Lauded as “Gay Friendly”, What Happened to Cardinal Mahony?

This is what happens:

In a videotaped deposition released last Tuesday, Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony admits he did not think it necessary to contact police after learning of the sex abuse perpetrated by a priest in his diocese against two boys. Instead, Mahony transferred the priest to other locations, where the abuse could potentially continue.

The archdiocese had tried but failed to keep private the deposition, which was taken as part of a lawsuit that resulted in a $2.2 million settlement.

If you go on and read the whole story, you’ll find that 80% or more of the sex abuse cases in the Church involved adolescent boys pressured in to homosexual relationships by priests who either were bad from the start, or who had gone bad in the lax moral atmosphere of the 70’s and early 80’s (another thing to remember of the cases – the overwhelming bulk of them happened 25 or more years ago).   In the public mind, the cases are about adult priests molesting pre-pubescent boys – but the reality is homosexual relationships between adults and teenagers.

And that brings us to the rest of the story – the way Cardinal Mahony has been lauded to the skies by dissident Catholics and other enemies of the faith for his tolerance (encouragement?) of immoral and/or un-Catholic behavior.  I can pass no judgment upon the Cardinal – it is not my place and, at any rate, in the by and by he will obtain perfect judgment.  But it seems to me that it is when we get in to areas of the Church which were “friendly” to the world, there we find the Scandal in the Church.

This is not to retreat an inch from our Catholic teaching that being gay is not a sin; nor is it to move away from the command that all homosexuals be freed from all unreasonable discrimination and be accepted with love and charity as our brothers and sisters.  Being gay isn’t the problem.  Heck, even being a gay priest isn’t necessarily a problem.  The problem is when the leadership of the Church gets more worried about offending the left than about defending the Truth.

Over the years, it has become clear to me that what the bishops might have been worrying about is offending certain, liberal groups.  If a couple dozen priests were defrocked after it was discovered they had abused boys and it later transpired that a good number of them were homosexual, then the outcry on the left would not have been about abuse, but about old fashioned, mean spirited Catholic bishops persecuting gay men.  The left has this ability to choose what to be outraged about – and they’ll always choose that which harms the Church the most, in their eyes.  Truth was sacrificed to political expediency.

But the Church is where Truth resides in this world, and Cardinal Mahony is educated enough to know that – his duty was not to win plaudits from contemptible liberals, but to defend Truth and teach his flock…and, of course, protect his flock from wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Cardinal Mahony is not going to be around much longer – and our prayers are that for whatever errors he has committed, he will repent and beg Our Lord’s forgiveness.  We can’t dwell on the past – it is now time to move ahead.  But this lesson must be learned – the more rigidly we adhere to Truth, the better it will be. Let know one be successful in tempting us away from this – let us stand as a rock.

Read the original story at Noonan for Nevada