A big storm is "Brewing Ahead" for Cardinal Mahony...

By PAUL LIKOUDIS of the Wanderer Newspaper

LOS ANGELES - Roger Cardinal Mahony’s star-blessed career may be about to go into a permanent eclipse, as Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley vows to thoroughly investigate and vigorously prosecute sexually abusive priests in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, and those who protected them including Cardinal Mahony.

“No one is above the law,” Cooley told the Los Angeles New Times’ Ron Russell, who has been exposing Mahony weekly since the national clerical sex abuse erupted earlier this year.

For Mahony, “the Teflon cardinal” whose image as progressive, take charge prelate seemed tarnish resistant, the DA’s threat all but guarantees he’ll be spending most of his time with lawyers and prosecutors until his presumable retirement in 2011.

But Mahony’s troubles don’t end with the DA in Los Angeles County, who is coordinating his efforts with the district attorneys in two neighboring counties, Ventura and Santa Barbara, and all the region’s various police and sheriffs departments and other state agencies.

Russell is hot on Mahony’s trail, reporting to nearly 500,000 readers every week various aspects of Mahony’s rise to power, and his ruthless exercise of that power. Russell also reports on charges that his closest friends and advisers - “cronies” from his seminary days and later - were sexual molesters whom he protected, and allegations that he has shown contempt for sex abuse victims and the law and its officers.

Cooley, wrote Russell, told him that “his office intends to go beyond merely prosecuting a few priests accused of abusing children to pursue criminal misconduct within the nation’s largest Roman Catholic archdiocese ‘wherever it leads.’

“Asked if that means Mahony himself may conceivably become the target of a criminal probe, the district attorney appointedly replies, ‘No one is above the law.’

“Calling the burgeoning investigation of Los Angeles pedopriests ‘unprecedented’ and ‘uniquely challenging,’ Cooley - who has been criticized for moving too slowly to force Mahony to cooperate with law enforcement - has set up a special team of prosecutors devoted exclusively to the scandal.

“It is headed by veteran deputy district attorney William Hodgman, who oversees the DA’s sex crimes unit. Although Cooley declined to speculate about how many current and former priests within the sprawling archdiocese - which includes Los Angeles, Ventura, and Santa Barbara Counties - may ultimately be caught up in the scandal. He pledged to bring guilty clerics and those who criminally protect them to justice ‘whether the number turns out to be in the single digits, double digits, or triple digits’.”

Mahony - who earlier this year said that if he were in Boston Cardinal Bernard Law’s shoes, and had covered up for as many molesting priests as Law had, he’d resign - is suspected to have close to 100 priests under investigation by a dozen local police forces, including some of his closest aides.

District Attorney Cooley told Russell that if the public wants an idea of how he intends to prosecute those for whom there is sufficient evidence, they should look at how he prosecuted Fr.’ Richard Allen Henry, who molested four boys. Cooley got Henry convicted and sent to prison - the first and only priest so sentenced.

“We intend to be thorough and cautious. We want to make sure the evidence we gather is not suppressed [in court],” he told Russell, who a week earlier had documented in great detail how Mahony was toying with Cooley, refusing to respond to his demands for the names of abusive priests and documents.

“[W]e’re only at the beginning of a very long and detailed investigatory process,” Cooley told Russell.

While the sex abuse issue in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles threatens to dwarf Cardinal Law’s mess in - Boston, Mahony is still engaging in public relations maneuvers that present him as a contrite, cooperative prelate. But, Russell wrote in his July 11 report, “in recent weeks, Mahony has stone walled authorities while claiming to cooperate with them. It wasn’t until June 18 - three and a half months after Cooley first ordered Mahony to turn over documents pertaining to accused pedo-priests - that the archdiocese rendered its first scrap of paper to law enforcement. And that was only after the DA made good on his threats to have the Los Angeles County grand jury force the cardinal’s hand with a subpoena. The documents released so far relate to only three of the dozens of priests under investigation.

Crucial Court Case

“Whether the documents of any use to investigators – or for that matter whether the cops are allowed to examine them remains unresolved. Donald Steier, a lawyer for the three priests, has gone to court to keep the records under seal. A judge’s decision on the matter, which could come any day, looms large. It is widely expected that the lawyers for many if not all accused priests may similarly fight to keep the clerics’ files out of investigators’ hands,” wrote Russell.

“The three priests whose records were turned over are all under investigation by the LA County Sheriff’s Department. Once the issue of whether their personnel files and other records maybe used by investigators is resolved, authorities are expected to move swiftly to seek the records of other clerics being investigated.

Two of the priests are longtime close friends of Mahony whom the Cardinal shuffled to new assignments long after he knew they were pedophiles” - Fr. Michael Baker and Fr. Michael Wempe, a former classmate of Mahony’s from St. John’s Seminary.

A week before his interview with Cooley, Russell observed in a lengthy report on how Mahony was stonewalling police and district attorneys in the sprawling archdiocese.

“Although Cooley isn’t about to say so publicly, it is difficult to imagine that Mahony has done anything but infuriate him thus far….

“Mahony has relentlessly thumbed his nose at Cooley and investigators from the Los Angeles Police Department and the LA County Sheriff’s Department, even while audaciously claiming to co-operate with them....

“To illustrate just how successful Mahony has been in stonewalling authorities four months after police agencies began fielding complaints about clerics, sheriff’s and LAPD investigators say they have yet to receive any cooperation from the cardinal or his subordinates.

“We’ve bad some conversations with the [archdiocese’s] legal people and that’s about it,’ says one veteran sheriff’s investigator, echoing the experience of detectives elsewhere. Meanwhile, the scandal in the Los Angeles Archdiocese has expanded to easily make it the focal point of clergy sex abuse nationwide, rivaling even Boston.

“A New Times survey of dozens of law enforcement agencies within the three counties that make up the archdiocese reveals that at least 72 - and likely more than 100 - current or former priests are under suspicion in at least 142 cases of child sex abuse being investigated, with the number growing almost daily. (In Boston, authorities are investigating about 200 abuse cases involving nearly 100 priests.) Of the more than five dozen molestation cases the LAPD says it has referred to other jurisdictions, it isn’t clear how many priests they involve.

“Yet, there have been no arrests, even though investigators acknowledge privately that in some cases they have already collected enough evidence to warrant them. Some cops have grumbled that, given the politically charged nature of the scandal and the cardinal’s position as one of the more powerful figures in Los Angeles, Cooley has been to cautious in his dealings with the archdiocese.

“Still, there is a growing impatience in some quarters that Cooley has allowed the cardinal too much wiggle room by resorting to the more politically expedient use of the grand jury as opposed to asking a judge for permission to execute search warrants - not only at potential crime scenes involving priests, but at the chancery office.

“Meanwhile, as victims deluged special phone lines set up by the LAPD and the sheriff’s to report abuse, investigators were pursuing hundreds of leads and were well along in collecting evidence needed to arrest Mahony’s priests.

“Frustrated both by the diocese’s lack of cooperation and Cooley’s slowness, some grumbled privately that they preferred to back up a truck to the chancery office on Wilshire Boulevard and haul out computers and file cabinets."

The amazing Bayside Prophecies...
These prophecies came from Jesus, Mary, and the saints to Veronica Lueken at Bayside, NY, from 1968 to 1995.

ABUSES TO CHILDREN
"Little children, victims of their elders! Defilement among children by adults! Woe to the man who scandalizes the young! Better that he had died in his mother's womb! Suffer all little children to come to Me. The Kingdom of Heaven--the children should symbolize the spirit of innocence and purity and faith; but we see the most vilest of acts being committed against the purity of children. And I say unto you: better that a man receives a millstone about his head and is cast into the sea than to defile the young!
"Reams of pornography! Abuses to children! Ages almost from the cradle! I say unto you: you have called down upon yourselves a just punishment from your God!" Jesus, May 28, 1977

SCATTERING THE SHEEP
"Do not scoff at the direction of My Mother. She has directed you and counseled you well. As you sow, so shall you all reap!
"The sheep shall be separated from the goats, even in My Church. Bishops and cardinals, you will soon be called before Me, and shall you stand before Me and say that your teaching has been pure in My sight? Better that you turn now, while there is time, and restore My Church. For you have scattered the sheep, for as shepherds you have become truly lost in the world, a world now controlled by the forces of hell. By sins of omission shall many of you be forever damned!" Jesus, October 2, 1979

EVIL MEN OF THE CROSS
"My children, what manner of abomination is being committed in My Son's House? Can you not cry with Him, suffer with Him on His way to the cross? No! Demons have entered into My Son's House. They claim the human body to use them to defile My Son's House until evil men of the cross are setting a church up, now, a church of man with no angels guiding them, with no supernatural intervention from Heaven guiding them. This church of man shall be built on naturalism, modernism, and humanism.
"I say unto you, O Bishops, you have been looked upon and found wanting by the Eternal Father. You have attuned yourself with satan. You are goats!" Our Lady, April 9, 1977

BISHOPS: CLEANSE SEMINARIES
"I ask, as your Mother, that the clergy, bishops in rule, must cleanse their seminaries and places of teaching. All heretics must leave. Discipline must be restored in My Son's Church. You will not compromise My Son's Faith, and House. You will not condone sin with permissiveness." Our Lady, July 25, 1977

SEMINARIES INFILTRATED
"Yes, My child, I want you to let the world know that Our seminaries were not pure. Many had entered for this very day to try to destroy the Faith and the Church of My Son. You must know that the Eternal Father will not permit this." Our Lady, May 17, 1986

DOCTRINES OF DEMONS
"Theologians in My Son's churches and seminaries have implemented doctrines of demons in My Son's House--Church. Theologians have set many onto the path to hell." Our Lady, August 4, 1979

SHAMBLES AND MOCKERY
"You have reduced My Church, O pastors, to shambles and a mockery. And what shall I do to you, you who will come before Me and say that your teaching has been pure? I shall cast you out and send you into oblivion in the fires! And many will come before Me and say, 'Lord, Lord! Did I now prophecy in Your name?' O ye workers of iniquity, you cannot hide your hearts from Me." Jesus, April 2, 1977

Directives from Heaven...

D169 - Stigma of a Fallen Hierarchy, Part 1
D170 - Stigma of a Fallen Hierarchy, Part 2
D171 - Stigma of a Fallen Hierarchy, Part 3
D172 - Priestly Celibacy
D173 - Women Priests
D174 - Homosexuality, Part 2
D175 - Defilement of the Young
D176 - Sodom and Gomorrah
D177 – Seminaries

Articles…

Fatimagate
http://www.tldm.org/FatimaGate.htm

Links…

The Wanderer Newspaper http://www.thewandererpress.com/

Cardinal equates U.S. media with Hitler, National Post
http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?id={69A1ED6E-D554-4EC6-99F5-A272F2C649F7}

Public Wants Jail for Complicit Bishops, ABC News, June 24, 2002

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/churchpoll_020624.html

Dallas News database: Catholic bishops and sex abuse
http://www.dallasnews.com/cgi-bin/2002/priests.cgi

Dallas Diary, Part II, National Review, June 16, 2002
http://www.nationalreview.com/dreher/dreher061402.asp

Bishops betraying the Catholic Church, WorldNetDaily, June 14, 2002
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27962

An Open Letter to our Bishops in Dallas, Phil Brennan, June 14, 2002
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/6/11/174259.shtml

Bishops castigated by victims, leaders alike, Minneapolis Star Tribune, June 14, 2002
http://www.startribune.com/stories/1697/2902391.html

Report: 111 Bishops Kept Priests, Others Accused of Abuse on the Job, Fox News, June 12, 2002
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,55076,00.html

U.S. Catholics worry for future, BBC News, June 13, 2002
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1944000/1944738.stm

Victims Have 'Heartbreaking' Meetings With Roman Catholic Bishops on Abuse Panel, Fox News, June 13, 2002
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,55085,00.html

We encourage everyone to print or email copies of this web page to all the Bishops and all the clergy. Also, send this page to as many people as possible.

The electronic form of this document is copyrighted. http://www.tldm.org
Copyright © These Last Days Ministries, Inc. 1998 - 2010 All rights reserved.
P.O. Box 40
Lowell, MI 49331-0040
Revised: August 23, 2018