Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Cardinal Mahony: Church Can't Approve Redefining Marriage

Not surprisingly, among those condemning the gay weddings now occuring in California are Roman Catholic Cardinal Roger Mahony and six of his minions, Auxiliary Bishops Thomas J. Curry, Gabino Zavala, Gerald Wilkerson, Edward Wm. Clark, Alexander Salazar and Oscar A. Solis. Mahony, who acts all sanctimonious and pios is in my opinion anything but. Here is what the Dallas Morning News in its special report on cover ups of sexual abuse of minors by bishops and cardinals (roughly 2/3's were found to be involved in cover ups) had this to say about Mahony and his archdiocese:
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More than 30 current and former archdiocesan priests are under criminal investigation, and the district attorney has said he would call Cardinal Mahony before a grand jury unless he divulges his files on them; he has vowed to cooperate. One of the cases involves the Rev. Michael Stephen Baker, who admitted to the cardinal in 1986 that he had molested boys but was kept on the job, in several parishes, until 2000. The cardinal later approved a confidential $1.3 million settlement with two of Father Baker's victims who say they were abused as recently as 1999. "I offer my sincere, personal apologies for my failure to take firm and decisive action much earlier," Cardinal Mahony recently wrote to the priests he supervises. Father Baker is accused of molesting boys, some as young as 5, from 1976 to 1999.
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In another case, the archdiocese let the Rev. G. Neville Rucker remain in the ministry until this year despite abuse allegations that first surfaced 35 years ago and led to an out-of-court settlement of a 1993 lawsuit. Father Rucker's alleged victims included 9-year-old girls; he has denied wrongdoing.
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In the early 1980s, when he was bishop of Stockton, Calif., Cardinal Mahony moved the Rev. Oliver O'Grady to various parishes. During a civil trial, the cardinal said he didn't know about Father O'Grady's abuse, but his testimony was contradicted by a psychiatrist he had hired to evaluate the priest. Father O'Grady was later sent to prison, and Cardinal Mahony's dealings with him have become the subject of a federal racketeering lawsuit.
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Between this information and the fact that Mahoney's archdiocese went on to enter into a $660 Million settlement with the victims of sexual abuse after vicious rounds of litigation where one prosecutor described Mahony as worse than dealing with an organized crime figure (see MSNBC's coverage), one has to truly wonder why anyone with intelligence and/or shread of integrity would listen to anything Mahony might bleet given his disingenuous track record. It is unfortunate that Channel 9 failed to remind viewers of these facts about Mahoney. Here are some highlights of Mahony's latest pontifications from the KCAL-9 TV:
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LOS ANGELES As same-sex couples throughout California prepare on Monday for the era of gay marriage, Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles and six auxiliary bishops spoke out against the unions, saying the Catholic Church cannot approve of the redefinition of marriage.
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the church cannot approve of redefining marriage, which has a unique place in God's creation, joining a man and a woman in a committed relationship in order to nurture and support the new life for which marriage is intended," the statement says."The meaning of marriage is deeply rooted in history and culture, and has been shaped considerably by Christian tradition. Its meaning is given, not constructed. When marriage is redefined so as to make other relationships equivalent to it, the institution of marriage is devalued and further weakened."

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