in ministry for 14 years after he self-disclosed his actions to Mahony. How many children were placed in harm’s way because Cardinal Mahony was too busy or too lazy to call the police?
    We can only hope that Cardinal Mahony does not vote for a pope who protects Mahony’s interests and the interests of men like Michael Baker. We also hope that Archbishop Gomez turns over the remainder of the promised sex abuse and cover-up files that outline the scope and scale of child sex abuse in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

  • Visiting priest arrested in Yuba City, Victims Respond

     

    Statement by Joelle Casteix of Newport Beach, SNAP Western Regional Director

    Read the news story here.

    Once again, innocent children pay the price because Bishop Stephen Blaire refused to do a simple background check on one of his priests. What is even more tragic about this case is that the arrested priest abused in a parish that–not so long ago–was savaged by the crimes of Oliver O’Grady.

    Unfortunately, the case of visiting priest Rev. Julio Guarin-Sosa is not unique. California’s bishops have a habit of accepting foreign priests with little to no investigation of their backgrounds. In Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger Mahony accepted two foreign priests–Fernando Lopez Lopez and Nicolas Aguilar-Rivera–with nothing more than a letter of recommendation from their bishops. Had Mahony done any investigation, he would have learned that Lopez Lopez had been convicted of “violent sexual abuse on a minor” in Italy. A few years earlier, Mahony was told that Aguilar Rivera had “homosexual problems” with youths, but accepted him anyway.

    How many more of Stockton’s children will be sacrificed because of the lack of due diligence and care on the part of diocese officials? How many more children will be put at risk before Bishop Blaire adheres to his own promises of child protection and transparency?

    No one can predict abuse. But it’s easy to prevent. Apparently, Bishop Blaire doesn’t seem to think that child safety is worth the extra effort.