This isn't ignorance or incompetence, this is criminal.

The New York Times has posted a story about Cardinal Mahoney of Los Angeles, retired Archbishop, and how he personally covered up the abuse of children by priests under his supervision by moving them into counseling outside the State of California for the express purpose of avoiding the California requirement for counselors to report sexual abuse to authorities.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/us/files-show-cardinal-roger-mahony-covered-up-sex-abuse.html. (Pardon the clumsy link , mobile posting by google's blogging app sucks)

Quote:

"In 1986, Cardinal Mahony wrote to a New Mexico treatment center where one abusive priest, Msgr. Peter Garcia, had been sent.

“I believe that if Monsignor Garcia were to reappear here within the archdiocese we might very well have some type of legal action filed in both the criminal and civil sectors,” Cardinal Mahony wrote.

Monsignor Garcia admitted to abusing more than a dozen young boys, most of them from families of illegal immigrants, since he was ordained in 1966, and in at least one case he threatened to have a boy he had molested deported if he talked about it, according to documents filed in court.

He was never criminally prosecuted, and has since died."

Unquote

This activity was carried out for at least a decade before the abuse became public,

A DECADE!!!

This is not incompetence, this is not, as Mahoney claims, ignorance of consequences. This is criminal activity, and the documents filed in court prove it. Mahoney should be held personally liable, and prosecuted for his criminal acts in covering up such horrible, criminal acts. Just because he may have been unaware of the terrible consequences of the abuse on the victims, does NOT excuse his willful coverup of what he KNEW were criminal acts by priests under his direct supervision.

Nail the bastard.

I'm sorry, but no priestly robes will protect him from the utter contempt and disgust I feel for a man who would magnify the already criminal activities of his subordinates by covering them up. Indeed, those robes merely magnify my feelings, as his actions are contrary to the teachings he oversaw his priests giving to his parishioners and the authority he and his priests claim from their god. They are certainly contrary to the duties of an adult in charge of the very most vulnerable of our species.

The Feds should jump in here and file charges under the RICO Act- his actions are the actions of a criminal organization by virtue of his position as Archbishop and by virtue of those actions being taken as part of his regular duties as the supervisor of the offending priests. These are not the actions of a single rogue individual, as much as the Catholic Church may want to portray them as such.

These are the actions of a corrupt, criminal organization whose already known and publicized orders to its hierarchy were to handle these incidents internally and to avoid notifying civil police authorities, in MULTIPLE COUNTRIES. Now documents are being filed which prove that this man knew this and and acted according to orders from above to circumvent civil law and authority.

More than anything else, this shows the corruption of the Catholic Church and its entire hierarchy, from top to bottom. How can anyone believe a single teaching of a church whose actions belie their most basic values?

To all Catholics, I now tell you this: in words similar to what I saw in Facebook today, the combination of knowledge of these terrible things and inaction on your part equal no less than complicity in those actions. That inaction shows that you condone the abuse, you condone the coverup and the attempts by the Catholic Church to hide these criminal actions from the proper civil authorities.

Every Catholic in the country should refuse to tithe any more money to an organization which would take these kinds of actions. You should immediately notify your local Parrish priest that you shall no longer attend Mass until the Church takes firm, definitive action, from the Pope down, to completely eliminate this cancer from its ranks and immediately and completely reimburse every victim it can find for the horrors visited on them by its members.

This organized criminal activity should immediately cease, the Church should desist from allowing any further such criminal actions to occur in its name and it should announce such actions by an official, binding announcement of the proper type from the Pope which is meant to be of the "infallible" kind, binding the church to its strictures forever.

Until that happens, every Catholic who fully understands the implications of this activity should immediately stop actively supporting this corrupt, criminal organization.