Yesterday I pointed out Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony’s “inconsistencies” in his description of a videotape made by an alleged sex-abuser priest, Lynn Caffoe. He told the Vatican that it depicted naked boys and a criminal act by Caffoe, but six months later he told parishioners that same tape showed the boys “full clothed” and said there was no sexual activity.
Now the archdiocese is trying to claim that he didn’t say what he said, but that the newspaper and the rest of us misunderstand.
In the report to the parishioners, based on some legal memos, it said:
And, although some of the boys on the tape were reported to have removed their shirts, none had removed their pants, or exposed themselves in any way, and they were thus described in the proffer as having been fully clothed.
How can you say that someone without a shirt on is “fully clothed”? It seems they knew just as well as everyone that you can’t be since they admitted as much in the previously composed letter to the Vatican:
This document, drafted for the purpose of fulfilling Church law requirements for invoking this penalty, described the same content of the videotape more aggressively. Removed shirts were described as “partial nudity,” and suggestive sexual comments were described as “criminal” (a “delict”) in the context of Church law.
A sucker born every minute
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It would be a great witness to all of us…a witness to forgiveness and penance…if Cardinal Mahoney stepped down and served the poorest of the poor in his final years.
The modern world needs such an act of penance, though I wonder if the Cardinal is man enough to take that step.
You find that astonishing?
It sure has taken a long time to get to the situation in California, but it will happen and it will make Boston look like a sniffle.