This story doesn't need much in the way of commentary.
LOS ANGELES — LOS ANGELES-Pressed to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars to settle clergy sex abuse lawsuits, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony turned to one group of Catholics whose faith could not be shaken: the dead.Does that sound really shady, or what? But Jeez, a Cardinal was in charge. So it must be aboveboard, right?
Under his leadership in 2007, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles quietly appropriated $115 million from a cemetery maintenance fund and used it to help pay a landmark settlement with molestation victims.
The church did not inform relatives of the deceased that it had taken the money, which amounted to 88 percent of the fund. Families of those buried in church-owned cemeteries and interred in its mausoleums have contributed to a dedicated account for the perpetual care of graves, crypts and grounds since the 1890s.
Mahony and other church officials also did not mention the cemetery fund in numerous public statements about how the archdiocese planned to cover the $660-million abuse settlement.
In 19 presentations to parish groups about the archdiocese's need for contributions that winter, the cardinal and his aides laid out what they done so far to pay the settlement, including selling real estate and liquidating $117 million in investments. But they did not reveal that the cemetery fund accounted for nearly all the investments liquidated.That's quite a church they've got there. And they still think they have the right to tell people what is moral and what is not. This is a disgusting church. It has rot in its very soul. (Not that there's such a thing as a soul, of course.)
