A Tempest At The Vatican

Cardinals are entitled to present themselves at the Vatican for the very special occasion of electing a new Pope. And disgraced American Cardinal Roger Mahony is determined he will not miss this opportunity to exercise his imperative as a Cardinal of the Holy See. Despite demands that he absent himself, he refuses to relinquish his rite of office to public demand, despite the obloquy that attends his reputation.

According to a Vatican history there is no precedent for a cardinal to recuse himself from attending this vital ceremony, not for any reason, including that of personal scandal. And scandal there is. A court in Los Angeles last month ordered the release of thousands of pages representing confidential personnel files relating to over 120 priests accused of sexual abuse.

It has long been known in the public that scandals of sexual abuse among a predatory priesthood have been revealed around the world, but particularly in Europe and North America. That there existed an endemic situation of priests abusing their parishioners' trust through sexual abuse of women and children. Others were found to be indulging in child pornography, in this way aiding in the abuse of children.

The situation whereby priests, sworn to celibacy and the sacred trust of ministering to their flocks, corrupted their calling and were then protected by their superiors created a scandal beyond repair. The revealed files gave clear evidence that Cardinal Mahony along with other elite archdiocese officials shielded accused priests and sought to protect the church from emerging scandals by withholding information from parishioners.

Cardinal Mahony, representing the largest Catholic diocese in the United States, was stripped of his duties by his successor last month. Archbishop Jose Gomez demoted Cardinal Mahony through an administrative adjustment that affected his work at the archdiocese. He hadn't the authority to affect his role as a cardinal.

A grassroots campaign among ordinary laypeople to exert pressure on the cardinal to absent himself from the vote is having little effect. Despite that most laity whose priests have shamed themselves and their calling want them punished the church has done little in this direction. "In the interests of the children who were raped in his diocese, he needs to keep out of the public eye. He has already been stripped of his ministry. If he's truly sorry for what has happened, he would show some humility and opt to stay home."

He feels otherwise: "Count-down to the Papal Conclave has begun. Your prayers needed that we elect the best Pope for today and tomorrow's Church", he tweeted in response.  Thus, a man of high office who chose to cover up and protect the most abjectly dreadful activities of grotesquely failed priests who ruined children's lives, feels entitled despite his own corruption to aid in the raising of an infallible Pope.

"Given all of the storms that have surrounded me and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles recently, God's grace finally helped me to understand: I am not being called to serve Jesus in humility. Rather, I am being called to something deeper -- to be humiliated, disgraced, and rebuffed by many", he has written, seemingly content to writhe in the agony of his own suffering in serving the Roman Catholic Church.

There are other profiles of attending cardinals whose presence at the Vatican should represent an embarrassment. Irish Cardinal Sean Brady, accused of covering up sex abuse; Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels, whose offices were searched in a crackdown on pedophile priests by police; Cardinal Justin Rigali, retired as archbishop of Philadelphia after a grand jury accused him of maintaining abusers in their protected posts.

No glory there.