Mahony Has Done Much for Healing

According to “Mahony Stalls the Healing,” the Sept. 14 editorial, “When mistakes are made, a moral leader is someone who owns up to them and takes steps to see they don’t happen again.” Cardinal Roger Mahony has done both. The editorial ignores the cardinal’s public apologies and the work that he and our many parishioners have undertaken to help bring healing to victims and their families and to ensure the safety of our entire Catholic community.

In his letter prefacing the “Report to the People of God: Clergy Sexual Abuse in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles 1930-2004,” issued last February, Mahony apologized to victims and others hurt as a result of clergy sexual misconduct or abuse and acknowledged his own mistakes as archbishop. He pledged to continue “to do all in my power to prevent sexual abuse by anyone serving our archdiocese now and in the future.”

To date, nearly 10,000 priests, educators and parents in our parishes have been trained in abuse prevention through the nationally recognized Virtus program. That number continues to rise by the week. Victims of abuse have been offered psychological counseling, and many have attended private healing liturgies with the cardinal.

A lay-majority Clergy Misconduct Oversight Board, which includes victims of sexual abuse as well as parents of boys who were abused by a priest, monitors abuse policies and reviews all cases involving alleged misconduct by archdiocesan priests.

We are not “stalled.” On the contrary, the healing process continues to move forward.

Tod M. Tamberg

Office of Media Relations

Roman Catholic Archdiocese

of Los Angeles