According to a Reuters report, advocates for sexual abuse victims have slammed the appointment of Roger Mahony, archbishop of Los Angeles from 1985 to 2011.
Mahony, who is one of the nine cardinals and dozens of other officials overseeing two special rites on Friday and Saturday, has denied any wrongdoing.
These rites include the pope’s interment at Rome’s Basilica of Saint Mary Major on Saturday, following his funeral in St. Peter’s Square.
“Shame on him for participating in the public rites for Pope Francis, and shame on the College of Cardinals for allowing him to do so,” Anne Barrett Doyle of the group Bishop Accountability, which has tracked Catholic clergy abuse for decades, told Reuters
David Clohessy, a former director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said the role “sends the signal to complicit bishops that… they will still be protected and honored by their peers.”
Jose Gomez, the current archbishop of Los Angeles, initially removed Mahony from all “administrative or public duties” over the mishandling allegations in January 2013, in a rare public rebuke by one Church official of another.
Gomez backtracked weeks later and said Mahony was a priest “in good standing” with the archdiocese, but did not explain the change of status.
According to the Reuters report, the Los Angeles archdiocese said that Gomez’s first statement had been “misinterpreted” at the time. “We are blessed to have Cardinal Mahony represent our Archdiocese in Rome for the funeral of our Holy Father.”
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Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said on Thursday that the cardinal participants in the two events were determined by the individual prelate’s length of tenure as a cardinal. Mahony, 89, is one of the most senior-ranking among the world’s cardinals.
Mahony allegedly shielded several accused priests in 1980s
In 2013, the release of the Church files in connection with a lawsuit claimed that Mahony and another official shielded several accused priests in the 1980s by sending them for treatment to psychiatrists known as friendly to the Church.
Mahony apologised after the release of the files “for my own failure to protect fully the children and youth entrusted into my care.”
But he claimed many Catholic officials did not understand how to handle clergy suspected of abuse at the time.
The Los Angeles archdiocese, which serves 4 million Catholics, reached a $660 million civil settlement in 2007 with more than 500 victims of child molestation. Mahony at that time called the abuse “a terrible sin and crime.”
Mahony will be unable to vote in the coming papal conclave. He is beyond the age limit of 80 for cardinals to vote for the next pope, the report added.
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