Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony continues to impress with his pastoral sensitivity:
For 43 years, Sister Angela Escalera has lived and often worked out of her order's small convent on this city's east side, helping the area's many poor and undocumented residents with translation, counseling and other needs.Now retired and partly disabled at 69, the nun thought she would live out her days here, in the community where she is still an active volunteer and in the dwelling that was built for the order in 1952.
But she and the other two nuns at the Sisters of Bethany house recently received word that their convent, which is owned by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, will be sold to help pay the bill for the church's recent, multimillion-dollar priest sex abuse settlement.
The nuns have four months to move out, according to a letter from the archdiocese.
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Subscribe
Not to allow the facts to get in the way of a good argument, but the $600 MM settlement deals with allegations prior to Cardinal Mahony's leadership.
Kim,
If we're taking up donations to buy Mahoney's golden parachute, I'd be willing to kick in if there's a guarantee he'd leave.
fbc
In the weeks following the opening of the Rog Mahal, I attended a few Masses at the Cathedral celebrated by His Eminence. I was impressed that the Cardinal would celebrate Mass in his Cathedral often, having come from a diocese where the bishop was rarely seen except for confirmations, Holy Week, and other official functions. The bishop of my home diocese generally said Mass privately in house by himself.
Mahony does have, however, an appalling lack of tact. During one Mass, owing to the amounts of copious smoke issuing forth from the censer, the fire alarms kept going off. Cardinal Mahony said that they were going off because there were, in his works, "too many one dollar bills in the collection baskets". He made similar statements about "too many one dollar bills" in the collection plate at subsequent Masses. I think someone finally told him that his jokes were going over like a lead balloon and he finally stopped them. He came off quite badly. It is not for nothing that the LA Times, in an editorial cartoon, featured Mahony saying Mass while stating, "wherever two or three hundred million dollars are gathered together in my name, there am I". He came off as a sort of money-grubber.
There were some very worthy initiatives that I supported during my time in the Archdiocese, especially the Together in Mission collection. This collection is supposed to raise funds to share with poor parishes and schools. It is a worthy project and one which I was happy to participate in. But making jokes about "too many one dollar bills" doesn't do much to endear the faithful and encourage them to give.
Well, there is injustice on every side of this issue. The trial lawyers are unjust and corrupt, some of the victims are bogus, many victims are unreasonable and vengeful, the selective lifting of the statues of limitation but exempting public institutions smacks of covert state totalitarianism and this is unjust, Mahoney is corrupt, most if not all of the perp priests are corrupt, and the perp priests and Mahoney will get their retirement which is unjust.
Many tens and thousands of new victims are the here-and-now Catholics of Los Angeles who will fund the mess, partly brought on by the brain dead bishops and partly by the new wave Anti-Catholicism.
Mahoney is 71 if I am correct. Yes, much of this goes back a long time before Mohoney's time. Some cases are all the way to the 1950's which is ridiculas, but that is another thing. I say Pope Benedict should not wait 4 years but should pull him now, and make him the keeper of the foot stool in Rome or something like that.
"make him the keeper of the foot stool in Rome or something like that." Alongside Law for good measure.
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.