Cardinal Mahony may face justice at last
Good news for those who don’t like pedophile enablers. Steve Lopez (of The Soloist fame) writes in the LA Times:
Last week was not a good one for Cardinal Roger Mahony, and there may be no letup in weeks to come if a certain monsignor continues to testify in a deposition being taken as part of a civil case against Mahony and the diocese.
Msgr. Richard Loomis, former vicar of clergy for the archdiocese, said under oath that in the year 2000 he wrote a memo advocating that the archdiocese inform police about allegations of sexual abuse by a now-defrocked priest named Michael Baker. Mahony, Loomis testified, directed him not to report the allegations.
That testimony grabbed the attention of those who have followed the years-long molestation scandal, in which Mahony has fought like a tomcat to withhold documents sought by investigators and has had PR teams build him an image as a reformer.
In all that time, no one from Mahony’s inner circle had dared stand up and point a finger at the cardinal until Loomis did so last week. With the testimony by Loomis, there wasn’t just a challenge to the archdiocesan leader, but a suggestion that a paper trail exists.
Loomis testified that when he found out Baker was still performing baptisms despite allegations of abuse in the 1990s and orders to discontinue ministry, he sent a memo to Mahony recommending that they call the police. He testified that Mahony "wrote on the memo and initially his response was to proceed but then through the general counsel’s office I was told . . . that we were going to wait," said Loomis.
The monsignor also testified that Mahony ordered him not to inform parishes where Baker had worked of allegations against the priest.
Nobody was more surprised by Loomis’ candor last week than a young man known in court records as Luis C., a former altar boy who was one of Baker’s victims beginning in the mid-’90s…
