US News
Catholic Cardinal speaks of attack by man outraged over sex abuse scandals
By M&C US News Dec 5, 2007, 3:47 GMT
Some of the new Cardinals during a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI in Paolo VI\'s courtroom, Vatican City, 26 November 2007. Pope Benedict elevated 23 prelates from around the world to the rank of Cardinal at the weekend. EPA/DANILO SCHIAVELLA
Leading U.S. Roman Catholic Cardinal Roger Mahony was attacked on the street by a man outraged by the Church's sex abuse scandal just days after his Los Angeles diocese agreed to make a record payout to more than 500 victims, the Los Angeles Daily News reported on Tuesday.
Mahony, 71, revealed the July attack at a recent conference of priests and said it gave him insight to the suffering endured by victims of an endemic sex scandal that plagues the entire Church worldwide, stemming from the forbidding of men and women serving the Church to marry or have any normal sexual relations.
According to reports, Mahony was dropping off letters at a mailbox near the downtown Los Angeles cathedral when the attack occured.
"Somebody recognized him and attacked him. It was shocking because it was an act of violence and it was someone we know and respect," a priest told the Los Angeles Daily News.
Mahony told the priests that the man began shouting profanities and knocked him to the ground. Allegedly it took a month to heal from the attack.
Mahony did not report the assault to police.
The Los Angeles Archdiocese, the largest in the United States, in July publicly apologized and finalized a record $660 million settlement to 508 local victims.
Mahony had come under particular fire from victims and their lawyers for blocking efforts in the courts to keep secret internal records of abuse and suspect priests.
News of the attack on Mahony was published a day after a former Catholic priest was sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to molesting two teenage boys in the mid-1990s in the Los Angeles area.
Michael Stephen Baker, 59, is believed to have molested more than 20 young boys in his 26 years as a priest and had confessed his problem to Mahony in 1986.
Mahony, who was then a bishop, sent Baker away for treatment and later reassigned him to other parishes. Mahony publicly apologized in 2004 for mishandling the Baker case, which he described in a 2002 newspaper interview as the one "that troubles me the most."
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Older Talkback
page: 1
As a priest AND victim of clergy sexual abuse I am embarassed by Mahony (and Law, McCormack, George et al). Mahony's alleged attack could not give him any inkling of the pain suffered by a vicitm -- he was not pinned down to a bed as oral sex was performed on him against his will; he was not stripped of his innocense; he was not robbed of his virginity; he was not the one who lost his childhood; he is not the one who had his church ignore his attempt to tell the truth when the rape happened; he is not the preist who had his faculties pulled whe he annouced he was a victim and was leaving on a permanent disability for chronic Post Traumatic Stess Disorder and chronic depression for 35 years. If Mahony has a human heart at all he will stop is arrogant antics in the courts, he will release the names of all priest who have been abusive, and he will step down in humility for the shame he has brought upon the church.
'$660 million settlement to 508 local victims.Mahony had come under particular fire from victims and their lawyers for blocking efforts in the courts to keep secret internal records of abuse and suspect priests'.
....(Which just means the Catholic Church has an unlimited SLUSH FUND to buy off their victims).
It also blesses the 'Priestly Paedophiles' to carry on with their satanic perversions unmolested, when their moved to some other Diocese,(they always are!).
A Catholic priest's chances of ending up in a prison are pretty slim or even non-existant when the Church keeps paying out huge unlimited sums of money to buy SILENCE.
.............SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! on your worthless Souls...............
The Catholic Church is a haven for homosexual pedophiles and they have to do a better job of screening. However, then they would still be in court continuously from lawsuits from the ACLU.
they all deserve a good beating. maybe it'll rattle their brains back into place and they'll stop protecting pedophiles and rapists by giving them a long robe and calling them priests.
page: 1
danDec 5th, 2007 - 12:18:13
then the priest's need to keep their dick in thier pants
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