Legal News

Cardinal Mahony to Face Scrutiny Over Sex-Abuse Scandal

By Dan Slater

Cardinal Roger Mahony. (AFP/Getty Images)

Cardinal Mahoney, the archbishop of the nation’s largest archdiocese, is back on the hot-seat.

Last week, the WSJ reported that a federal grand jury had issued subpoenas and begun calling witnesses in a probe to see whether top church officials tried to cover up the sexual abuse of minors by priests.

Today, the Journal writes that the investigation into allegations of sexual abuse by clergy will bring a new level of scrutiny to Cardinal Roger Mahony, who previously has dealt with a criminal investigation into his archdiocese by the L.A. district attorney’s office and has signed off on a massive settlement by the archdiocese of civil lawsuits brought by people who claimed to have been abused by clergy.

The archdiocese has said it is cooperating with the federal investigation. An archdiocese attorney told the Journal that Cardinal Mahony long “has been at the forefront of dealing with” clergy sexual-abuse issues. “We have been unable to even hypothesize a crime that might have been committed in the handling of these problems,” the attorney added.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on February 02, 2009 (boomark / email).