Failed Cardinals Should Step Down

Re “Cardinal Law Steps Down, Apologizes for ‘Mistakes,’ ” Dec. 14: It is appropriate that Cardinal Bernard Law has resigned. He actively sought to cover up felonies carried out by priests within his diocese and enabled these same felons to relocate their activities to another parish. He did not tell the truth, he did not take his knowledge of these felonies to the police, he did not protect the children, and this cover-up continued over a period of years. In short, he was an effective accomplice to a great many child molesters.

Acting to avoid scandal, he apparently did not stop to ask what Jesus would have done. Would Jesus have ignored the child victims and protected pedophile predators simply to protect a hierarchy that is clearly far removed from its constituents?

This cannot be hidden behind a cassock. If you or I had done these things, we would be in prison.

Carey Allen

Long Beach

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The long overdue and gratefully received resignation of Cardinal Law signals that healing and a rebuilding of trust may at last become possible in the Boston Archdiocese. From a vantage point on the other coast, one turns one’s eyes toward our own cardinal and wonders what real differences there might be between his conduct and that of his recently resigned brother in the East. Doesn’t it seem that the differences are not of kind, but, at best, only of degree?

Don’t we in Los Angeles also have 58 men of the cloth who understand that, in his refusal to accept responsibility for his abysmal failure to discharge his moral duties, Cardinal Roger Mahony presents the same stubborn, intolerable obstacle to healing and reconciliation as did Cardinal Law?

Mahony’s empty apologies and the wretched litany of “extenuating circumstances” he has deployed in the attempt to deflect responsibility from himself continue to hang in the air like a foul stench. Mahony’s ability to lead is as fully discredited as Law’s. Clergy and laity should unite in insisting upon his immediate resignation.

Daniel Williams

Inglewood

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Following a sustained, brutal siege, it appears that the press has finally driven the American Catholic Church to its knees. If only it were the other way around.

Steve Hodson

Santa Barbara