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Cardinal Mahony’s Cathedral Guards Remove and Threaten Pro-life Youth During Honours for Pro-abort Mayor

LOS ANGELES, July 5, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Faithful Catholics were outraged last week, when a group of  young pro-life Catholics were removed and threatened with arrest at the Los Angeles Cathedral where notoriously liberal Roger Cardinal Mahony was “celebrating” a pro-abortion politician.

On July 1, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles was holding inauguration ceremonies for Antonio Villaraigosa, mayor-elect of Los Angeles, who is pro-abortion and yet claims to be Catholic. A group of about a dozen young adult Catholics attempted to gain entry to the Cathedral and were stopped and threatened by cathedral security guards.

The group was part of American Life League's 2005 Crusade for Life walks during which they trek from San Diego to Sacramento spreading the truth about the incompatibility of Catholicism and support of abortion. This project normally includes stops in Catholic churches along the way where they usually expect to receive a friendly welcome.

American Life League president, Judie Brown, a long-time critic of the Cardinal demanded his resignation. “It is an outrage,” she said, “that an event honouring a pro-abortion Catholic public figure that openly supports the killing of the pre-born would occur at Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral.”

It was not until the arrival of civil authorities that the young Catholics were allowed in to the church. Los Angeles police explained to the Catholic church’s hired security that the group had a right to enter for purposes of peaceful protest.

“How ironic that the Cathedral security guards wanted to arrest the students and the LAPD had to step in and point out that such an act would be unconstitutional," said Brown. “The truths of the Church will always stand strong, regardless of who attempts to stifle them...even a cardinal.”

Brown said, “It is even more shameful that Cardinal Mahony and others would attempt to censor faithful Catholic students from proclaiming the truth.”

American Life League, however, will have to get in line behind a list of lay Catholic organizations demanding justice over Mahony’s offenses. The Coalition for Concerned Catholics is also demanding that Mahony resign. In early June, the Coalition protested the Chicago meeting of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops when they announced they would decline to discuss the problem of homosexual predators in the priesthood. Bob Heineman, spokesman of the Coalition said, “Hundreds of priests have been disciplined; removed from the priesthood. Some even jailed. Yet, not one bishop has been disciplined for his cover-up.”

Earlier this spring, Cardinal Mahony received a warmly appreciative note from the anti-Catholic homosexual activist group, the Rainbow Sash Movement, who praised him for his support for their cause. Because of the Cardinal’s support, the press release said, the group decided not to wear their rainbow sashes in protest of the Church’s teaching on human sexuality to the L.A. Cathedral Mass on the feast of Pentecost.

Roger Mahony is known to have been the second most powerful bishop in the United States after his now-deceased mentor, the late Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago who headed the USCCB. Between the two men, the appointments of bishops, seminary rectors, and other influential positions in the US Church has been largely controlled by a small and secretive clique. This clique has been dubbed the “lavender mafia,” by liberal Catholic writer and sociologist, Fr. Andrew Greely. A similar clique of powerful church authorities is also known to have existed in Canada since at least the 1960s.

The results of these machinations has been exposed in Michael Rose’s bombshell 2002 book, “Goodbye Good Men.” The book revealed a clerical underworld in which homosexual promiscuity and sexual harassment has been rampant. It revealed that many U.S. seminaries systematically have excluded normal, faithful Catholic men and harassed and demoralized seminarians who supported the Church's teaching on sexuality and the priesthood.

But the outraged lay Catholic groups may have to get in line behind the civil authorities. Recent estimates show that the Diocese of Los Angeles, the largest in the US, will be liable for close to $1.5 billion in clergy abuse suits. In 2002, the Los Angeles District Attorney, Rockard Delgadillo, asked the L.A. police to investigate the Cardinal for possible criminal charges for covering up criminal misconduct by his priests.

Last week, Fr. Thomas Doyle, a priest who worked for the Vatican diplomatic corps, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the explosion of abuse revelations will make the Boston scandal pale by comparison. “The epicenter is California,” Doyle said. “One diocese just paid out $36 million, and the Diocese of Orange paid out $110 million. When Los Angeles bursts, it will make Boston look like an altar boys' picnic.”

CNN coverage of 2002 Mahoney investigation:
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/05/18/mahony.criminal.probe/index.html

Previous LifeSitenews.com coverage:
Cardinal Mahony Spokesman Blasts Pro-Life Leader While Defending "Right" of Pro-Abortion Catholics to Communion
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2003/oct/03100207.html

Homosexual Culture Undercuts Priesthood
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/4/4/192430.shtml

See LifeSiteNews.com’s Church Abuse Crisis page
http://www.lifesite.net/features/churchscandals/

HW

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