Mahony Delivers Message of Hope During Christmas Masses at Men’s Jail, Cathedral

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony offered a message of hope on Friday as he celebrated a Christmas Mass at the Men’s Central Jail and another at St. Vibiana’s Cathedral in Los Angeles.

In delivering his annual Christmas messages, Mahony acknowledged 1992 as a year of hardship, from the Los Angeles riots to violence and famine in other parts of the world.

“Many, many very tragic and difficult things have been a part of our recent experience--of what we have heard and what we have seen,” Mahony said to worshipers at St. Vibiana’s Cathedral downtown.

“Certainly standing out in the forefront would be the riots this past spring--here in our very city,” he said.

Mahony spoke of the economic problems that have made it a trying year for many Southern Californians. He said the “tragedy” of so many jobs lost in the Los Angeles area has left many families “without much hope.”

The cardinal also spoke of the starving in Somalia, the violence in the former Yugoslavia and the Middle East, and the “difficulties of gang violence and crime and a new word that’s now in our vocabulary--carjacking.”

But he said that Jesus Christ entered a world that also was deeply troubled and was able to bring hope.